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A History of Women’s Writing in Italy ed. by Letizia Panizza, Sharon Wood

2002; University of California; Volume: 33; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/cjm.2002.0000

1557-0290

Lisa Mora,

Libraries, Manuscripts, and Books

REVIEWS 201 scious design than was usually attributed to them. If one is familiar with the work of Goffart, and/or Heinzelmann’s previous work on Bischofsherrschaft (the social and religious leadership of bishops),22 Gregory of Tours will be a welcome addition for better understanding this famous sixth-century figure. The monograph, however, is not a biography of Gregory, nor an exposition of sixth-century Merovingian history. It is not about history, but about the idea of history; as such, I recommend it for the advanced reader only, one already familiar with Gregory and his Ten Books of History. Heinzelmann’s book is a good companion to Gregory’s work in that it provides a comprehensive interpretation of Gregory’s concept of history; it is surely not meant as an introduction to, or even a substitute for, the primary source itself. STACEY GRAHAM, History, UCLA A History of Women’s Writing in Italy, ed. Letizia Panizza and Sharon Wood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2001) 361 pp. Letizia Panizza and Sharon Wood have brilliantly edited a series of essays reappraising the rich and complex history of women’s writing in Italy from the Renaissance to the present. The history is divided into three parts covering the Renaissance, Counter-Reformation and seventeenth century; the Enlightenment and Restoration; and the Risorgimento and modern Italy (1850–2000). With the intention of moving “beyond conventional genres,” the editors of A History of Women’s Writing in Italy emphatically differentiate “women’s writing” from “women’s literature”(1). “Literature,” they claim, “assumes a classical education whereas writing had no specific adhesion to fixed models”(1). Moreover, in distinguishing Italy from Italian the editors reference works which were written in Italy as opposed to in Italian. The introduction offers a concise history of writing by women claiming that gender is both historically and socially determined. Saint Catherine of Siena, Alessandra Macinghi Strozzi, Vittoria Colonna, and the poet and courtesan Veronica Franco are the subjects of Maria Luisa Doglio’s chapter, “Letter writing, 1350–1650,” which provides an informative, historical overview of epistolary writing. In the second chapter, Letizia Panizza draws attention to the women humanists of the fifteenth century, namely Isotta Nogarola, Cassandra Fedele, and Laura Cereta. Unlike male humanists who were formally educated, the female humanists were often tutored at home. Writing in Latin was viewed as something bound to the male sex; thus the women humanists sought to justify the act of a woman’s right to literary expression . Judith Bryce designates Lucrezia Tornabuoni de’Medici and Antonia Tanini Pulci as exemplary poet and dramatist, respectively. In the section on “Lyric poetry, 1500–1650,” Giovanna Rabitti argues that Vittoria Colonna, an erudite and acclaimed poet of the sixteenth century, has made the biggest impact on Italian literature. Following this, Virginia Cox investigates women’s pastoral drama, chivalric romance, and epic in “Fiction 1560–1650.” Women writers of the sixteenth century often challenged the pastoral drama by includ22 Martin Heinzelmann, Bischofsherrschaft in Gallien: zur Kontinuität römischer Führungsschichten vom 4. bis zum 7. Jahrhundert. Soziale, prosopographische und bildungsgeschichtliche Aspekte (Munich 1976). REVIEWS 202 ing farcical elements and mimicking traditional male dramas, such as Tasso’s Aminta. Panizza’s “Polemical prose writing, 1500–1650” focuses on four emblematic figures: Tullia d’Aragona, Moderata Fonte, Lucrezia Marinella, and Arcangela Tarabotti. These women wrote polemical treatises in defense of the invectives received from their male contemporaries. An insightful essay which ends the first section is Gabriella Zarri’s “Religious and devotional writing, 1400–1600.” Zarri names Caterina Vegri as the emblematic figure of Quattrocento devotional literature. Vegri authored Le Sette armi spirituali (The Seven Spiritual Weapons), a hybrid, vernacular text which is part spiritual autobiography and part devotional treatise. Zarri keenly notes that female religious writing gained significant recognition from the church in the Quattrocento and Cinquecento . Other instrumental religious women writers of this period were Caterina Fieschi Adorno, Tommasina Vernazza, Angela Merici, and Maria Maddalena de’Pazzi. The second part of the book comprises four essays which center on the Enlightenment and Restoration. Luisa Ricaldone concentrates on exceptional and understudied women’s literature of the eighteenth century which often challenged traditional gender stereotypes relegating women...