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The first original chivalric poem written by an Italian woman, Floridoro imbues a strong feminist ethos into a hypermasculine genre. Dotted with the usual characteristics—dark forests, illusory palaces, enchanted islands, seductive sorceresses—Floridoro is the story of the two greatest knights of a bygone age: the handsome Floridoro, who risks everything for love, and the beautiful Risamante, who helps women in distress while on a quest for her inheritance. Throughout, Moderata Fonte (1555–92) vehemently defends women’s capacity to rival male prowess in traditionally male-dominated spheres. And her open criticism of women’s lack of education is echoed in the plights of various female characters who must depend on unreliable men. First published in 1581, Floridoro remains a vivacious and inventive narrative by a singular poet.
Love in Print in the Sixteenth Century explores the impact of print on conflicting cultural notions about romantic love in the sixteenth century. This popularization of romantic love led to profound transformations in the rhetoric, ideology, and social function of love - transformations that continue to shape cultural notions about love today.
alike." --Book Jacket.
The era of the Scientific Revolution has long been epitomized by Galileo. Yet many women were at its vanguard, deeply invested in empirical culture. They experimented with medicine and practical alchemy at home, at court, and through collaborative networks of practitioners. In academies, salons, and correspondence, they debated cosmological discoveries; in their literary production, they used their knowledge of natural philosophy to argue for their intellectual equality to men. Meredith Ray restores the work of these women to our understanding of early modern scientific culture. Her study begins with Caterina Sforza’s alchemical recipes; examines the sixteenth-century vogue for “books of...
Offers a fresh perspective on the role of the court in late medieval Scotland, framing it within the wider field of court studies, highlighting its centrality to the effective government for which James IV is renowned. James IV is regarded by many historians as the most charismatic and politically successful of Scotland's rulers, with his royal court, and the institution of the royal household which underpinned it, at the heart of his reign. This book, the first comprehensive examination of the subject, takes the structures and personnel of the household - from councillors to stable-hands - as the foundation for its study of the court and its role. Beginning by looking at the distinction bet...
The Court and Its Critics focuses on the disillusionment with courtliness, the derision of those who live at court, and the open hostility toward the court, themes common to Renaissance culture.
The marriage of Isabella d'Este, one of the most famous figures of the Italian Renaissance, and Francesco Gonzaga, ruler of the small northern Italian principality of Mantua (r.1484-1519) offers a fascinating portrait of early modern political marriage - a relationship born from strategic alliance, but built on cooperation and mutual respect.
The book examines the myth of Hercules and Omphale/Iole which became an important topic in the visual arts, 1500–1800. It offers an analysis of the iconography from the perspective of the history of emotions, classical and Neo-Latin philology, reception and gender studies. The early modern inventions of the myth excel in a skilful display of mixed and compound emotions, such as the male character's psychopathology, and of the theatrical performance of emotions by the female character.
A collection of essays about marriage and the role of women in Renaissance Italy.
Following discussions on scientific biography carried out over the past few decades, this book proposes a kaleidoscopic survey of the uses of biography as a tool to understand science and its context. The authors belong to a variety of academic and professional fields, including the history of science, anthropology, literary studies, and science journalism. The period covered spans from 1732, when Laura Bassi was the first woman to get a tenured professorship of physics, to 2009, when Elizabeth H. Blackburn and Carol W. Greider were the first women's team to have won a Nobel Prize in science.