Foreword by Catharine R. Stimpson Acknowledgments Introduction 1: Satirizing the Courtesan: Franc... more Foreword by Catharine R. Stimpson Acknowledgments Introduction 1: Satirizing the Courtesan: Franco's Enemies 2: Fashioning the Honest Courtesan: Franco's Patrons Appendix: Two Testaments and a Tax Report 3: Addressing Venice: Franco's Familiar Letters 4: Denouncing the Courtesan: Franco's Inquisition Trial and Poetic Debate Appendix: Documents of the Inquisition 5: The Courtesan in Exile: An Elegiac Future Notes Works Cited Index
Veronica Franco (whose life is featured in the motion picture Dangerous Beauty) was a sixteenth-c... more Veronica Franco (whose life is featured in the motion picture Dangerous Beauty) was a sixteenth-century Venetian beauty, poet, and protofeminist. This collection captures the frank eroticism and impressive eloquence that set her apart from the chaste, silent woman ...
Cesare Vecellios' guide to the dress and customs of the world first appeared in his native Ve... more Cesare Vecellios' guide to the dress and customs of the world first appeared in his native Venice in 1590, and was a publishing sensation. It brought together vivid descriptions and depictions of the costumes of the different countries of the world throughout history, from Ancient Rome to Vecellios day, and of people of all ranks from kings down to gravediggers, beggars and orphans. This is the first time that the entire text has been translated into English and presented with its original illustrations. Packed with enchanting descriptions of the costume and habits of the peoples of the world as seen in the late 16th century, this book will appeal to all those interested in the history of dress, travel, antiquarian books, Renaissance art and cultural history.
Against a system of gender ideologies that defined a woman's social position and intellectual... more Against a system of gender ideologies that defined a woman's social position and intellectual pursuits as private, devoted to domestic concerns and the moral welfare of her family, the emergency of the cortigiana onesta, the intellectual courtesan, dramatically calls into question the humanists’ injunction against women's public status and speech. How did Veronica Franco, the foremost example of the cortigiana onesta in sixteenth-century Italy, succeed in infiltrating the “academy of learned men“? Were any restrictions placed upon her professional activities when she vied with men for public recognition and literary commissions? How did social forces contain or compel the courtesan's cultivation of a literary identity in Venetian society? And finally, what were the maneuvers, both personal and professional, that the cortigiana onesta adopted when she obtained entrance into an elite literary circle and allied herself with powerful male patrons and intellectuals?
The essays in this volume analyze strategies adopted by contemporary novelists, playwrights, scre... more The essays in this volume analyze strategies adopted by contemporary novelists, playwrights, screenwriters, and biographers interested in bringing the stories of early modern women to modern audiences. It also pays attention to the historical women creators themselves, who, be they saints or midwives, visual artists or poets and playwrights, stand out for their roles as active practitioners of their own arts and for their accomplishments as creators. Whether they delivered infants or governed as monarchs, or produced embroideries, letters, paintings or poems, their visions, the authors argue, have endured across the centuries. As the title of the volume suggests, the essays gathered here participate in a wider conversation about the relation between biography, historical fiction, and the growing field of biofiction (that is, contemporary fictionalizations of historical figures), and explore the complicated interconnections between celebrating early modern women and perpetuating popu...
Foreword by Catharine R. Stimpson Acknowledgments Introduction 1: Satirizing the Courtesan: Franc... more Foreword by Catharine R. Stimpson Acknowledgments Introduction 1: Satirizing the Courtesan: Franco's Enemies 2: Fashioning the Honest Courtesan: Franco's Patrons Appendix: Two Testaments and a Tax Report 3: Addressing Venice: Franco's Familiar Letters 4: Denouncing the Courtesan: Franco's Inquisition Trial and Poetic Debate Appendix: Documents of the Inquisition 5: The Courtesan in Exile: An Elegiac Future Notes Works Cited Index
Veronica Franco (whose life is featured in the motion picture Dangerous Beauty) was a sixteenth-c... more Veronica Franco (whose life is featured in the motion picture Dangerous Beauty) was a sixteenth-century Venetian beauty, poet, and protofeminist. This collection captures the frank eroticism and impressive eloquence that set her apart from the chaste, silent woman ...
Cesare Vecellios' guide to the dress and customs of the world first appeared in his native Ve... more Cesare Vecellios' guide to the dress and customs of the world first appeared in his native Venice in 1590, and was a publishing sensation. It brought together vivid descriptions and depictions of the costumes of the different countries of the world throughout history, from Ancient Rome to Vecellios day, and of people of all ranks from kings down to gravediggers, beggars and orphans. This is the first time that the entire text has been translated into English and presented with its original illustrations. Packed with enchanting descriptions of the costume and habits of the peoples of the world as seen in the late 16th century, this book will appeal to all those interested in the history of dress, travel, antiquarian books, Renaissance art and cultural history.
Against a system of gender ideologies that defined a woman's social position and intellectual... more Against a system of gender ideologies that defined a woman's social position and intellectual pursuits as private, devoted to domestic concerns and the moral welfare of her family, the emergency of the cortigiana onesta, the intellectual courtesan, dramatically calls into question the humanists’ injunction against women's public status and speech. How did Veronica Franco, the foremost example of the cortigiana onesta in sixteenth-century Italy, succeed in infiltrating the “academy of learned men“? Were any restrictions placed upon her professional activities when she vied with men for public recognition and literary commissions? How did social forces contain or compel the courtesan's cultivation of a literary identity in Venetian society? And finally, what were the maneuvers, both personal and professional, that the cortigiana onesta adopted when she obtained entrance into an elite literary circle and allied herself with powerful male patrons and intellectuals?
The essays in this volume analyze strategies adopted by contemporary novelists, playwrights, scre... more The essays in this volume analyze strategies adopted by contemporary novelists, playwrights, screenwriters, and biographers interested in bringing the stories of early modern women to modern audiences. It also pays attention to the historical women creators themselves, who, be they saints or midwives, visual artists or poets and playwrights, stand out for their roles as active practitioners of their own arts and for their accomplishments as creators. Whether they delivered infants or governed as monarchs, or produced embroideries, letters, paintings or poems, their visions, the authors argue, have endured across the centuries. As the title of the volume suggests, the essays gathered here participate in a wider conversation about the relation between biography, historical fiction, and the growing field of biofiction (that is, contemporary fictionalizations of historical figures), and explore the complicated interconnections between celebrating early modern women and perpetuating popu...
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