Publishing Women: Salons, the Presses, and the Counter-Reformation in Sixteenth-Century Italy
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Publishing Women: Salons, the Presses, and the Counter-Reformation in Sixteenth-Century Italy
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Overview
Focusing on the collective publication process, Robin portrays communities in Naples, Venice, Rome, Siena, and Florence, where women engaged in activities that ranged from establishing literary salons to promoting religious reform. Her innovative cultural history considers the significant roles these women played in tandem with men, rather than separated from them. In doing so, it collapses the borders between women’s history, Renaissance and Reformation studies, and book history to evoke a historical moment that catapulted women’s writings and women-sponsored books into the public sphere for the first time anywhere in Europe.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780226721569 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | University of Chicago Press |
| Publication date: | 05/01/2007 |
| Series: | Women in Culture and Society |
| Edition description: | 1 |
| Pages: | 416 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.10(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Publishing Women SALONS, THE PRESSES, AND THE COUNTER-REFORMATION IN SIXTEENTH-CENTURY ITALY
By Diana Robin
The University of Chicago Press Copyright © 2007 The University of Chicago
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-226-72156-9
Chapter One Ischia and the Birth of a Salon
My story begins on a small island off the coast of Naples. The years 1530-49 saw a divided Italy, kept so by two rulers and their armies. The Habsburg emperor Charles V finally drove the king of France from his foothold in the peninsula and installed his own men as governors in Milan, Siena, and the kingdom of Naples. In Florence, Charles formed a lasting alliance with Cosimo I de' Medici. Pope Paul III (Alessandro Farnese) consolidated and expanded his empire in the papal states, while he fought to expel the influence of Luther and Calvin from the Italian cities, though their works still circulated widely in printed editions in the 1530s and 1540s. The independent Republic of Venice fostered a free, commercially driven publishing industry that not only inaugurated a renascence of vernacular poetry but also became a large-scale producer of books the pope would outlaw as heretical. In the face of such divisions, a group of elite women worked at forging cultural hegemony on two fronts: they played leading roles in the new literary academies and salons in Italy as well as in the religious reform movement that swept the peninsula.
* * *
Four women-the sisters Giovanna d'Aragona and Maria d'Aragona and their in-laws Vittoria Colonna and Giulia Gonzaga-dominated the cultural scene in the kingdom of Naples from the inauguration of Gonzaga's court at Fondi in 1529 to her burial in 1566 at the convent of San Francesco delle Monache in Naples. These women came from prominent clans well-endowed with lands, titles, and influence, and they were friends with much in common, though Colonna was a generation older. All four women, whose husbands were away at war and seldom at home, enjoyed their adult lives virtually as single women; Colonna and Gonzaga, whose husbands died encamped with their troops, were widowed early in their marriages. All four of these women found themselves drawn to the reform movement in Italy and its charismatic leaders Juan de Valdés and Bernardino Ochino. They organized and participated in cercoli, cenacoli, or salons, where artists and intellectuals met to discuss literature and philosophy, though soon their salons became forums where spiritual renewal and religious reform were the themes of concern. Each of the four Colonna-Aragona women served as an influential patron to the new groups of women and men whose poetry, plays, essays, and dialogues catered to a public hungry for books that brought them pleasure and solace at a time when their cities were under threat of invasion.
As far back as the Aragona-Colonna women could remember, the island of Ischia had been a place of safety: a refuge from war, siege, and plague-the scourges of the age. It was also a place of new beginnings - of starting over. Vittoria Colonna's father Fabrizio had served King Charles VIII of France during his short-lived conquest of Naples in 1495. But six years later the French sacked the Colonna fortresses and lands in the Castelli Romani and Fabrizio Colonna defected to the Aragonese king of Naples. And when the French took Naples in 1502, the Aragonese court-and with it Colonna and his family-retreated to the fortress of the d'Avalos on the island of Ischia. That year the widowed Duchess Costanza d'Avalos, now chatelaine of the island fortezza, took up arms herself and led her Italian and Aragonese soldiers against the foreign intruders. For four months that year the French laid siege to the castello from their galleons anchored in the bay of Ischia, and Costanza fought them off until they withdrew. In 1509, the marriage of Vittoria Colonna and Costanza's nephew Ferrante Francesco d'Avalos, and with it the alliance between the Roman Colonna and the Aragonese d'Avalos families, was celebrated on Ischia in a nuptial mass at the cathedral followed by festivities in the castle. That alliance would be strengthened when Giovanna d'Aragona and her sister Maria, granddaughters of the Aragonese king of Naples, would marry into the Colonna-d'Avalos clan and would return intermittently to the island for many years.
Of the four Colonna-d'Avalos women, Giulia Gonzaga Colonna alone seems not to have spent time on Ischia. Still, the island was so persistently linked to the heterodox culture of the Colonna, d'Aragona, and Gonzaga salons in Naples that a telling fiction circulated soon after Gonzaga's death. Because Gonzaga had been declared a heretic, it was rumored that her corpse had been removed from the convent of San Francesco delle Monache in Naples and transported to Ischia and that there she had been buried in the garden of the castle of Costanza d'Avalos.
ISCHIA AND THE D'AVALOS-COLONNA SALON
As Suzanne Therault has shown, from the time of Vittoria Colonna's marriage on Ischia until the mid-1530s, when she had been a widow for nearly a decade, she and Costanza hosted a succession of literary salons. Sannazaro, Cariteo, Britonio, Capanio, and Galeazzo di Tarsia were among the leading poets in the earliest years of their salon. By the end of the twenties, Paolo Giovio, Antonio Minturno, Giano Anisio, Cosimo Anisio, Bernardo Tasso, Luigi Tansillo, Angelo di Costanzo, and Bernardino Rota had joined the Colonna-d'Avalos circle on Ischia. It was here under d'Avalos's and Colonna's direction that writers, artists, philosophers, clerics, and the best society on the island gathered for discussion and the reading of new literary works. As such, the readings and writings of the Ischia circle would produce a matrix for two emergent phenomena in the peninsula: the woman-led intellectual salon and the poetry anthologies of the 1540s-50s, in which women would play an unprecedented role.
The poetry of the writers associated with the Ischia salon represents a fusion of classical and early modern traditions: the Roman elegiac poets, Virgil, and Petrarch were their models. Their themes were intimate: they eulogized friends; they grieved for lost loves and the mutability of fortune; and they celebrated the views of the bay, pinewoods, and orchards from the d'Avalos castle. Often these themes were combined in a single sonnet, as in this poem by Galeazzo di Tarsia, who evokes the contours and sounds of the sea at Ischia in winter while he mourns the loss of summer and the instability of life:
Storm-shattered, crashing, shale-dark waves, once tranquil, placid, and serene, you were like my life, and you mirror my deep and swelling pain. Painted ships, lovely souls, happy nymphs, and all other joys are hidden from you: whatever made these days sweet for me and happy, and others sad and troubled. No matter: A good season will come again, another time that always brings you cheer, and then my lot in life may change: bringing me calm nights and clear days, whether the sun is near or far away, nor may my tyrant ever carry me away. Tempestose sonanti e torbid'onde, Tranquille un tempo già, placide e chete, Voi foste al viver mio simili, e siete Simil alle mie pene ampie e profonde. Spalmati legni, alme vezzose e liete Ninfe ed ogni altra gioia a voi s'asconde: A me ciò che facea care e gioconde Queste luci e quest'ore egre, inquïete. Lasso! Ei verrà ben tempo che ritorni Altra stagion che rallegrar vi suole, Onde diversa fia la nostra sorte: A me serene notti e chiari giorni, O che s'appressi o s'allontani il sole, Non fia che il mio tiranno unqua m'apporte.
Vittoria Colonna probably heard Sannazaro for the first time when he read from his Arcadia at the d'Avalos salon on Ischia. From the 1520s on, Colonna and Costanza d'Avalos begin to appear as the frequent dedicatees of the poets they cultivated. Therault has observed that Colonna's name made its debut in print in Britonio's sonnet "La gelosia del sole," published in 1519 in his Canzoniere, in which Apollo, on hearing the brilliant, though younger poet singing, praises her from his balcony, calling her "this gentle new Phoenix in the world" (Questa al mondo, gentil nova Phenice). She would soon occupy center stage again in a eulogy by Capanio, dedicated to Costanza d'Avalos and titled Tempio d'amore (ca. 1522).
The figuration of a poetic work as a mausoleum or a temple, though suggested in the graphic design of the title pages of many sixteenth-century books (fig. 1), was relatively rare as a literary trope in Renaissance Italy. As we will see in chapter 4, the emblem of the column and its all-important function in the classical temple, not only as support for the whole structure but also as a source of beauty and balance, would serve some thirty years later as the basis for two very different works: Girolamo Ruscelli's Del tempio and Guiseppe Betussi's Le imagini del tempio, both books published in honor of Colonna's sister-in-law, Giovanna d'Aragona Colonna. In his dedicatory letter to Costanza d'Avalos, as in Betussi's Imagini, Capanio describes his monument: there are thirty columns represented by thirty Neapolitan women, beginning with Isabella de Requesens, wife of the viceroy of Naples. Other women from the Ischia circle such as Lucrezia Scaglione, Giulia Grisone, Vittoria Colonna, and d'Avalos also take their positions in the colonnade. As in Betussi's Imagini, the colonnade of women represents the harmony of women joined together in a cultural community whose work is to produce and support poetry:
[Next to the Viceroy's wife is placed] ... the proud and grand Colonna, above whom is supported the World and Heaven; This she carries, in her hair, and on her skirt: from Cynthia, the shield and Cupid's bow. And on this lovely lady's breast, if one can see, a new Apollo in Delos and, under the beautiful and famous name Vittoria, one sees only the triumph of love, honor, and glory. Fifteen figures on one side and as many on the other: Isabella and Vittoria are the first, Then come the others, one after another. Appresso a lei l'altiera e gran Colonna, sovra la qual s'appoggia il Mondo, il Cielo, Questa portava essendo in trezza e in gonna De Cinthia il scudo e di cupido il telo. Nel petto che sì lieta e bella donna Se può veder un altro Apollo in Delo E, sotto il nome chiar d'alma Vittoria D'Amor sol il trionfo honore et gloria. Quindici all'una e tante all'altra parte: Isabella e Vittoria prime fôrno, E l'altre appresso poi di parte in parte.
Bernardo Tasso's funeral eulogy for Vittoria Colonna's husband, Ferrante Francesco d'Avalos, probably performed at the d'Avalos castle in 1525, illustrates the way in which, in the absense of an official state court, the unauthorized salon and the poetry written explicitly for presentation at its assemblies reproduced, in effect, a similacrum of the royal court. For, in spite of all its grandeur, the d'Avalos castle on Ischia housed no head of state, no king or queen. Costanza ruled her castle, but Ischia was no duchy, and she had no ministers or standing army. Nor could Charles or his captain, Ferrante Francesco d'Avalos, be called "defenders of all Italy" (fu d'Italia tutta il defensore). Tasso's phrase was rhetorically pleasing, but there was no political reality behind it. Ferrante's sense of loyalty did not extend beyond Naples, nor did that of the Colonnas. In 1527, the army of Charles V, without opposition from his d'Avalos or Colonna partisans, would sack and burn Rome-the cultural capital "of all Italy," and, for some, its political center as well. Nor, from what we know of the Colonna-d'Avalos clan, would Ferrante Francesco have done anything to defend the pope or save Rome's monuments had he lived. His nephew Alfonso d'Avalos left the city when the sack began, and his brother-in-law Ascanio Colonna neither tried to stop Charles's rampaging mercenaries nor offered protection to Pope Clement.
The salon d'Avalos and Colonna led in Ischia exuded cultural and artistic harmony: here a confluence of like-minded women and men came together. But the court they presided over-if we can apply the word "court" to a proxy state of sorts, in loco civitatis-was politically divided against itself, as we shall see. Whereas Petrarch had made famous the trope of a fragmented Italy in his poem "Italia mia," Tasso's eulogy for Ferrante Francesco projects the fiction of a unified Italy, a figure that becomes increasingly common in the later sixteenth century.
You will now see that man, once so dear to our emperor, invincible Charles, whose death is so bitter to me: Ferrante I say, whom a confluence of spiteful stars abruptly seized, and he, the undying glory of the Avalos clan and defender of all Italy, now dwells with the gods in heaven, and all my hopes have died with him. And gentle Vittoria, mirror of love, lofty lady, mirror of virtue, his rival, in honor and in valor: the untold pain she buries in her heart and vents only in her learned poems; all other thought she bars and shuns. Vedrete ancor colui, ch'un dì sì caro Fu al nostro imperator Carlo l'invitto E che il suo fin fu a me cotanto amaro, Ferrante intendo dir che 'l reo conflitto D'astri maligni colse di repente E ch'or fra divi in ciel si vede ascritto. Onore eterno dell'Avala gente Che fu d'Italia tutta il defensore, E le speranze mie furo in lui spente! E Vittoria gentil, specchio d'amore, Eccelsa Donna, specchio di virtude, Emula del suo onor, del suo valore. La pena immensa, che nel sen racchiude, Sfoga soltanto con sua colte Rime, Et ogni altro pensier fugge ed esclude.
Apart from the fictive construction of a state suggested in this sonnet, what stands out is Tasso's portrait of Colonna, which takes up almost half the poem. Ferrante Francesco's eulogy is not the usual speculum principis: it is, to use its own imagery, a mirror of the princess. Colonna is portrayed as her husband's equal in statesmanship and war ("emula del suo onor, del suo valore") and as his superior in literary and moral valence, spinning art from her grief ("La pena immensa, che nel sen racchiude, sfoga soltanto con sua colte Rime").
GIOVIO'S LETTER FROM ARCADIA
But where did the fame of the Ischia salon first begin? In the crucible of war, the historian Paolo Giovio would have us believe. In April 1528, Giovio, then bishop of Nocera and personal physician to Pope Clement VII, visited the poet Vittoria Colonna on the island of Ischia, staying as her guest at the d'Avalos castle. He sent the pope a report of the disastrous naval battle fought on April 28, 1528 off the Capo d'Orso and the French army's sack of Naples that accompanied it. Giovio's letter, which circulated widely and was later published in the hugely popular Diarii of Marino Sanuto (1533), detailed the horrors of the battle at sea between Genoese mercenaries hired by France and the emperor Charles's fleet. From the battlements of the castle, Giovio and the assembled guests of Costanza d'Avalos heard the cannons rumbling across the bay; they may have seen dim flares from the burning ships. The battle at sea had begun around nine o'clock in the evening on April 28 and had gone on until one in the morning. Charles's fleet was destroyed, and Vittoria's brother Ascanio and Costanza's nephew Alfonso d'Avalos were taken prisoner by the Genoese captains. The previous month, French soldiers had entered Naples pillaging and burning its palaces, convents, and monasteries. Giovio saw it as an act of revenge by the French, in league with pro-papal forces led by the Genoese admiral Filippino Doria, to strike back at the imperial army of Charles V, who had expelled the French from Italy after the sack of Rome in 1527. The damage the French wreaked on Naples, Giovio assured the pope, was no less terrible than Charles's sack of Rome ("Napoli non è manco disfata che Roma.")
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Publishing Women by Diana Robin Copyright © 2007 by The University of Chicago. Excerpted by permission.
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Table of Contents
IllustrationsForeward by Catharine R. Stimpson
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Note on the Texts
ONE. Ischia and the Birth of a Salon
TWO. From Naples to Venice: The Publication of Two Salons
THREE. Rome: The Salt War Letters of Vittoria Colonna
FOUR. Between Rome and Venice: The Temples of Giovanna d'Aragona
FIVE. Laudomia Forteguerri's Canzoniere and the Fall of Siena
SIX. Florence: Intimate Dialogues and the End of the Reform Movement
EPILOGUE
APPENDIX A. The Giolito Poetry Anthology Series: Titles, Printers, Editors, Dedicatees, Poets in Editions 1545-1560
APPENDIX B. Descriptions of the Fifteen Volumes of the Giolito Anthology Series: 1545-1560
APPENDIX C. Chronology of Events
APPENDIX D. Biographical-Bibliographical Index of Authors, Patrons, Editors
Notes
Bibliography
Index