Women in the Renaissance and Early Modern Europe

Where have all the women gone? It can be difficult, sometimes, to find evidence of female participation in the arts and culture of the early modern period. This short essay explores how we can locate women and their participation by approaching our research differently.

In previous academic discussions of the busk (an often elaborately decorated long, flat piece of wood, metal or bone that was placed down the front the early modern bodies and stays) it has often been presented as de-stabilizing: an item of dress that threatened established ideas of gender and sexuality. This article argues that in the vast majority of instances, far from disrupting social norms the busk supported them, opening a discursive space that afforded women a degree of flexibility at the same time as it reinforced their subordination to male authority and erotic desire. By placing the busk within the context of the bodies, stays & bodices in which it fit, as well as the social exchange (courtship and marriage) in which it was most commonly recorded, this article argues that the busk was not disruptive but rather it reinforced culturally constructed and socially acceptable expressions of male and female desire through the acts of giving, receiving and wearing.

This paper explores how the character of Ophelia in Hamlet stylistically and conceptually challenges the traditional figure of the young heroine in Elizabethan revenge plays. Throughout his career, especially in the stage leading up to the writing of Hamlet in 1599-1600, the heroines of Shakespeare’s comedies and tragedies, so different and so distinctive in character, play agential roles in the development of the plot, even when they do not necessarily find themselves at the centre of the story. The same can be said of the heroines in revenge tragedies of the time, such as Bel-Imperia in Thomas Kyd’s blockbuster The Spanish Tragedy. Hamlet’s Ophelia, however, is a variation that becomes even more noticeable when compared to her direct generic and chronological predecessors.

Where, then, did Shakespeare look to instead of at his immediate theatrical precedents? The analysis of behavioural guides for gentle ladies of the period suggests that the source of inspiration for Hamlet’s heroine was probably, in fact, Elizabethan England’s Every(gentle)woman. The argument I present in this paper is supported by the close reading of Ophelia’s interaction with other characters throughout the first three acts of the play, during which she behaves exactly as the manuals suggest a lady should. The importance of this turn to nature -- to the reality of 16th century England -- instead of falling in line of the playwriting tradition is heightened by the fact that all female characters were played by young men during Shakespeare’s time. To the eye of the Elizabethan beholder, a more ‘realistic’ female character on the stage would remove by degrees the distance between the character on the page and the one on the stage.

This book contains translations from manuscripts of 830 letters held in the Archivio di Stato of Mantua, Italy, from the correspondence of Isabella d'Este. Isabella d'Este (1474-1539) reigned with her husband over the Italian city state of Mantua for much of her adult life. This edition, drawing on over 16,000 manuscript letters, will be followed shortly by a volume of essays  interpreting Isabella's correspondence and placing her epistolary production in the context of early modern political and social life, particularly regarding the rise of literacy and the function of letter writing in the propagation of news.

Isabella d'Este's activities intersected with most spheres of life that made her century famous: she was a patron of the arts, a musician, a head of state; a diplomat, a dynastic wife and mother, a traveler, a reader and book collector, a fashion trend setter and, of course, a letter writer. Many biographies have told her story, but her letters have never been systematically transcribed or published. There is wide acknowledgment in the field of Renaissance Studies that she is a pivotal and exceptional point of reference.

This paper explores the intellectual and social circumstances that informed the production of Andrea Mantegna’s 'Mars and Venus' (1497), the first painting executed for the studiolo of Isabella d’Este Gonzaga.  Documentary evidence suggests that Mantegna collaborated on this project with an iconographic advisor, most likely the learned Paride da Ceresara. I argue, somewhat against the received wisdom, that both Paride and Mantegna are responsible for this painting’s invention. Indeed, I maintain that the collaborative nature of their enterprise invites us to rethink the nature of artistic “invention” itself. The term, which entered the lexicon of early modern art theory via the writings of Cicero and Quintilian, describes an intellectual process of discovery. Paride discovered his iconographic "invenzione" by using the techniques of humanist philology. Mantegna drew on his knowledge of classical sculpture, as well as a hitherto unacknowledged tradition of textual criticism that linked his handling of a brush to the tenets of ancient rhetorical theory and to the writings of Leon Battista Alberti. Discovering in these contexts a set of poetic, formal, and stylistic devices uniquely suited to the learned environment of Isabella's studiolo, Mantegna and Paride together invented a means of visibly addressing their patron's concerns. These concerns are ultimately tied to the Platonic philosophy of the soul.

Maria Paola ZANOBONI, Donne al lavoro nell’Italia e nell’Europa medievali (secc.XIII-XV), Milano, Jouvence, 2016
VINCITORE DEL PREMIO ITALIAMEDIEVALE 2017:
http://www.italiamedievale.org/portale/premio-italia-medievale/
http://premioitaliamedievale.blogspot.it/
Prendendo in considerazione la svariata casistica italiana ed europea tra il secolo XIII e la fine del XV, questo libro intende sfatare i molteplici luoghi comuni sul lavoro femminile medievale che lo consideravano limitato soltanto ad alcune attività del comparto tessile ed alimentare, sottopagato, in costante dipendenza o correlazione con l’attività del consorte, esterno alle corporazioni per volontà delle corporazioni stesse. Un po’ dovunque, in Italia e in Europa, nel secolo XIII come nel XV, la realtà era invece un’altra: donne che lavoravano in tutti i possibili settori, compresa l’edilizia, le miniere e le saline; imprenditrici che si autofinanziavano con propri capitali ottenuti dalla vendita di abiti e gioielli; retribuzioni commisurate “alle reali capacità” e quindi non dipendenti dal genere; donne che col proprio lavoro riuscivano a mantenere sé stesse e familiari in difficoltà, o a saldare i debiti dei mariti; nobildonne impegnate nelle attività più varie: dall’organizzazione di laboratori per il ricamo, alla gestione di miniere, alla direzione di opere di bonifica, all’impianto di caseifici, alla gestione di alberghi.
Dotate di notevolissime capacità organizzative nella flessibilità estrema dei loro ruoli, erano le donne stesse a tenersi fuori dalle associazioni professionali, che, per parte loro, in genere ne tolleravano il “lavoro nero”, senza escluderle , ma cercando al contrario di obbligarle ad iscriversi quando avevano necessità di tenerle sotto controllo.
L’apprendistato femminile esisteva, spesso in modo informale, e tendeva ad emergere in casi particolari, quando erano le lavoratrici stesse ad aver bisogno di un attestato che dimostrasse le loro capacità (ad esempio nella lavorazione di materie prime preziose). Talvolta erano invece le corporazioni ad imporre alle donne la stipulazione scritta del contratto di apprendistato, soprattutto in settori importanti per la salute della collettività (come la confezione del pane).

Maria Paola ZANOBONI, Donne al lavoro nell’Italia e nell’Europa medievali (secc.XIII-XV), Milano, Jouvence, 2016
The traditional opinion considered female labour in medieval age low paid worrk restricted to textile and feeding fields only and generally dependent on husband’s work, outside of guilds.
On the contrary, a considerable body of evidence resulting from researches on Italian and European documents of XIII century up to the end of XV century, shows that during XIII, XIV and XV centuries in several European countries female work was employed in almost all fields of activity, including buildings, mines, salt processing. Women’s wages were proportional to their real capacity and were not conditioned by gender.
In many cases women succeeded in supporting the whole family (or discharging their husband’s debts) by their own work. Moreover some women sold their dresses and jewels to obtain capitals in order to establish a firm. Noblewomen were involved in very different jobs as embroidery workshops organization, mines and reclamation management, dairy establishment, hotel management.
Women showed a remarkable ability in work organization in spite of the enormous variety of their tasks and they preferred to be outside of guilds; on the other hand guilds tolerated this type of black work but tried to compel women to be registered when a special control was needed.
Female apprenticeship was often informal but in particular cases it was displaied when workers needed to demonstrate their ability in some jobs such as precious raw materials manufacture. In other cases guilds obliged women to stipulate a written apprenticeship contract, particularly in public health fields, for example to knead

In early modern Europe, the nature of the female sex was perceived as inferior, in nearly every way, to that of an adult male’s, whose nature wa​s par excellence. The history of philosophy, i.e., history in general, has necessarily accepted negative views of women, as women are not believed to be essential components to the Philosophical Canon. The philosophical canon, rather than questioning the male saturated authorship in early modern Europe, primarily embraced the established sexist infrastructure; and the majority of scholars have ignored this problem, making themselves necessary elements to this problem.

En application du Code de la propriété intellectuelle, il est interdit de reproduire intégralement ou partiellement, par photocopie ou tout autre moyen, le présent ouvrage sans autorisation du Centre français d'exploitation du droit de copie (20, rue des Grands-Augustins, 75006 Paris).

One of the topics developed by the Clarissan abbess Isabel de Villena in her work "Vita Christi" was the politics. This text is framed in the cultural and political polemic known as "Querelle des Femmes" that was developed in the Late Middle Ages. The author vividly poses the issue "gender and sovereignty". She designs a complete political theory represented in a feminine paradigm: the Virgin is the theoretical and practical model of the “marvelous science” of human government. Strikingly, Mother Isabel offers this female model to any class of rulers, including men, who should look at themselves in that model, but especially those with institutional, secular or ecclesiastical, power. In order to develop these ideas, the Virgin is presented as the performer of the two main instances of power of that time embodying the functions of queen and female pope and offering a new basis to the “art of government” of the kingdoms and the Church.
Uno de los temas desarrollados por la abadesa clarisa Isabel de Villena en su obra "Vita Christi" fue la política. Esta obra se enmarca en la polémica política y cultural conocida como "Querella de las Mujeres", que se desarrolló en la Baja Edad Media. La autora plantea vívidamente el tema "género y soberanía". Diseña una teoría política completa encarnada en un paradigma femenino: la Virgen es el modelo teórico y práctico de la "ciencia maravillosa" del gobierno humano. Sorprendentemente, la madre Isabel ofrece este modelo femenino a cualquier clase de gobernantes, incluidos los hombres, que se deben mirar en él, pero especialmente aquellos con poder institucional, secular o eclesiástico. Para desarrollar estas ideas, la Virgen se presenta como la titular de las dos principales instancias de poder de aquel tiempo encarnando las funciones de reina y papisa y ofreciendo  un nuevo fundamento al "arte del gobierno" de los reinos y la Iglesia

The life and work of the Spanish sculptor Luisa Roldán (1652-1706).
The inaugural volume in Lund Humphries' Illuminating Women Artists series. Shortlisted for the Apollo Magazine Book of the Year 2021 and awarded an honorable mention in the GEMELA Awards 2022.

If you submit late work that is to be considered for assessment then you should provide written documentation, medical or otherwise, to explain why the work was submitted late (we do not give extensions). You will need to complete a standard pro-forma [obtainable from http://www.bbk.ac.uk/mybirkbeck/services/administration/assessment/exams/mitigating-circumstances ] and submit it, with documentary evidence as appropriate, to the Chair of the Examination sub--Board responsible for the module concerned. The case will then be considered by the appropriate sub--board or delegated panel. If no case is made then a penalty mark will be given. If a case is made and accepted then the examination board may allow the "real" mark to stand.

RicaRd BellveseR (cooRd.) d. BohleR · d. de couRcelles · a. coRtijo · e. lacaRRa t. MaRtínez · v. MaRtines · X. coMpany · R. Ríos · M. siMó j. Butinyà · i. GRifoll · a. annicchiaRico · j. M. fuRió a. i. peiRats · M. pieRa · v. j. escaRtí · M. RodRiGo · M. codeRch M. GóMez · M. a. coRonel · j. coRtés · Mª l. MandinGoRRa e. MiRa · a. feRRando · R. aRcheR · p. M. oRts

"""Isabella d’Este Archive (IDEA) is a work-in-progress: an online, open-access, interactive resource for the study of early modern culture through the correspondence and  collecting of one of the most important female figures of the Italian Renaissance, Isabella d’Este (1474-1539), Marchesa of Mantua and consort of Francesco II Gonzaga.

Granddaughter of King Ferdinand I of Naples, daughter of Duke Ercole d’Este and Duchess Eleonora d’Aragona of Ferrara and wife of Marchese Francesco II Gonzaga, Isabella co-governed the strategically key court of Mantua for forty-nine years, first with her husband and then with her son. These were years in which much of Europe was warring over the Italian peninsula, in which navigation and exploration were making Europeans conscious of a wider world than they had known existed, and in which Italy was embroiled in artistic, scientific, and economic revolutions that defined the sixteenth century. Isabella d’Este was both an observer and a participant in the momentous developments known as the Italian Renaissance. In addition to her high profile as a governing co-regent, she was famous among her contemporaries for collecting art, antiquities, and books; engaging with contemporary writers; sponsoring and performing new music; planning gardens; operating a perfume and cosmetic pharmacy; traveling and conducting diplomacy; designing clothing; raising animals; and more. The expanse of Isabella d’Este’s activities included contacts far and wide, high and low in early modern society, from emperors to slaves, from criminals to holywomen.   








"""

In 1525 Catherine of Austria came to Portugal armed with Flemish tapestries, illuminated manuscripts,family jewels, and a lavish wardrobe, the requisite dowry of a Castilian princess destined to be queen. These personal goods that formed the nucleus of her collection evolved into one that later clearly defineed her social and political position, reflecting a particular hierarchy and symbolism. As a foreign-born queen, Catherine used her possessions to create her own identity at the Portuguese court. Shortly after her arrival sometime between 1525 and 1528, Catherine began collecting imported wares, luxury goods, Chinese silk and porcelain, gems, and jewelry from India and the Far East, available to her through agents stationed in Goa, Malacca and Macau. She created a system that allowed her to purchase directly overseas and key hubs of the Portuguese trade network.

The Duchess of Malfi’s heroic self-assertion in Act 4 of John Webster’s tragedy (‘I am Duchess of Malfi still’) closely echoes Seneca’s Medea (‘Medea remains still’), pointing to some deeper but hitherto unexplored thematic and structural resonances between early modern tragedy and Roman literature. Dido and Medea, classical exemplars of female independence, were deeply divided between their impulses toward revenge and Stoic patience. Webster replicates their self-division both within the Duchess’ own character and across his play’s protagonists in ways that bore meaning to his educated Blackfriars audience. While the Duchess’ outrage at her persecutors approaches Senecan furor, her serene death expresses a grace surpassing Medea’s apotheosis. Afterwards, however, her brother Ferdinand and murder/avenger Bosola serve as her textual surrogates, driving the action to an uneasy conclusion that reworks classical revenge conventions, questions the possibility of attaining Senecan independence in Jacobean society, and represents the allures and dangers of reading classical texts from an early modern perspective.

In 1600, literate society witnessed the publication of Moderata Fonte's Il merito delle donne. Set in a sun-splashed garden, the text features a female brigata that spars over the merits of men and matrimony under the auspices of an elected queen. The characters are split into camps, the first of which is charged with "dire di [huomini] quanto male può dire liberamente," the other with defending the traditional preeminence of men. The ensuing debate produces a feminist critique of patriarchal structures and contemporary notions of womanhood, signaling a newly radicalized Venetian querelle des femmes. Although Il merito has received much scholarly attention in the last twenty years, its generative ties to Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron have not been studied. This article argues that Fonte reinterpreted the Decameron's frame and Boccaccio's ideation of female license in the Valle delle Donne to construct her vision of an alternative Venice and mode of femininity.

WONDER WOMEN: SOFONISBA ANGUISSOLA, LAVINIA FONTANA AND ARTEMISIA GENTILESCHI
A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF RENAISSANCE AND BAROQUE SELF-PORTRAIT PAINTING BY FEMALE ARTISTS

by Rosa Lena Reed Robinson

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
Master of Arts in Art History at
Studio Art Centers International
Florence, Italy

2017


This  thesis is focused on the self-portrait painting practice by three female artists from the Renaissance and the Baroque periods: Sofonisba Anguissola, Lavinia Fontana, and Artemisia Gentileschi. Chapter I introduces the self-portrait as it developed specific to the Renaissance and in relation to a Greco-Roman classical ideal. The chapter focuses on Renaissance concepts of art and the very role of the artist. Chapter II studies the numerous self-portraits of Sofonisba Anguissola, the first great Renaissance female artist to have an international career. The artist’s self-portraits both became a foundation for those of later female artists and self-consciously expressed the new elite status achieved by this Lombard artist of noble lineage who worked as court portraitist for the Spanish monarchy. Chapter III examines the self-portraits and innovative identity self-portraiture of Lavinia Fontana of Bologna. It is demonstrated how her two early self-portraits built on the precedent established by Sofonisba, and yet, are of somewhat greater iconographic complexity. While in her maturity the artist developed self-portraiture into the identity self-portrait through the subject of Judith and Holofernes. Within her treatments of the theme in some examples she put herself into the figure of Judith and in others into Judith’s maid Abra. Lavinia Fontana’s final masterpiece, the improbable painting Minerva Dressing done at the end of her extensive career was likewise arguably an identity self-portrait. Minerva Dressing constitutes the first female fully nude figure painted by a female artist. Chapter IV focuses on Artemisia Gentileschi. This thesis designates the artist’s Pommersfelden Susanna and the Elders as both Artemisia’s first exact self-portrait and the first female full-length nude self-portrait painted by a female artist. The work is also an identity self-portrait. This chapter continues with a discussion of both versions of Artemisia’s infamous Judith and Holofernes (Capodimonte/Uffizi). Both works are arguably exact self-portrait paintings and identity self-portraits. Artemisia’s Allegory of Painting in London, often referred to as a self-portrait in scholarship, is suggested a perhaps better understood as an ideal identity self-portrait rather than a literal self-representation. The Allegory of Painting is considered together with other attributed self-portraits and portraits of the artist. A major theme in Chapter IV is the transition from literal self-representation to allegorical and ideal portrayal of the self. This thesis suggests that, as the artist’s career advanced, Artemisia Gentileschi did continue to paint both the exact and the ideal self-portrait. Finally, in the Conclusion, the legacy of the self-portraits of the Wonder Women, to adopt a phrase from Giorgio Vasari, is considered in reference to future female artists such as Elisabetta Sirani, Angelica Kauffmann, Elisabeth Vigée Le-Brun and Paula Modersohn-Becker.

A number of pronk poppenhuisen, or "dollhouses for show" were commissioned in the seventeenthand eighteenth-century Netherlands for adult women. The large wooden cabinets with multiple partitioned spaces construct a fully furnished Dutch home in miniature, complete with dolls representing family, servants, and pets. The dollhouses have been primarily regarded as sophisticated collections enjoyed by elite female connoisseurs. This study will investigate

Titian laid the foundations of early modern court portraiture in his work for the Hapsburgs, especially for Charles V. Within that tradition, the representation of the royal woman began with empress Isabel de Portugal’s posthumous portraits, painted in the 1540s. In order to understand the visual discourse they embodied, this essay analyzes the aims and expectations of both patron and artist –the participation of the sitter being impossible–, as well as the conventions that ruled the appearance of a female portrait. In the case of the empress, this involved the development of an image focused on her extraordinary beauty, her virtue, and her personification of imperial majesty. Finally, reexamination of status signs and material culture gives proof of their importance as part of the language of majesty.

The article centers on Italian artist Caravaggio's Neapolitan production, in order to show how his artworks both incorporated and propelled the epistemological shift occurring at the beginning of the seventeenth century -a shift that is understood and explained within the frame of Michel Foucault's intellectual history. In the article, it is argued that Caravaggio's Neapolitan paintings gave visual expression to that transition, by highlighting the persistence of Renaissance's symbolic strategies, all the while opening to the Baroque's predilection for an allegorical use of marginality. By focusing on the interval years between these two cultural phases and by addressing the critical conundrum generated by the recent recovery of two lost Caravaggio's paintings, the article also sheds light on the unexpected space of freedom offered to the "disenfranchised" in the first twenty years of the seventeenth century. As Caravaggio gave larger space to social outcasts and lower classes, female figures also started playing a more significant role within his art, thus reflecting women's more active presence in Italian society, as well as ensuing misogynist fears.

In Early Modern Europe, it was self-evident that a poet was a man. But despite overwhelming theoretical proof that women could not be poets, some women were. This thesis explores how some women succeeded as writers, through the study of three poets who were all presented to their audiences as the Sappho of their time: French Louise Labé (ca 1520/1523–1566), English Katherine Philips (1632–1664), and Swedish Hedvig Charlotta Nordenflycht (1718–1763). What did it mean to be a new Sappho? Sappho, and the idea of the Early Modern woman poet as a ‘new’ Sappho, links Labé, Philips, and Nordenflycht to each other. Therefore, this study endeavours to follow the traces of Sappho through the centuries and through the works of Labé, Philips, and Nordenflycht. The thesis consists of six chapters. After an introductory chapter and a chapter discussing the Early Modern reception of Sappho, three chronologically ordered chapters analyse the three poets’ strategies of publication, their self-presentations and what rhetorical devices they employ to present female poetic speakers and to justify their writing. The sixth and final chapter brings Labé, Philips and Nordenflycht together, comparing and contrasting their works and lives. Taking its cue from Judith Butler’s call to “take up the tools where they lie”, the thesis argues that the poets became successful because they learned to capitalize on the opportunities that their specific contexts offered, and to both master and vary the aesthetic codes available to them in ways that their readers appreciated. Drawing on Susan Lanser’s term sapphic subject, the discussion develops the role played by Sappho in the three poets’ works, to further contend that Labé, Philips, and Nordenflycht created real or fictional female communities which enabled them to move away from the traditionally silent role played by women in Early Modern literature, and to underscore that they were not exceptional but rather that women were as capable poets as men.

A fin de arrojar luz sobre las manifestaciones femeninas de la reforma franciscana, estas páginas analizan las fundaciones reformistas de la Orden de Santa Clara en el obispado de Córdoba entre las primeras noticias conocidas, datadas en 1465, y 1525, año de la última fundación clarisa anterior al concilio de Trento. Ofrecen una cronología que parte de las distintas fisonomías institucionales y espirituales y una fenomenología fundacional. Estos aspectos contienen claves de interés para, en un futuro, poder profundizar en sus implicaciones eclesiales, políticas y espirituales.

In order to throw light on the feminine manifestations of the Franciscan reform, these pages there analyze the foundations reformists of the Order of Santa Clara in the bishopric of Cordova between the first news known, dated in 1465, and 1525, year of the last foundation nun of the order of St Clare previous to the council of Trent. They offer a chronology that departs from the different institutional and spiritual physiognomies. These aspects contain keys of interest for, in a future, to be able to penetrate into his implications about the churches, political and spiritual.

This paper presents the first full edition and translation of an unpublished (1566) poem written by Johanna Otho and sent to Camille de Morel. Both young women, linked by their mutual acquaintance Karel Utenhove, were internationally recognized for their learning. Otho's poem is a significant contribution to the corpus of women's Latin poetry. This paper also offers a brief introduction to the poem's historical context and suggests contemporary political resonances for Otho's poem. Her poem contains allusions to the conflict between courtly life and religion, which reference the ongoing conflict between Protestants and Catholics in Europe and specifically France.

This two-part volume describes the life and work of the Spanish Sculptor Luisa Roldán.
The first part is a chronological discussion of her artistic development and includes references to the issues she faced as a woman sculptor.
The second part comprises transcripts of 213 historical documents that provide the evidentiary basis for the  discussion.
PRIMERA PARTE.
Capítulo 1. Luisa Roldán y sus biógrafos: la construcción de una identidad.
Capítulo 2. El período formativo de Luisa (1652-1671): después de la peste.
Capítulo 3. La realización del potencial creativo.
Capítulo 4. La fuerza de la fe: las obras andaluzas.
Capítulo 5. Madrid (1689-1706) la vida en el filo.
Capítulo 6. Fe e intimismo: las obras en terracota en Madrid.
Capítulo 7. Andalucía en Madrid: las obras en madera.
Capítulo 8. Conclusión: Luisa Roldán, una visión del siglo XXI.
SEGUNDA PARTE.
Corpus documental: Luisa Roldán a través del archivo.