E-Book Overview
A gifted poet, a women's rights activist, and an expert on moral and natural philosophy, Lucrezia Marinella (1571-1653) was known throughout Italy as the leading female intellectual of her age. Born into a family of Venetian physicians, she was encouraged to study, and, fortunately, she did not share the fate of many of her female contemporaries, who were forced to join convents or were pressured to marry early. Marinella enjoyed a long literary career, writing mainly religious, epic, and pastoral poetry, and biographies of famous women in both verse and prose.Marinella's masterpiece, The Nobility and Excellence of Women, and the Defects and Vices of Men was first published in 1600, composed at a furious pace in answer to Giusepe Passi's diatribe about women's alleged defects. This polemic displays Marinella's vast knowledge of the Italian poetic tradition and demonstrates her ability to argue against authors of the misogynist tradition from Boccaccio to Torquato Tasso. Trying to effect real social change, Marinella argued that morally, intellectually, and in many other ways, women are superior to men.
E-Book Content
THE
NOBILITY
EXCELLENCE AND
THE VICES
OF
AND WOMEN,
DEFECTS OF
MEN
AND
A SeriesEditedby MargaretL. KingandAlbertRabilJr. OTHER HENRICUS
CORNELIUS
BOOKS
AGRIPPA
Declamation on the Nobility and Preeminence of the Female Sex
IN THE SERIES MODERATA
FONTE
The Worth of Women EdIted and Translated by VirginIa Cox
EdIted and translated by Albert Rabd Jr VERONICA
FRANCO
Poems and Selected Letters LAURA CERETA
Edited and Translated by Ann Rosalind Jones and Margaret F Rosenthal
Collected Letters Edited and translated by DIana RobIn
TULLIA
D'ARAGONA
Dialogue on the Infinity of Love Edited and Translated by Rlttaldlna and Bruce Merry
ANTONIA
PULCI
Florentine Drama for Convent and Festival Russell
Translated by James Wyatt Cook EdIted by James Wyatt Cook and Barbara CollIer Cook ANNA MARIA VAN SCHURMAN
CECILIA
FERRAZZI
Autobiography of an Aspiring Saint EdIted and Translated by Anne Jacobson Schutte
Whether a Christian Woman Should Be Educated and Other Writings from Her Intellectual Circle EdIted and Translated by Joyce L IrwIn
Lucrezia
Marinella
THE NOBILITY AND EXCELLENCE OF WOMEN, AND THE DEFECTS AND VICES OF MEN
Edited and Translated by Anne Dunhill Introduction by Letizia Panizza
THE
UNIVERSITY
Chicago
OF &
CHICAGO
London
PRESS
AnneDunhill is a novelist and translator who lives in London. LetiziaPanizza is a senior lecturer in Italian at Royal Holloway College, University
of London.
The Uruversity of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637 The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London © 1999 by The University of Chicago All rights reserved. Published 1999 Pnnted in the United States of Amenca 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 00 99 1 2 3 4 5 ISBN 0-226-50545-6 ISBN 0-226-50546-4
(cloth) (paper)
This translation was supported by a generous grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication
Data
Marinella, Lucrezia, d. 1653. [Nobilta et l'eccellenza delle donne, co' difetti et mancamenti degli uomoni. English] The nobility and excellence of women, and the defects and vices of men p. cm.-(Other voice in early modern Europe) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-226-50545-6 (cloth: alk. paper).-ISBN 0-226-50546-4 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1 Women-Early works to 1800. 2. Women-History-Renaissance, 1450-1600. 3. Women-Italy-History-Renaissance