Women in the Renaissance

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Women in the Renaissance

1 .

Extraordinary Women of the Medieval and Renaissance World: A Biographical Dictionary
by Carole Levin, Debra Barrett-Graves, Jo Eldridge Carney, W. M. Spellman, Gwynne Kennedy, Stephanie Witham. 327 pgs.

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Aside from a few famous queens, warriors and religious leaders, little information is available about the many extraordinary women of the medieval and Renaissance world. This resource brings together engagingly written biographical profiles of 70 women, most of whom are "unsung," but all of whom are remarkable for their courage, initiative, and accomplishments in a world where the conventional wisdom was for women to be "chaste, silent, and obedient." The women profiled here represent 18 countries and excelled in 19 fields of endeavor. They include artists, builders, mystics, political leaders, religious activists, diarists and dramatists, poets and writers, and scholars.

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Acknowledgments

Introduction

Notes

Note to the Reader

Akka MahĀDĒVĪ (Mahadeviyakka) (Fl. Ca. Twelfth Century): India Saint and Poet

Sofonisba Anguissola (Ca. 1532/1535-1625): Italy Portrait Painter

Anne Askew (1521-1546): Britain Protestant Martyr

Elizabeth Barton (Ca. 1506-1534): Britain Visionary and Martyr

Blanche of Castile (1188-1252): Spain Queen, Ruler, and Religious Activist

Bridget of Sweden (1303-1373): Sweden Visionary, Prophet, and Pilgrim

Elizabeth Cary Lady Falkland (Ca. 1585-1639): Britain Author

Catherine of Siena (Ca. 1347-1380): Italy Visionary and Religious Activist

Christina of Denmark (1521-1590): Denmark Leader in Exile

Christina of Markyate (Ca. 1096/1098-1160): Britain Anchoress and Visionary

Margaret Giggs Clement (1505-1570): Britain Classical Scholar

Lady Anne Clifford (1590-1676): Britain Artistic and Literary Patron, Builder, and Diarist

Vittoria Colonna (1492-1547): Italy Poet and Patron of the Arts

The Cooke Sisters Mildred (1526-1589), Anne (1528-1610), Elizabeth (1528-1609), Katherine (D. 1583), Margaret (D. 1558): Britain Writers

Margherita Datini (Ca. 1360-1423): Italy Merchant's Wife

Marie DentièRe (Fl. 1530s): Switzerland Reformist, Defender of Women, and Writer

Jane Dormer (1538-1612): Britain Catholic Loyalist

Elisabeth of Schonau (1129-1164): Germany Mystic, Writer

Elizabeth of Braunschweig: (1510-1558) Germany Protestant Political Leader

Isabella D'Este (1474-1539): Italy Patron of Arts and Letters and Political Activist

Jacqueline FéLicie (Jacoba Felice) (1290-D. after 1322): France Physician

Lavinia Fontana (1552-1614): Italy Portraitist and Altarpiece Painter

Veronica Franco (1546-1591): Italy Poet and Courtesan

Veronica Gambara (1485-1550): Italy Patron of Artists and Poet

Artemisia Gentileschi (Ca. 1593-1652/1653): Italy Artist

Giulia Gonzaga (1513-1566): Italy Patron of Artists and Religious Reformists

Argula Von Grumbach (1492-Ca. 1563): Germany Protestant Activist

Anne Halkett (1623-1699): Britain Diarist and Political Activist

Elizabeth Hardwick (Bess of Hardwick) (Ca. 1527-1608): Britain Builder and Matriarch

HéLisenne de Crenne (Marguerite Briet) (Ca. 1510/1520-Ca. 1552): France Author and Defender of Women

Hrotsvit of Gandersheim (Roswitha, Hrosvitha) (Ca. 932/935-1001/1002): Germany Poet, Dramatist, and Historian

Hürrem Sultan (Roxelana) (Fl. 1520s-1558): Turkey Political Adviser, Diplomat, and Imperial Benefactress

Esther Inglis (Esther Kello) (1571-1624): Britain Professional Calligrapher and Miniaturist

Izumi Shikibu (Ca. 966/979-1030?): Japan Waka Poet and Heian Diarist

Jadwiga of Poland (1373-1399): Hungary Queen and Political Leader

Juana of Castile (1479-1555): Spain Queen

Anna Komnena (1083-1153/1155): Western Asia Minor (Modern-Day Turkey) Scholar and Historian

Helene Kottaner (1400-After 1457): Austria Writer of Memoirs and Royal Servant

Louise Labé (Ca. 1520-1566): France Poet

Aemilia Lanyer (1569-1645): Britain Poet

Lucretia de LeóN (1569-Ca. 1596): Spain Prophet

Anne Locke (1530-1590): Britain Puritan Writer and Scholar

Katherine Luther (1499-1550): Germany Protestant Reformer

Malinche (DoñA Marina) (Ca. 1504-Ca. 1528): Mexico Interpreter for Cortés

Margaret of Anjou (Ca. 1430-1482): France Queen Consort

Margaret of Austria (1480-1530): Austria Political Leader

Marguerite de Valois (1553-1615): France Queen and Writer of Memoirs

Mary of Hungary (1505-1558): Hungary Queen and Regent

Mechthild of Magdeburg (Ca. 1207/1212-Ca. 1282/1297): Germany Christian Mystic and Writer

Melisende, Queen of Jerusalem (Ca. 1102-1161): Middle East Queen Regent and Patron of the Arts and the Church

Eleanor de Montfort (1215-1275): Britain Royal Rebel

Murasaki Shikibu (Ca. 973-Ca. 1030): Japan Author

Nzinga, Queen of Angola (Ca. 1580-1663): Angola Queen and Military Leader

Ono No Komachi (Ca. 830/835-899): Japan Waka Poet and Rokkasen

Caritas Pirckheimer (1467-1532): Germany Abbess, Defender of Her Faith, and Humanist Scholar

Diane de Poitiers (1499-1566): France Royal Adviser

Marguerite Porete (Ca. 1250-1310): France Spiritual Director, Martyr, and Author

Raziya, the Sultan (Also Raziyya, Razia, Radiyya) (No Dates): India Muslim Queen

RenéE of Ferrara (1510-1574): France Protestant Reformer and Political Leader

Margaret More Roper (Ca. 1505-1544): Britain Humanist and Classical Scholar

Maria de Salinas (D. 1539): Spain Friend and Supporter of Catherine of Aragon

Sei ShŌnagon (Ca. 965?-?): Japan Heian Diarist and Waka Poet

Caterina Sforza (1462-1509): Italy Territorial Ruler

Gaspara Stampa (1523-1554): Italy Poet and Virtuosa

Arbella Stuart (1575-1615): Britain Scholar and Courtier

Levina Teerlinc (Ca. 1510-1576): Belgium Artist

Elizabeth Jane Weston (1582-1612): Britain Exile and Poet

Catherine Willoughby (1520-1580): Britain Protestant Leader

Mary Wroth (Ca. 1587-1653?): Britain Author and Poet

Katharina Zell (1497-1562): Germany Protestant Humanitarian

Appendix A: Notable Women by Title, Occupation, or Main Area of Interest

Appendix B: Notable Women by Country or Region

Timeline of Historical Events

Selected Bibliography

Index

About the Authors
2 .

The Invention of the Renaissance Woman: The Challenge of Female Independence in the Literature and Thought of Italy and England
by Pamela Joseph Benson. 326 pgs.

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Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1

2: From Praise to Paradox: The First Italian Defenses of Women

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

Works Cited

Index
3 .

Invitation to Renaissance Italy (Chap. 7 "Women of the Renaissance")
by Rachel Annand Taylor. 354 pgs.

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Contents

Illustrations

Preface

Introduction

Chapter I: The Mediæval Dream and The Renaissance Morning

Chapter II: Social and Political Conditions

Chapter IV: The Scholar

Chapter V: The Artist

Chapter VI: The Courtier

Chapter VII: Women of the Renaissance

Chapter VIII: Florence 1434-1494-1530

Chapter X: The End of the Renaissance

Chapter XI: The Renaissance Ferment

Index
4 .

Understanding Gender Inequality in Renaissance Florence: Personhood and Gifts of Maternal Inheritance by Women, in Journal of Women's History
by Thomas Kuehn. 23 pgs.

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5 .

Women under Venetian Colonial Rule in the Early Renaissance: Observations on Their Economic Activities, in Renaissance Quarterly
by Sally McKee. 34 pgs.

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6 .

Women in Early Modern England, 1550-1720
by Patricia Crawford, Sara Mendelson. 488 pgs.

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This is an original, accessible, and comprehensive survey of life as it was experienced by most Englishwomen during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The authors examine virtually all aspects of women's lives: female life-stages from birth to death; the separate culture of women, including female friendship and feminist consciousness; the diverse roles of women in the religious and political movements of the day; and the effect of prevailing perceptions of gender differences. Comparisons are made between the makeshift economy of poor women and the occupational identities, and preoccupations, of the middling and elite classes. This fascinating and well-illustrated book reconstructs the mental and material world of Tudor and Stuart women. It will become the standard text on the subject.

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Title Page

Preface

Acknowledgements

Contents

List of Illustrations

Abbreviations

Glossary of Terms

Note Concerning Dates and Spellings

Introduction

1: Contexts

2: Childhood and Adolescence

3: Adult Life

Conclusions

4: Female Culture

Conclusions

5: The Makeshift Economy of Poor Women

Conclusions

6: Occupational Identities and Social Roles

7: Politics

Conclusions

Epilogue

Select Bibliography

Index
7 .

The Renaissance Englishwoman in Print: Counterbalancing the Canon
by Anne M. Haselkorn, Betty S. Travitsky. 366 pgs.

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Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Placing Women in the English Renaissance

I: The Outspoken Woman

Counterattacks on "The Bayter of Women": Three Pamphleteers of the Early Seventeenth Century

The Power of Integrity in Massinger's Women

"Maydes Are Simple, Some Men Say": Thomas Campion's Female Persona Poems

II: Woman on the Renaissance Stage

"Strike All That Look Upon with Mar{B}Le": Monumentalizing Women in Shakespeare's Plays

Sin and the Politics of Penitence: Three Jacobean Adulteresses

Style and Gender in Elizabeth Cary's Edward II

III: The Woman Ruler

Representing Political Androgyny: More on the Siena Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I

The Queen's Two Bodies and the Divided Emperor: Some Problems of Identity in Antony and Cleopatra

Radigund Revisited: Perspectives on Women Rulers in Lady Mary Wroth's Urania

IV: The Private Woman

Griselda, Renaissance Woman

Puritan Preaching and the Politics of the Family

"His Wife's Prayers and Meditations": Ms Egerton 607

V: Women and the Sidneian Tradition

"To the Angell Spirit . . .": Mary Sidney's Entry into the "World of Words"

An Unknown Continent: Lady Mary Wroth's Forgotten Pastoral Drama, "Loves Victorie"

Rewriting Lyric Fictions: The Role of the Lady in Lady Mary Wroth's Pamphilia to Amphilanthus

Feminine Endings: The Sexual Politics of Sidney's and Spenser's Rhyming

The Countess of Pembroke and Gendered Reading

Current Bibliography of English Women Writers, 1500-1640

Notes on Contributors
8 .

Wives and Daughters: The Women of Sixteenth Century England
by Kathy Lynn Emerson. 412 pgs.

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Sixteenth-century England was scarcely a paradise for anyone by modern standards. Yet despite huge obstacles, many sixteenth-century women achieved personal success and even personal wealth. This is a resource for all interested in this time-period.

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Contents

Illustrations

Foreword: Spinners in the Sun

Abbreviations

A

B

B

D

E

F

F

F

F

F

F

L

M

N

O

O

O

O

O

O

V

W

Y

Z

Bibliography

Index
9 .

Noble Daughters: Unheralded Women in Western Christianity, 13th to 18th Centuries
by Marie A. Conn. 128 pgs.

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The history of Western Christianity, written predominantly from a male perspective, has often ignored women's stories and their unique contributions to both Church and society. Unlike the virgins and martyrs who are named in the official list of the Church's saints, the beguines, Anabaptists, so-called witches, and nuns of Port-Royal have gone largely unrecognized. Their stories, as presented in this one volume, explore the underside of history and challenge support of a strictly hierarchical Church. These four groups of women represent disparate approaches to a Christian commitment, but they share an intense devotion to their understanding of the gospel message. Their willingness to adhere to their beliefs brought them into conflict with ecclesiastical and civil authority. Often, these women sacrificed their lives; all of them refuted the stereotype of a passive female church member. These women's stories unfold within the complex picture of medieval Europe, but their beliefs and struggles offermodels of Christian living relevant to today.

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Recent Titles in Contributions to the Study of Religion

Contents

Preface

Introduction

NOTES

Maps

1 The Thirteenth-Century Belgian Beguines: an Experiment In Laywomen's Spirituality

INTRODUCTION

CONCLUSION

NOTES

2 Anabaptist Women Martyrs: Images of Radical Commitment

PROLOGUE

CONCLUSION

3 Victims of the Witch Craze: Scapegoats in a Time of Turmoil

PROLOGUE

CONCLUSION

NOTES

PROLOGUE

4 The Nuns of Port-Royal: A Reform Movement Entangled In Controversy

CONCLUSION

NOTES

5 Connections: Honoring the Past, Envisioning the Future

NOTES

Glossary

Bibliography

Index

About the Author
10 .

Rhetoric Retold: Regendering the Tradition from Antiquity through the Renaissance (Chap. 4 "Inscribed in the Margins: Renaissance Women and Rhetorical Culture")
by Cheryl Glenn. 242 pgs.

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After explaining how and why women have been excluded from the rhetorical tradition from antiquity through the Renaissance, Cheryl Glenn provides the opportunity for Sappho, Aspasia, Diotima, Hortensia, Fulvia, Julian of Norwich, Margery Kempe, Margaret More Roper, Anne Askew, and Elizabeth I to speak with equal authority and as eloquently as Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, and Augustine. Her aim is nothing less than regendering and changing forever the history of rhetoric.
To that end, Glenn locates women's contributions to and participation in the rhetorical tradition and writes them into an expanded, inclusive tradition. She regenders the tradition by designating those terms of identity that have promoted and supported men's control of public, persuasive discourse -- the culturally constructed social relations between, the appropriate roles for, and the subjective identities of women and men.
Glenn is the first scholar to contextualize, analyze, and follow the migration of women's rhetorical accomplishments systematically. To locate these women, she follows the migration of the Western intellectual tradition from its inception in classical antiquity and its confrontation with and ultimate appropriation by evangelical Christianity to its force in the medieval Church and in Tudor arts and politics.

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CONTENTS

PREFACE

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

One: Mapping the Silences, or Remapping Rhetorical Territory

Two: Classical Rhetoric Conceptualized, or Vocal Men and Muted Women

Three: Medieval Rhetoric: Pagan Roots, Christian Flowering, or Veiled Voices in the Medieval Rhetorical Tradition

Four: Inscribed in the Margins: Renaissance Women and Rhetorical Culture

Five: The Implications of a Regendered, Retold Rhetoric, or Against Conclusions

NOTES

WORKS CITED

INDEX
11 .

Performing for Strangers: Women, Dance, and Music in Quattrocento Florence, in Renaissance Quarterly
by Judith Bryce. 32 pgs.

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12 .

Renaissance Society and Culture (Chap. XIV "Dressing Down the Dressed-Up: Reproving Feminine Attire in Renaissance Florence")
by John Monfasani, Ronald G. Musto. 309 pgs.

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Contents

Preface

Tabula Gratulatoria

A Tribute to Eugene E Rice, Jr.

Eugene F. Rice, Jr. an Appreciation

Bibliography of the Works of Eugene F. Rice, Jr., 1950-1989

I: The Pelham Family and the Lancastrian Usurpation, July-September 1399

II: Michelangelo's Sacrifice on the Sistine Ceiling

III: Raising Capital and Funding the Pope's Debt

IV: Church Patronage in France on the Eve of the Reformation

V: The "Lord God's" Sun in Pico and Newton

VI: The Humanist, the Banker and the Condottiere: an Unpublished Letter of Cosimo and Lorenzo De' Medici Written by Leonardo Bruni

Appendix A: A Letter of Cosimo and Lorenzo De' Medici to Carlo Malatesta (1429)

VII: Why Did the Codex Supplant the Book-Roll?

VIII: "Love Conquers All" the Conversion, Asceticism and Altruism of St. Caterina of Genoa

IX: Disciplina the Monastic and Clerical Origins of European Civility

X: Alexander of Aphrodisias, Gianfrancesco Beati and the Problem of Metaphysics α

XI: The Life of Canons in Sixteenth-Century Castile

XII: The Fraticelli and Clerical Wealth in Quattrocento Rome

XIII: Just Wars and Evil Empires: Erasmus and the Turks

XIV: Dressing Down the Dressed-Up: Reproving Feminine Attire in Renaissance Florence

XV: Reconsidering Apprenticeship in Sixteenth-Century London

XVI: Venereal Hermeneutics: Reading Titian's Venus of Urbino

XVII: The Pamphlet as a Source for French History, 1559-1572

XVIII: The Origins of Columbia University's Collection of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts

Index

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