Organized as a series of engaging, thoroughly contextualized biographies, Twenty-Five Women Who Shaped the Italian Renaissance takes readers on a journey through early modern Italy that places women at the heart of the artistic and cultural developments of this transformative era. Though many of their names have been neglected by history, women made fundamental contributions to Renaissance art and science; to music, poetry, and politics. Highlighted here are figures like Caterina Sforza, who defended her city against an invading army and was celebrated by Niccolò Machiavelli; Veronica Franco, the Venetian courtesan whose erotic verse enthralled Europe; Sofonisba Anguissola, acclaimed for her arresting portraits; Isabella Andreini, the original "prima donna" of Italian theater; and Margherita Sarrocchi, the epic poet and mathematics prodigy who corresponded with Galileo Galilei.
The artists, writers, composers, philosophers, and feminists of Twenty-Five Women Who Shaped the Italian Renaissance overcame daunting obstacles to find their own voices. Excluded from the educational opportunities granted to men, often forced into arranged marriages or confined to the convent, subject to ingrained hostility toward female sexuality: each dared to challenge deeply entrenched ideas about what a woman should or could do or be. Springing from a range of backgrounds and circumstances, these women defied conventions about the "proper" place of their sex to make their own mark on the Renaissance.
The perfect resource for anyone wishing to broaden their understanding of the Renaissance and early modern women.
The series Twenty-Five Women Who Shaped... looks at different periods in history and uncovers the women who helped to lay the cultural, political, social, or religious foundations of the time in question. The books offer accessible, well-researched introductions to influential female figures across the ages and around the world, enabling general readers to gain a reliable, richly detailed overview.
About the Author: Meredith K. Ray is the Elias Ahuja Professor of Italian in the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures at the University of Delaware, USA. Her books include Writing Gender in Women's Letter Collections of the Italian Renaissance (2009), Daughters of Alchemy: Women and Scientific Culture in Early Modern Italy (2015), and Margherita Sarrocchi's Letters to Galileo: Astronomy, Astrology, and Poetics in Seventeenth-Century Italy (2016).
