text:
# BOCCACCIO'S HEROINES

# Women and Gender in the Early Modem World

_Series Editors: Ally son Poska and Abby Zanger_

In the past decade, the study of women and gender has offered some of the most vital and innovative challenges to scholarship on the early modem period. Ashgate's new series of interdisciplinary and comparanti ve studies, 'Woman and Gender in the Early Modem World', takes up this challenge, reaching beyond geographical limitations to explore the experiences of early modern women and the nature of gender in Europe, the Americas, Asia, and Africa. Submissions of singleauthor studies and edited collections will be considered.

Titles in this series include:

_Widowhood and Visual Culture in Early Modern Europe_
Edited by Allison Levy

_Architecture and the Politics o f Gender in Early Modern Europe_
Edited by Helen Hills

_Envisioning Gender in Burgundian Devotional Art, 1350–1530
Experience, Authority, Resistance_
Andrea Pearson

_The Medici Women
Gender and Power in Renaissance Florence_
Natalie R. Tomas

_Women, Art and the Politics o f Identity in Eighteenth-Century Europe_
Edited by Melissa Hyde and Jennifer Milam

# Boccaccio's Heroines

Power and Virtue in Renaissance Society

MARGARET FRANKLIN
 _Wayne State University, USA_

First published 2006 by Ashgate Publishing

Published 2017 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA

_Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business_

Copyright © Margaret Franklin 2006

The author has asserted her moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as author of this work.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Notice:
Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

**British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data**
Franklin, Margaret
Boccaccio's heroines : power and virtue in Renaissance society. – (Women and gender
in the early modern world)
1. Boccaccio, Giovanni, 1313–1375. De mulierbus claris
2. Women – Biography 3. Women in literature 4. Women – History – Renaissance,
1450–1600
I. Title
851.1

**Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data**
Franklin, Margaret.
Boccaccio's heroines : power and virtue in Renaissance society / Margaret Franklin.
p. cm. — (Women and gender in the early modern world)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-7546-5364-1 (hardback : alk. paper)
1. Boccaccio, Giovanni, 1313-1375. De mulieribus claris. 2. Women—Biography. 3.
Women in literature. 4. Women—History—Renaissance, 1450-1600. I. Title. II. Series.

PQ4274.D6F73 2006
851'.1—dc22

2005011772

ISBN 13: 978-0-7546-5364-6 (hbk)

# Contents

_List of Figures_

_Acknowledgements_

Introduction

The Text and its Critics

Lauds and Libraries

The Art of Virtue

 Authorial Intent

Dedication: The Nature of Virtue

Preface: A Book for Men about Women

  A Bad Example

Overstepping the Boundaries

Action/Reaction

Dangerous Minds and Bodies

Calculated Anomalies

  _Famous Women_ in Renaissance Tuscany

Boccaccio's Heroines

A Woman's Place

Daring but Decorous: _Donne Illustri_ in the Art of the Tuscan Republics

  _Famous Women_ and Famous Women: Boccaccio and the Court Consorts

Eleonora d'Aragona d'Este

Isabella d'Este and Mantegna

Conclusion

_Select Bibliography_

_Index_

# List of Figures

3.1 Andrea del Castagno, _Farinata degli Uberti_

3.2 Andrea del Castagno, _Tamyris_

3.3 _Cloelia_ , anonymous woodcut from _De mulieribus claris_

3.4 School of Pinturicchio, _Flight of Cloelia_

3.5 Guidoccio Cozzarelli, _The Legend of Cloelia_

4.1 Ercole de'Roberti, _Portia and Brutus_

4.2 _Portia_ , anonymous woodcut from _De mulieribus claris_

4.3 Sandro Botticelli, _The Tragedy of Lucretia_

4.4 Ercole de'Roberti, _Lucretia_ , _Brutus, and Collatinus_

4.5 _Lucretia_ , anonymous woodcut from _De mulieribus claris_

4.6 _Lucretia_ , anonymous woodcut from _De plurimis selectisque mulieribus_

4.7 Ercole de'Roberti, _The Wife of Hasdrubal and Her Children_

4.8 _Eleonora d'Aragona d'Este_ , anonymous woodcut from _De plurimis selectisque mulieribus_

4.9 Andrea Mantegna, _A Woman Drinking_

4.10 Marcantonio Raimondi, _Death of Dido_

4.11 Andrea Mantegna, _Dido_

4.12 II Riccio, _Death of Dido_

4.13 Andrea Mantegna, _Judith_

# Acknowledgements

I am grateful to the Wayne State University Humanities Center, the Wayne State University Research Grant Program, and the Dean's Creative/Research Grant Program of the Wayne State University College of Fine, Performing and Communication Arts for their generous support of this project.

I thank Virginia Cox, whose gentle and uniquely informed guidance while I was writing my dissertation at The University of Cambridge helped to lay the groundwork for this book. Pamela Benson was generous with encouragement and constructive criticism; Christiane Joost-Gaugier has provided me with years of intellectual and emotional nourishment; and Dane Wittrup and Jean Rhodes contributed their multifaceted talents when they were most needed. I am most thankful for the family that provided the daily context of love, respect, and joy that made the long years of work fun and meaningful: my shining children, Aaron, Charlotte, Noel, and Julia, and my husband, Jamie, whose brilliance and tireless devotion are reflected in every page.

# Introduction

If we grant that men deserve praise whenever they perform great deeds with the strength bestowed upon them, how much more should women be extolled—almost all of whom are endowed by nature with soft, frail bodies and sluggish minds— when they take on a manly spirit, show remarkable intelligence and bravery, and dare to execute deeds that would be extremely difficult even for men?1

With these sentiments Giovanni Boccaccio embarks on _Famous Women_ ( _De mulieribus claris_ , ca. 1360), stating that his text remedies a neglect by being the first biographical compilation comprising only famous women.2 The substance of this excerpt is incorporated into the fabric of Boccaccio's biographies and underlies the twentieth-century critical focus on what has been considered the contradictory messages conveyed by the author. Stephen Kolsky, in a series of studies constituting the first and only monograph devoted to _Famous Women_ , writes "The text sends out ambiguous messages about female behavior... [ _Famous Women_ ] deals in fractured, incomplete discourses that declare the impossibility of producing a coherent picture of woman."3 I suggest that, far from being a text conflicted in its assessment of the nature of woman and her role in society, _Famous Women_ presents a consistent delineation of the parameters of acceptable female authority with the goal of providing a preemptive defense of a social framework implicitly challenged by legendary women who participated actively in public life. I argue that the biographies themselves are analogous to the _tessarae_ that make up a mosaic; while each component contributes to the picture, an appreciation of the artist's design requires that they be considered as elements of a larger scheme. The structure of exempla literature, to which _Famous Women_ as a collection of discrete, self-contained entities conforms, can result in an impression of fragmented authorial purpose and mask the overriding and essentially unitary message to which each biography contributes. Viewed as a complex whole from the perspective of its broader sociocultural context, _Famous Women_ offers a remarkably consistent, coherent and comprehensible treatise concerning the appropriate functioning of women in society.4

Renaissance ideas regarding the nature of woman were grounded both in scripture and in the writings of ancient physicians and philosophers. Foremost among the latter was Aristotle, whose theory of the processes through which human life is generated encompassed not only the creation of biological males and females, but also a defined and largely immutable constellation of behavioral and dispositional characteristics arising from the very substance of maleness and femaleness.5 According to Aristotle, nature, always striving for perfection, is optimally satisfied when semen succeeds in creating a male embryo; when, however, reproductive conditions are less favorable, a female is conceived. The relative heat and moisture that Aristotle believed determined the sex of a child, continued to distinguish the sexes after birth, establishing not only primary and secondary sexual characteristics but also temperament, ability, and social role. "The courage of a man is shown in commanding," Aristotle concluded, "[and] of a woman in obeying."6

Medieval scholastics accepted Aristotle's view of the relative merits of the sexes as engendered by the interplay of humors and body temperature. Along with a general dulling of faculties characteristic of the incomplete and imperfect, women were largely regarded as having a constitutional proclivity towards weakness, passivity, and irrationality. Aquinas fashioned much of his commentary dealing with the nature of woman on Aristotle's arguments, and although he softened the Philosopher's observation that "the male rules over the female" with a palliative of mutual esteem and division of labor, the "beneficial subjugation" of a wife to her husband was considered as compulsory as that of children to their parents.7 He further noted that Eve's creation from the body of Adam rendered her one step removed from the image of God; she was, in fact, made in the image of man and was therefore not only "of and for God" but "of and for man."8 The social implications of Eve's reliance on a male intermediary were, for Aquinas, not unlike those which emerged from Aristotle's conclusions concerning the natural hierarchy of the sexes.

In _Famous Women_ Boccaccio adheres to the notion that character traits are inherently male or female. That his book was received as a text which supported, rather than challenged, Aristotelian-based views of the nature of women, is apparent in a revisionist text written in 1405 by Christine de Pizan, an Italian author living in France. In _The Book of the City of Ladies (Le livre de la cite des dames_ ) Christine attempts to correct what she considers to be Boccaccio's misinterpretations of female ability and motivations.9 To this end she addresses what she believes to be inaccurate preconceptions concerning innate differences in virtue and capacity between the sexes and attributes women's inferior position in society to custom rather than nature.10 Frequently citing unabridged passages of historical narrative from _Famous Women_ to buttress arguments which diverge markedly from those for which they were originally written, Christine vindicates women whose strengths Boccaccio has counterbalanced with vice and simply omits women characterized in _Famous Women_ primarily by pride, greed, deceitfulness and sexual amorality.11

The durability of gender constructs based on principles of chemistry and physics withstood centuries of personal experience and the literary efforts of authors such as Christine, and continued to dominate social ideology during the Renaissance. The teleological vision that drove both Aristotle's natural philosophy and the theology of medieval churchmen included notions of a systemized and necessary polarity between the sexes and the belief in a providentially ordained social order. Not surprisingly, those who wielded authority within this social order were deeply invested in its perpetuation.

## **The Text and its Critics**

Although best known to modern readers for his collection of bawdy tales told by young aristocrats in the _Decameron_ , Boccaccio wrote four Latin _summae_ in the 1350s and 1360s that established his reputation for scholarship among humanist intellectuals throughout the Renaissance.12 He situated _Famous Women_ within the tradition of exempla literature, writing in the preface that he continues the work initiated by ancient authors, and resumed in his own day by Francesco Petrarch, of immortalizing the names of individuals whose illustrious deeds have set them apart from the common run of mankind.13 Boccaccio follows a paradigm of employing narratives in the service of moral instruction, reasoning that "an account that praises deeds worthy of commemoration and sometimes heaps reproaches upon crimes will... drive the noble towards glory and to some degree restrain villains from their wicked acts" [ _FW_ 11].14

The sequencing of Boccaccio's women is roughly chronological and his method for presenting information is essentially historical. While some lives appear to derive from a single source, in many instances several appear to have been consulted. The majority of these were Roman writers of the first century BCE to the fifth century CE, although the influence of Greek writers is also apparent.15 Following the Dedication and Preface, _Famous Women_ opens with the life of Eve. Thirty-nine chapters follow which consider women drawn from ancient, largely Greco-Roman, mythology, and the subsequent sixty are devoted to women from ancient history (or legend), with a primary focus on ancient Rome. The final six biographies treat women living in the Christian Middle Ages. While some of the classical writers he draws on dealt with their subjects in a laconic and largely dispassionate manner, Boccaccio frequently elaborates upon his narrative material with moral conclusions and declamatory asides. Although he assembled his biographies around accounts he considered to be reliable, he decided to "avoid the time-honored custom of dwelling only superficially on events" [ _FW_ 11] in order to construct lives that would work to further his goals for the text. The rather journalistic accounts by Valerius Maximus and Justin, two of his key sources, are therefore transformed into tales liberally embellished with imaginative particulars as well as moralizing signposts that serve to prepare the reader for homiletic conclusions.16 These conclusions often take the form of didactic sermons in which Boccaccio draws together and interprets the lessons to be learned from the life under consideration, sometimes ranging rather far afield from the apparent substance of his narrative.

Modern feminist commentators on _Famous Women_ have been extremely critical of what they see as thinly disguised misogyny in Boccaccio's treatment of even the most praiseworthy women. Constance Jordan asserts that, rather than adhering to a strategy of lauding the worthy and denouncing the wicked, Boccaccio effectively nullifies the commendable behavior he relates by his "pervasively critical" assessment of feminine nature.17 In considering the role of _Famous_ _Women_ in the corpus of humanist writings that address feminist issues, she considers that Boccaccio employs a "strategy of subversion" which not only provides women with "poor examples of virtue" but confronts them with a text in which "ambiguity... goes deeper than mere contradiction."18 Pamela Benson also emphasizes the "contradictory notions of woman" in _Famous Women_ , but attributes them to a conflict between authoritative ideas of female virtue and evidence provided by legendary/historical accounts of female behavior.19 She argues that he undermines his assumptions of female inferiority with accounts that seem to challenge their validity, and she therein discerns a "persuasive and sensitive profeminist voice."20 This voice, however, does not advocate for social change.

While ambiguities and contradictions frequently arise in _Famous Women_ — beginning, as it turns out, with the first sentence of the Dedication, in which Boccaccio claims to have written a book "in praise of women" [ _FW_ 3]—I would argue that his fundamental stance regarding the nature and role of women proceeds from a consistent and deeply held point of view that accommodates the varying circumstances in which men and women find themselves. The subtext for criticism that highlights Boccaccio's failure to advocate for the correction of an inequitably gendered social order is the assumption that a text recounting the accomplishments of women ought to promote the redress of restrictions placed on women as a result of assumptions disparaging their worth. I suggest that this present day perspective creates a number of issues which render interpretation of _Famous Women_ far murkier now than it did for Boccaccio's Renaissance readers, and has raised obstacles to a comprehension of Boccaccio's goals and his understanding of the phenomenon of female achievement. Praising women for nontraditional achievements while stopping short of championing their 'liberation' through political reform does not necessarily indicate incongruity in the conceptualization of female nature. Boccaccio candidly and repeatedly asserts the belief that women possess limited capacity for the sort of higher achievements that make great men great, and it is not to be expected that he would advocate for deconstructing a well-functioning, divinely instituted social system merely to accommodate the occasional happy freak of nature.

Using critical methodology that includes close reading of _Famous Women_ and comparison of the text with the author's sources, I develop the argument that Boccaccio's judgments of women, both favorable and unfavorable, draw the teeth from the challenge posed by unconventional women by co-opting their stories into the service of contemporary Italian standards and mores. I support this reading by delineating the criterion Boccaccio employs in his assessment of the virtue of powerful women, which boils down to whether or not they obtain their power through what he considers to be legitimate means: power assumed as a matter of duty is legitimate, while that acquired through the pursuit of personal ambition is not. This standard derives from conventional models of female duty, and I contend that the moral framework for Boccaccio's evaluation of female behavior provides a foundation for defining the conditions under which it is suitable for a female to wield power within a patriarchal society.

Kolsky reviews the intellectual and social contingencies pressing on Boccaccio at the time he wrote his Latin works and considers Boccaccio's decision to retire to a secluded life in Certaldo to be a protest against the moral laxity with which the new Florentine ruling elite corrupted the commune. He observes, "the emphasis of the _De mulieribus_ ' discourse is on traditional values, a return to moral integrity, both sexual and political, accounting for the novel emphasis on the wife as upholder of such values."21 This argument recognizes that Boccaccio's praise of the perfect wife and concern over proper gendered behavior represents a galvanizing of values in response to the depravity of contemporary " _disonesti uomini_ " and the elevation to power of these _homines novi_. I see in Boccaccio's invocation of traditional ideals of feminine conduct a proactive response to what he as a proto-humanist identified as a threat to a social order already made vulnerable by male decadence—classical accounts of politically powerful women.22 Kolsky also recognizes that Boccaccio "truncates any possibility of the stories being taken as literal transcription of possible female behaviour in the present... [as] a way of dealing with the danger female power poses to male readers," but concludes that "the _De mulieribus_ was not conceived as a political work, in the sense that women were not seen as potential actors on the public stage."23 In drawing this conclusion, I believe Kolsky overlooks the lengths to which the author went to discredit women who conceived and pursued political ambitions. While Boccaccio no doubt recognized the low probability of a race of warlike amazons arising fully armed from the _palazzi_ of Trecento Florence, his discourse throughout _Famous Women_ pointedly acknowledges a shifting in the moral structure of contemporary society resulting in the degeneration of both masculine and feminine gender roles.

In order to promote traditional notions of sex-specific virtue and thereby work to sustain the social order which was believed to have derived 'naturally' from thence, Boccaccio had to appeal to the power base of that order: men. As a source for his views on women, Boccaccio's vernacular fiction is complicated by the many voices he employs; however, in _Famous Women_ , he appears to speak for himself, and while often addressing men directly, never communicates directly to women.24 While his biographies prescribe the conditions under which women can acceptably exercise authority, the prerogative to grant or withhold this power rested with men. In the Preface Boccaccio states that "the accomplishments of these ladies will please women _no less_ than men [my emphasis]," [ _FW_ 11, 13] and it is to a predominantly male readership that Boccaccio addresses himself. _Famous Women_ is not a 'woman's' text; although it does not follow the stylized pattern of response and defense that characterized the _querelle des femmes_ , like most discourse in the Renaissance debate about women, it was written primarily for the edification of men.25

## **Lauds and Libraries**

The burgeoning of interest in classical arts and letters known as humanism, of which Boccaccio and Petrarch were early proponents, brought to the Italian intelligentsia the awareness of an ancient cultural heritage which was fervently admired and, in many respects, consciously emulated. In addition to finding in _Famous Women_ a convenient reference for information gleaned from a wealth of original sources, Renaissance patrons and artists would have identified with the _Weltanschauung_ of a Christian writer who turned to the pagan past for guidance on questions of virtue. Manuscripts, incunabula, library inventories and humanist eulogies that have survived the centuries during which Boccaccio's Latin works were eclipsed by his vernacular _novelle_ attest to the popularity and authority that his biographies enjoyed in the Renaissance. Within a few years following his death in 1375, Boccaccio's biography began to appear in compilations of the lives of illustrious men. Renaissance humanists remembered Boccaccio primarily as an historian and scholar; in his work on the origins of Florence and her famous citizens, Filippo Villani writes that Boccaccio composed his book of " _clarissimis mulieribus_ " with so much eloquence and elegance that he surpassed the most excellent writers of antiquity.26 Domenico Bandini d'Arezzo (d. 1415) wrote a biography of Boccaccio in which his Latin works were listed to the exclusion of his vernacular fiction.27 Among other authors known to have cited _Famous Women_ were Vespasiano da Bisticci in his 1481 work on the history of Florence and her famous citizens; Giannozzo Manetti in his 1436 encomium _De vita et moribus trium illustrium poetarum florentinorum_ , dedicated to Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio; Sicco Polenton in a 1430 manuscript dedicated to authors writing in the Latin tongue; and Giovan Marco Cinico, a Neapolitan court historian writing in the mid-fifteenth century.28

Christian Bec's study of the libraries of fifteenth- to seventeenth-century Florentines reveals that, after Dante, Boccaccio was the author most widely represented in the first half of the Quattrocento.29 Although _Famous Women_ was written in Latin for an exceptionally learned readership, by the early years of the fifteenth century it had been translated into both Italian and French, which assisted its rapid diffusion throughout Europe and outside of strictly erudite circles.30 Two Italian translations were undertaken in the mid-Quattrocento, one by Donato Albanzani da Casentino, a friend and admirer of Boccaccio's who was a schoolmaster in Venice, and a second by the Augustinian monk Antonio da S. Elpido.31 Both in Latin and in its many vernacular translations, _Famous Women_ was collected for the personal libraries of a broad and diverse readership which included not scholars but also merchants, bankers and royalty.

The extreme popularity of _Famous Women_ in both the republics and principalities of Renaissance Italy is attested to in Vittore Branca's listing of one hundred five extant Latin codices (sixteen Trecento and eighty-nine Quattrocento), and his evidence for thirty-three that have been lost.32 The libraries of dynastic rulers known to have at least one copy of _Famous Women_ include those of King Alfonso of Naples, the Visconti and Sforza of Milan, and the Este of Ferrara.33 Among the Florentine owners of fifteenth-century manuscripts was Niccolo Niccoli, the renowned humanist and bibliophile, who built a public library "for the honor of Messer Giovanni" to house the books left by Boccaccio to the monastery of Santo Spirito in Florence. _Famous Women_ was included in this library and made "available for all."34 Coluccio Salutati, a Florentine chancellor and scholar, owned a copy on parchment in which several marginal notes seem to have been added by Salutati himself.35 Yet another extant manuscript is known to have been executed for Palla Strozzi, one of the wealthiest men in Florence and a distinguished humanist and influential statesman.36

In 1473 in Ulm, Johann Zainer produced the first printed edition of _Famous Women_ ; this was followed, over the next fifty years, by several other editions printed in Latin as well as in vernacular languages all over Europe.37 Printed copies often contained an augmentation hitherto only enjoyed by wealthy French patrons: illustrations that sought to capture the meaning of the story being presented.38 In Zainer's edition each woman's biography was accompanied by an individualized woodblock print illustrating a key aspect of her life. It will be shown that the choice of episodes depicted in these prints, as well as the manner of their depiction, became important visual mediators of interpretation for Renaissance readers of _Famous Women_ in the last quarter of the fifteenth century.

The popularity of _Famous Women_ among the ruling classes of fifteenth-century Europe suggests that it was not regarded by Renaissance readers as harboring the seeds of feminist sentiment that might threaten to destabilize patriarchal society. Neither, surely, would so popular a text have been seen as having "no overarching framework... requiring the interpretation of textual markers that are hard to read, difficult to find, and often contradictory."39 While any artistic production may lend itself to a variety of interpretive impressions, there is little about _Famous Women_ , either the text itself or its reception among those for whom it was written, to suggest that it would have been experienced as ambiguous or contradictory. This conclusion is further bolstered by the uses to which the text was put in the formulation of visual programs by patrons and artists of the Renaissance to whom it evidently spoke quite intelligibly a century and more after its composition.

## **The Art of Virtue**

Paradigms that now guide much productive work in late medieval and Renaissance studies recognize a dynamic process in which the products of a culture both inform and are informed by that culture.40 The Western tradition of invoking figures from the glorious past to inform and guide the current generation is at least as old as Homer, and in Renaissance Italy countless visual and literary images of famous men and women were created for the purpose of inculcating prevailing standards of virtue.41 A culture's heroes represent the embodiment of its collective values, and the ability of those heroes to shape the characters of a community depends upon individual recognition of virtues identified as both desirable and imitable. In _1 libri della famiglia_ Leon Battista Alberti articulates the Florentine engagement with famous exemplars:

One should, in every discussion, praise good men... The ancients, at their rituals and feasts, used to rehearse in song the praises of their greatest men, those in whom extraordinary excellence had been manifested and had been wonderfully serviceable to many people... this was done... to incite others to zeal for heroism and to a desire for similar praise and glory. What a prudent and useful custom! What a good example!42

In the republics of Renaissance Italy, character traits esteemed and cultivated by members of the ruling class were seen as requisite not only for individual and familial prosperity, but also for the healthy functioning of the state. Thus, the humanist quest to mine the literature of antiquity for tales of illustrious individuals whose deeds would provide moral guidance for contemporary life led to paintings created largely for the purpose of teaching and reinforcing the values deemed necessary for shaping model citizens.

In the second half of the Quattrocento, representations of female worthies from classical lore began to appear on furnishings and in wall paintings as well as on tapestries, porcelain and in prints. The women portrayed in these images were very often noted for possessing such virtues as patriotic heroism, the capacity for shrewd leadership, and even military prowess. Despite the popularity of classical subjects at this time, the presence of these highly unorthodox females in the visual arts of the Renaissance remains enigmatic and even paradoxical given that they were created in an age when women were defined in terms of their roles as wives and mothers. The stories of heroic women as passed down from antiquity did not convey moral and social models that fourteenth and fifteenth-century Italian society could have comfortably assimilated. While defining the relationship between literature and the visual arts can be challenging, the identification of literary precursors to visual imagery provides an important lens for examining social values. Written and visual exemplum portraits, as mediators of gender-based social behavior, are ideal subjects for cross-disciplinary study.43 It will be seen that Boccaccio's interpretation of ancient legends in terms of contemporary values produced moral narratives that were well-suited to the instructional requirements of contemporary works of domestic art. It will further be seen that much of the Renaissance art depicting the heroines about whom Boccacio wrote bear recognizable signs of the influence of _Famous Women_ upon their conceptualization and execution. It appears probable that, without Boccaccio's mediation between classical sources and contemporary requirements, the very appearance of some of these women in Renaissance art would have been problematic.

In works decorating the walls of public structures, the objective served by images of virtuous worthies (often complete with eulogizing inscriptions) was pointedly exemplary, exhorting the male leadership to be guided by luminary models of old.44 Similarly, as the classroom from which moral instruction originated, patrician homes provided an important setting for portrayals of figures whose legends lent themselves to moral interpretation. Unfortunately, here, where the edification of the entire family was at issue and the pictures typically lacked the moralizing _tituli_ of their public counterparts, the nature of the intended relationship between image and viewer is often less apparent to the modern eye.

The patrician class which read and valued exempla literature also commissioned works of visual art that promoted virtues considered essential to the functioning of Renaissance societies. Within the visual arts, the humanist impulse to cultivate the ideals of antiquity through making the lives of virtuous individuals available for emulation was manifested both in full-body portraits of heroes and in narratives which featured their exploits. _Uomini famosi_ (famous men) cycles were life-size, portrait-like depictions of historical and contemporary luminaries painted on the walls of both public and private edifices. This practice paralleled the didactic and moralistic approach to historical biography developed by classical authors and Boccaccio in _Famous Women_.45

Virtues which result in an individual's being, in Alberti's words, "wonderfully serviceable to many people" appear to have been preponderant among those celebrated in _uomini famosi_ portraits. While it is not possible to estimate how many homes were decorated with these edifying paintings, it is certain that of their public counterparts only a fraction of those executed still exist today.46 Among the survivors are images of six men depicted in the antechapel of the Palazzo Pubblico, or town hall, in Siena, who are characteristic of the heroes adopted by fifteenth-century Italian communes. This series was painted by Taddeo di Bartolo in 1414, and the figures, selected by Sienese humanists, depict Scipio Africanus, Scipio Nasica, Curius Dentatus, Furius Camillus, Cato and Cicero. That the function of this cycle was to demonstrate ideals of civic virtue is made apparent in the written admonition that accompanies these warriors and statesmen of Republican Rome, urging the regents of Siena, if they desired to establish a republic which would endure for "thousands and thousands" of years, to pattern themselves after these ancient luminaries.47 Portraits of Cicero, Furius Camillus, and Scipio Africanus also appeared in the town hall of Florence, where they joined three other men of antiquity remembered as defenders of liberty: Brutus, Publius Decius, and Mucius Scaevola.48 The importance of virtues related to civic pride and duty also permeates those cycles which, like that painted in the _aula minor_ in Florence's Palazzo Vecchio, included literary figures native to that community.49 In this _uomini famosi_ cycle poets (including Boccaccio) were presented in the company of Roman statesmen, orators, and civic heroes, as well as historical leaders believed to have played a role in Florentine history.50

Images of virtuous paragons also adorned objects created to celebrate the most significant occasions in the lives of dynastically-minded patricians. A demand for luxury commodities which glorified not only the possessor's affluence but his active participation in the prevailing aesthetic and intellectual climate inspired the decoration of domestic furnishings with illustrations of classical subjects. Among the objects commonly found in middle- and upper-class Tuscan homes were _cassoni_ (marriage chests), _deschi da panto_ (birth salvers), headboards, and wainscoting panels, which were embellished with colorful and action-packed narratives replete with the deeds of illustrious worthies.51

Although works from Boccaccio's vernacular fiction have been identified as sources for many paintings created to embellish domestic furnishings, rarely has _Famous Women_ been posited as the authoritative source of imagery highlighting the heroism of legendary/historical women.52 However, because _Famous Women_ is infused with an ideology on the nature of women which continued to be embraced throughout the Renaissance, it was a natural source of iconographical guidance on the depiction of figures known only through literary precedents. Heroines treated in _Famous Women_ were represented in the fifteenth-century visual arts of both Tuscan communes and Northern Italian principalities, and as the literary source for these paintings, Boccaccio provided not only iconographical guidelines but also the authoritative justification and moral framework for employing heroines as exemplars of conventionally gendered virtue.

_Cassoni_ were commissioned in pairs by the families of either the bride or the groom and, once in the bridal chamber, were either installed beside the bed itself or placed side by side against the wall where they were used for both storage and seating.53 Following the basic construction of the chest and the carving and gilding of the moldings, all of the panels were painted, and extant panels support Vasari's description of subjects which were painted on the top, front, and ends of these chests as including "... fables taken from Ovid and other poets, or rather stories told by the Greek and Latin historians."54 The protagonists of these narratives are generally interpreted as having been chosen for their suitability as models for exemplary behavior; for example, Camillus liberating Rome from the Gauls and Horatius Cocles defending the bridge against the Etruscans were among those narratives whose popularity apparently derived from the patriotic fervor of its heroes.55

_Deschi da parto_ were, according to Vasari _"tondi_ on which one brings food to confined women," and this use was illustrated in many fifteenth-century confinement scenes.56 Although their utilitarian function was associated with the feminine sphere of childbirth, evidence suggests that birth trays were intended for display in the household following their limited stint as serving objects, and frequently became valued family heirlooms.57 Several salvers yet bear the marks of having been hung on the wall, where they were viewed by family and guests alike. In addition to religious and confinement images, mythological and classical narratives were frequently chosen as birth tray decoration. As valuable objects seen by family and non-family members alike, _deschi da parto_ , like _cassoni_ , spoke to the taste and learning of their owners; Lorenzo de' Medici's birth tray, depicting Petrarch's _Triumph of Fame_ , was known to have hung in the room leading to his private study.58

Although _Famous Women_ is a complex and intricate work, it is possible to sift out from its multifaceted vision of human history a coherent, comprehensible system of values which the author employs in a consistent manner. Far from denying the intricacies of _Famous Women_ , I contend that the moral framework which sustains the text allows for the assimilation of a rich variety of lives and experiences while providing a cohesiveness of argument that accounts, with a marked degree of reliability, for differential evaluations of superficially similar behavior. In Chapter 1, I explore Boccaccio's view of what constitutes a bad woman. This chapter addresses Boccaccio's antiheroines—those women who craved fame and glory or who otherwise exerted a malign influence in the affairs of men and so undermined male interests. I examine Boccaccio's assumption that certain flaws and weaknesses are inherent in being female, and also his vision of the disastrous consequences that often result when feminine proclivities are combined with qualities, such as ambition and intelligence, that are deemed admirable and desirable in men.

In Chapters 2 and  I consider Boccaccio's heroines. These are women who, first and foremost, are sexually chaste and who, moreover, do whatever is necessary in support of the male who rightfully occupies the dominant role in her life, whether he is dead or alive. Boccaccio most admires those in whom this support is accomplished through the agency of the highest masculine virtues. Chapter 2 includes a review of legal and social practice in fifteenth-century Florence which I combine with a summary of Quattrocento literature addressing the nature and role of women to provide a context for examining the dialogue which obtained between depictions of classical heroines and the men and women who were interested in their lives. Finally, this chapter looks at the incorporation of Boccaccio's heroines as positive exemplars in the domestic art of Republican Tuscany; I analyze the only extant fifteenth-century _uomini famosi_ cycle in Tuscany to include famous women, as well as Sienese domestic furnishings portraying a popular classical heroine.

In Chapter 3 I discuss the dynastic courts of Northern Italy and the response accorded _Famous Women_ in the intellectual circles associated with those courts. I then examine the only painted cycles of famous women known to have been created in the courts of Ferrara and Mantua, where Eleonora d'Aragona d'Este and her daughter Isabella d'Este Gonzaga represented a new development in the status of women.

_____________

1 Giovanni Boccaccio, _Famous Women_ , ed. and trans. Virginia Brown (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001), 9. All Latin and English quotations from _Famous Women_ are taken from Brown's text and hereafter will be referenced in the form [ _FW_ ]. See also Boccaccio, _De mulieribus claris_ , ed. Vittorio Zaccaria, _Tutte le opere_ , vol. 10 (Milan: Mondadori, 1965); and _Concerning Famous Women_ , trans. and intro. Guido A. Guarino (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1964). Boccaccio wrote the bulk of _De mulieribus claris_ in 1361 and 1362; he continued to alter the manuscript, however, until near the time of his death in 1375.

2 Unbeknownst to Boccaccio, Plutarch included the biographies of twenty-seven women in his _Moralia_ of ca.120 CE; these biographies are collectively known as the _Mulierum virtutes_. See Plutarch, _Moralia_ , trans. Frank Cole Babbit (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1962). For an analysis of Plutarch and his sources see Philip A. Stadter, _Plutarch's Historical Methods, An Analysis of the 'Mulierum virtutes_ '(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1965). For the development in antiquity and the Middle Ages of catalogs of famous women see Glenda McLeod, _Virtue and Venom_ (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1991).

3 Stephen Kolsky, _The Genealogy of Women: Studies in Boccaccio's "De mulieribus claris_ " (New York: Peter Lang, 2003), 72 and 23.

4 Pamela Joseph Benson, _The Invention of the Renaissance Woman_ (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992), 23, argues that the biographies should be read individually, and that views or rhetoric employed in one can be legitimately ignored if not repeated in another.

5 See, for example, Aristotle, _Generation of Animals_ , 3.737a27–28 and _Physiognomonics_ 5.809a30–1, 5.809b11–14. For Aristotelian, medieval, and Renaissance theories regarding gender and sexual differentiation see Joan Cadden, _Meanings of Sex Difference in the Middle Ages_ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993); and Ian Maclean, _The Renaissance Notion of Woman: A Study in the Fortunes of Scholasticism and Medical Science in European Intellectual Life_ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980).

6 _Politics_ I, xiii, 1260a22.

7 _Politics_ , I, xiii, 1260a10; Thomas Aquinas, _Summa theologiae_ , I, q. 92.1; I, q. 96.3.

8 Aquinas, _Summa_ , I, q. 93.4; see also Augustine, _De Genesi ad letteram_ , XII.42, PL, xxxiv.452.

9 Christine de Pizan, _The Book of the City of Ladies_ , trans. Earl Jeffrey Richards (New York: Persea, 1982); and _Le livre de la cite des dames_ , intro. Eric Hicks and Therese Moreau (Paris: Stock, 1986).

10 For Christine de Pizan and Boccaccio see Kolsky, _Genealogy_ , 7–15; Maureen Quilligan, _The Allegory of Female Authority. Christine de Pizan's Cite des Dames_ (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991); Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski, "Christine de Pizan and the Misogynistic Tradition," _Romanic Review_ 81 (1990): 279–92; and Patricia Phillippy, "Establishing Authority: Boccaccio's _De claris mulieribus_ and Christine de Pizan's _Le livre de la cité des dames," Romanic Review_ 77, no.3 (1986): 167–93.

11 Laura Cereta also entered the _querelle des femmes_ with essays that selectively employed (and omitted) exemplars from _Famous Women_ in order to argue that woman's capacity for virtue and intelligence is a gift of nature rather than an extraordinary exception to nature's laws. Her _Epistolae familiares_ , written in the 1480s, was known by a small circle of scholars in Brescia and Venice where she lived and wrote, but was not published until 1640. See Laura Cereta, _Collected Letters of a Renaissance Feminist_ , trans. and ed. Diana Robin (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997).

12 His other Latin works include _De casibus virorum illustrium_ , a biographical compilation that warns, through example, of the consequences of princely corruption, _Genealogia deorum gentilium libri_ , an encyclopedic chronicle of the gods and heroes of classical mythology; and _De montibus, lacubus, fluminibus, stagnis et paludibus et de nominibus marls_ , a compendium of mountains, rivers and other geographical features.

13 See Francesco Petrarch, _De viris illustribus_ , ed. Guido Martellotti (Florence: Sansoni, 1964). This was not the first time Boccaccio promoted his work by establishing connections between his writing and that of great literary figures and established genres: in her work on his _Filocolo_ Victoria Kirkham notes that he "modestly asserts his membership in the most elite family of letters." She points out that in his Latin works, however, "in order to respect the dictates of tradition... he presents himself most openly and straightforwardly." See Victoria Kirkham, _Fabulous Vernacular: Boccaccio's "Filocolo" and the Art of Medieval Fiction_ (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001), 2–3 and 101–102.

14 The _viri illustri_ (famous men) genre is perhaps most familiar to modern readers through Plutarch's _Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans_ written in the late first century. Blending factual detail and character assessment to leave posterity more than an objective historical record, Plutarch observed that "the virtues of the great men serve me as a sort of looking-glass, in which I may see how to adjust and adorn my own life" and speculated on the motives of his heroes and interpreted the outcomes of their actions in terms of their moral significance. See Plutarch, _The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans_ , trans. John Dryden and revised Arthur Hugh Clough (New York: Modern Library, 1992), 346. Cicero wrote two works in which he recorded the achievements of Greek and Roman orators with the avowed purpose of making their lives available for emulation, while Cornelius Nepos expanded the practice of compiling lives of illustrious men with the object of subjecting their deeds to moral scrutiny. See Cicero, _Brutus_ , trans. George Lincoln Hendrickson (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1942); and _De oratore_ , trans. E.W. Sutton and Harris Rackham, 2 vols. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1967); and Cornelius Nepos, _De viris illustribus_ , trans. and ed. Gareth Schemeling (Lawrence, KS: Coronado Press, 1971). For the exempla tradition, see Christiane Joost-Gaugier, _"De viris illustribus_ tradition in "Poggio and the Visual Tradition: _Uomini Famosi_ in Classical Literary Description," _Artibus et Historiae_ 6 (1985): 57–74; and "The Early Beginnings of the Notion of _Uomini Famosi_ and the _De Viris Illustribus_ in Greco-Roman Literary Tradition," _Artibus et Historiae_ 3 (1982): 97–115; J. Rufus Fears, "The Cult of Virtues and Roman Imperial Ideology," _Aufstieg und Niedergang der romischen Welt_ 11.17.2 (1981): 827–948; E. Eyben, "The Concrete Ideal in the Life of the Young Roman," _L'Antiquite Classique_ 41 (1972): 200–217; and A. Lumpe, "Exemplum," _Reallexikon fur Antike und Christentum_ (1966): 48. Kolsky, _Genealogy_ , 69–71, considers the classification of _Famous Women_ within the exempla genre as troublesome because the narratives are not "nested in a structuring, didactic discourse" and because, rather than clarifying an overarching theme, "the exemplarity of some of the figures is multiple and contradictory." For the use of exempla in medieval sermons see Jacques Le Goff, "L'exemplum et la rhétorique de la prédication aux XIIIè et XIVè siècles," in _Retorica e poetica tra i secoli XII e XIV, Atti del secondo convegno internazionale di studi dell'Associazione per it Medioevo e l'Umanesimo Latini in onore e memoria di Ezio Franceschini_ , ed. Claudio Menestò and Enrico Leonardi (Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1988), 3–29.

15 Brown lists the following sources: Augustine, Cicero, Eusebius, Hegesippus, Isidore, Josephus, Justinus, Lactantius, Livy, Lucan, Macrobius, Orosius, Ovid, Pliny the Elder, Pomponius Mela, the _Scriptores Historiae Augustae_ , Servius, Solinus, Statius, Suetonius, Tacitus, Valerius Maximus, and Virgil. Kolsky, _Genealogy_ , discusses Boccaccio's sources; see esp. 59–69.

16 Valerius Maximus's _Factorum dictorumque memorabilium libri_ , written in the second century, provided a reservoir of paragons through his commemoration of both the best and worst of humanity. He organized his stories of famous men and women under headings which immediately identified the vice or virtue for which any given life was remembered; thus exemplars of self-confidence, majesty and patience were presented alongside the cruel, covetous and perfidious. See Valerius Maximus, _Factorum dictorumque memorabilium libri_ , ed. J. Kapp, 3 vols. (London, 1823); also _A View of the Religion, Laws, Customs, Manners and Dispositions of the Ancient Romans and Others_ , trans. Samuel Speed (London, 1678). Justin's _Epitoma historiarum philippicarum Pompei Trogi_ was a concise epitome of an eleven-volume first century world history; see _Historiarum philippicarum et totius mundi originum_ , ed. Jacobi Bongarsii, 8 vols. (London, 1721); and _Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus_ , trans. John C. Yardley, intro. R. Develin (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1994).

17 Constance Jordan, "Boccaccio's In-Famous Women: Gender and Civic Virtue in the _De mulieribus claris_ ," in _Ambiguous Realities: Women in the Middle Ages and Renaissance_ , ed. Carole Levin and Jeanie Watson (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1987), 26. Margaret Tomalin, _The Fortunes of the Warrior Heroine in Italian Literature_ (Ravenna: Longo Editore, 1982), 26, also criticizes _Famous Women_ for the many discrepancies between the "evidence of the lives and the stereotyped comments on the nature of women." For more readings of misogyny in _Famous Women_ see Diana Robin, "Woman, Space, and Renaissance discourse," in _Sex and Gender in Medieval and Renaissance Texts: The Latin Tradition_ , ed. Barbara K. Gold, Paul Allen Miller and Charles Platter (Albany: The State University of New York Press, 1997): 165–87; and Valerie Wayne, "Zenobia in Medieval and Renaissance Literature," _in Ambiguous Realities: Women in the Middle Ages and Renaissance_ , ed. Carole Levin and Jeannie Watson (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1987), 48–65. For earlier discussion of _Famous Women_ see Anna Cerbo, "Il _De mulieribus claris_ di Giovanni Boccaccio," _Arcadia, Accademia letteraria italiana, Atti e Memorie_ , serie 3a, 6 (1974): 51–75; Vittore Branca, _Boccaccio: The Man and His Works_ , trans. Richard Monges (New York: New York University Press, 1976); Henri Hauvette, _Etudes sur Boccace (1894–1916)_ (Turin: Bottega d'Erasmo, 1968); and Attilio Hortis, _Studii sulle opere latine del Boccaccio con particolare riguardo alla storia della erudizione nel Medio Evo e alle letterature straniere_ (Trieste: Libreria Julius Dase Editrice, 1879).

18 Constance Jordan, _Renaissance Feminism: Literary Texts and Political Models_ (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990), 37. In "In-famous Women" Jordan classifies the selection of Boccaccio's women she addresses under the headings of (1) arms and political triumphs, (2) the arts, (3) devotion to family, and (4) vice. As many women qualify for inclusion in two or even three of these subgroupings, this method of categorization exacerbates the ambiguity she detects within each category.

19 Benson, _Renaissance Woman_ , 10.

20 Ibid., 18.

21 Kolsky, _Genealogy_ , 113.

22 Ibid., 109.

23 Ibid., 120.

24 Kolsky, _Genealogy_ , 91–108, discusses the "continuities and discontinuities" between _Famous Women_ and the _Decameron_ , the _Amorosa visione_ , and _Il Corbaccio_.

25 See, for example, Danielle Clarke, _The Politics of Early Modern Women's Writing_ (Harlow, Essex: Pearson Education Limited, 2001), 50; and Karen Pratt, "The Strains of Defense: The Many Voices of Jean Lefevre's _Livre de Leesce_ ," in Thelma S. Fenster and Clare A. Lees, eds., _Gender in Debate from the Early Middle Ages to the Renaissance_ (New York: Palgrave, 2002), 113–33. The _querelle des femmes_ was a debate about the nature of women which had its roots in medieval scholasticism and continued well into the early modern period. For recent discussion relevant to the _querelle des femmes_ see Thelma S. Fenster and Clare A. Lees, eds., _Gender in Debate from the Early Middle Ages to the Renaissance_ (New York: Palgrave, 2002); Clarke, _Politics_ , 49–79; Alcuin Blamires, _The Case for Women in Medieval Culture_ (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997); Helen Solterer, _The Master and Minerva: Disputing Women in French Medieval Culture_ (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1995); Alcuin Blamires, Karen Pratt, and C. W. Marx, eds., _Woman Defamed and Woman Defended: An Anthology of Medieval Texts_ (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992); Jill Mann, _Apologies to Women_ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990). See also Linda Woodbridge, _Women and the English Renaissance: Literature and the Nature of Womankind, 1540–1620_ (Brighton: Harvester Press, 1984).

26 Filippo Villani, _De origine civitatis Florentie et de eiusdem famosis civibus_ , in _Le vite di Dante, Petrarca e Boccaccio scritte fino al secolo decimosesto_ , ed. Angelo Solerti, Storia letteraria d'Italia scritta da una Society di Professori, vol. 4 (Milan: Dottore Francesco Vallardi, n.d.), 671–6. For a discussion of Villani's work, which has been conserved in numerous manuscripts, see Aldo Francesco Massèra, "Le più antiche biografie del Boccaccio," _Zeitschrift für Romanische Philologie_ 27 (1903): 299–320.

27 Bandini's work exists in many partial and some complete manuscripts; see Massera, 320–25.

28 For Vespasiano see William George and Emily Waters, _Renaissance Princes, Popes and Prelates: The Vespasiano Memoirs/Lives of Illustrious Men of the XV Century_ (New York: Harper and Row, 1963), 442. For Manetti see Giannozzo Manetti, _Vita et moribus trium illustrium poetarum florentinorum_ , in _Le vite di Dante, Petrarca e Boccaccio scritte fino al secolo decimosesto_ , ed. Angelo Solerti, Storia letteraria d'Italia scritta da una Società di Professori, vol. 4 (Milan: Dottor Francesco Vallardi, n.d.), 680–93. Eleven of Polenton's manuscript are known to be extant; see Massèra, 325–8. For a description of _Famous Women_ in Cinico's _Elenco historico et cosmografo_ seeTammaro de Marinis, _La biblioteca napoletana dei re d'Aragona_ , vol. 1 (Milan: Hoepli, 1947), 237–8.

29 Christian Bec, _Les livres des Florentins (1413–1608)_ (Florence: Olschki, 1984), 27 and 112–114; see also Bec, "Sur la lecture de Boccace a Florence au Quattrocento," _Studi sul Boccaccio_ 9 (1975–6): 247–60.

30 For the French translation see Patricia M. Gathercole, "Boccaccio in French," _Studi sul Boccaccio_ 5 (1968): 275–97; and "The French Translators of Boccaccio," _Italica_ 46, no. 3 (1969): 300–309; Carla Bozzolo, _Manuscrits des traductions françaises d'oeuvres de Boccace, XVe siècle_ (Padua: Antenore, 1973), 22–43; Millard Meiss, _French Painting in the Time of Jean de Berry: The Late Fourteenth Century and the Patronage of the Duke_ , 2nd edn, vol. 1 (London: Phaidon, 1969), 3–5; and "The Boucicaut Master and Boccaccio," _Studi sul Boccaccio_ 5 (1968): 251–63. During the course of the fifteenth century, _De mulieribus claris_ was also translated into Middle English, Catalan, Spanish and German. For an overview of Boccaccio's reception throughout Europe see Gilbert Tournoy, ed., _Boccaccio in Europe_ (Louvain: Louvain University Press, 1977); see also David Romano, "L'Edizione 1498 ed i codici del _Corbaccio_ catalano," _Studi sul Boccaccio_ 11 (1979): 413–19; and "El hebreo, lengua barbara para un hispano del siglo XV," _Helmantica_ 29 (1978): 233–44; and Gathercole, "Boccaccio in English," _Studi sul Boccaccio_ 7 (1973): 353–68.

31 See _Delle donne famose_ , trans. Donato degli Albanzani di Casentino detto l'Apenninigena, ed. Giacomo Manzoni (Bologna: Gaetano Romagnoli, 1881). Although the translation was apparently begun in the late 1360s, it was left unfinished until after Donato's move to Ferrara in 1381, when he was appointed chancellor to Alberto d'Este. Donato became tutor to the young Niccolo III in the early 1390s and before his death in 1411 dedicated his translation, _Delle donne famose_ , to his illustrious pupil. On this translation see Vittorio Zaccaria, "I volgarizzamenti del Boccaccio latino a Venezia," _Studi sul Boccaccio_ 10 (1977–8): 268–91; Claudio Scarpati, "Note sulla fortuna editoriale del Boccaccio: I volgarizzamenti cinquecenteschi delle opere latine," in _Boccaccio in Europe_ , ed. Tournoy, 209–20; Antonio Altamura, "Donato da Casentino: Un volgarizzamento trecentesco del _De claris mulieribus_ del Boccaccio," _Atti e memorie della R. Accademia Petrarca di Lettere Arti e Scienze_ 24 (1938): 265–71; Laura Torretta, "Il _Liber de claris mulieribus_ , Parte III: I traduttori del _Liber de claris mulieribus," Giornale storico della letteratura italiana_ 40 (1902): 35–50; and Francesco Novati, "Donato degli Albanzani alla cone estense," _Archivio storico italiano_ , series 5,6 (1890): 365–85. For Antonio da S. Elpido see Davide Aurelio Perini, _Bibliographia Augustiniana cum notis biographicis_ , vol. 3 (Florence: Tipografia Sordomuti, 1929–35), 148–50; and Torretta, " _Liber de claris_ ," 36.

32 Vittore Branca, _Tradizione delle opere di Giovanni Boccaccio_ , vol. 1, _Un primo elenco dei codici e tre studi_ (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1958), 92–98; vol. 2, _Un secondo elenco di manoscritti e studi sul testo del "Decameron" con due appendici_ (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1991), 57–62.

33 See de Marinis, vol. 2, 197; Elisabeth Pellegrin, _La bibliothèque des Visconti et des Sforza, ducs of Milan, au XVe siecle_ (Paris: Editions du Centre national de la recherché scientifique, 1955), 159; and Otto Pacht, _Italian Illuminated Manuscripts_ , Bodleian Library Exhibition Catalogue (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1948), 13.

34 As reported in Vespasiano da Bisticci's life of Niccolo; see Waters, _Vespasiano memoirs_ , 396 and 402. For the library of Santo Spirito see Ginetta AU7Z2S, "L'inventario della 'Parva libraria' di Santo Spirito e la biblioteca del Boccaccio," _Italia Medioevale e Humanistica_ 9 (1966): 1–74; and Oskar Hecker, _Boccaccio-Funde_ (Brunswick: G. Westermann, 1902). For inventories of other Renaissance collections containing _Famous Women_ see Lino Sighinolfi, _La biblioteca di Giovanni Marcanova_ (Bologna, 1905), 213; Luciano Gargan, "Giovanni Conversini e la cultura letteraria à Treviso nella seconda meta à del trecento,"Italia _medioevale e umanistica_ 8 (1965): 103–104; and C. Bologna, _Inventario de 'mobili di Francesco di Angelo Gaddi_ (Florence, 1883).

35 This manuscript is now in the Bodleian Library, Oxford (MS Canon. Misc. 58); see Otto Pächt and J. J. G. Alexander, _Illuminated Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library_ , vol. 2, _Italian School_ (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966), 13.

36 For the 1431 inventory of Strozzi's library see Vittorio Fanelli, "I libri di messer Palla di Nofri Strozzi (1372–1462)," _Convivium_ 7 (1949): 69–82. Strozzi's copy of _Famous Women_ is now in the Biblioteca Mediceo Laurenziana in Florence, Cod. Strozzi 93. The Strozzi manuscript is the most lavishly illustrated Latin copy of _Famous Women_ currently known; in addition to finely rubricated initials, it contains one hundred forty-two pen and ink drawings of the profiles of men, women, and a variety of beastlike grotesques. These marginalia give the impression of swiftly executed caricatures whose association with the protagonists in the narrative is suggested primarily by the appearance of relevant headdresses.

37 For a catalog of the printed editions of Boccaccio's work see Alberto Bacchi della Lega, _Serie delle edizioni delle opere di Giovanni Boccaccio_ (Bologna: Forni Editore, 1967).

38 The first fully illustrated copies of Boccaccio's lives were produced for the French translation _Des cleres et nobles femmes_ ; as early as 1403 lavishly illuminated codices for what had become one of the most popular nonreligious texts of the fourteenth century had been executed for ruling families north of the Alps. Brigitte Buettner, _Boccaccio's "Des cleres et nobles femmes": Systems of Signification in an Illuminated Manuscript_ (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1996), discusses the painted miniatures from one text and lists eleven known illuminated copies of _Des cleres et nobles femmes_. See also Buettner, "Profane Illustrations, Secular Illusions: Manuscripts in Late Medieval Courtly Society," _Art Bulletin_ 74, no. 1 (March, 1992): 75–90.

39 Kolsky, _Genealogy_ , 158.

40 See, for example, Barbara Leah Harman, "Refashioning the Renaissance," _Diacritics_ 14, no. 1 (Spring, 1984): 52–65; James Holstun, "Ranting at the New Historicism," _English Literary Renaissance_ 19, no. 2 (Spring, 1989): 189–225; Jean E. Howard, "The New Historicism in Renaissance Studies," _English Literary Renaissance_ 16, no. 1 (Winter, 1986): 13–43; Jonathan Goldberg, "The Politics of Renaissance Literature: A Review Essay," _ELH_ 49, no. 2 (Summer 1982): 514–42; Louis A. Montrose, "Professing the Renaissance: The Poetics and Politics of Culture," in _The New Historicism_ , ed. H. Aram Veeser (New York: Routledge, 1989) and "Renaissance Literary Studies and the Subject of History," _English Literary Renaissance_ 16, no. 1 (Winter 1986): 5–12.

41 Christiane L. Joost-Gaugier traces the origins of the _De viris illustribus_ tradition in "The Early Beginnings of the Notion of _Uomini Famosi_ and the _De Viris Illustribus_ in Greco-Roman Literary Tradition," _Artibus et Historiae_ 3 (1982): 97–115; and "Poggio and the Visual Tradition: _Uomini Famosi_ in Classical Literary Description," _Artibus et Historiae_ 6 (1985): 57–74.

42 Leon Battista Alberti, _The Family in Renaissance Florence_ , trans. by Renee Neu Watkins (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1969), 79.

43 For a discussion of the history, strengths, and weaknesses of text-based iconographic studies see Brendan Cassidy, "Introduction: Iconography, Texts, and Audiences," in _Iconography at the Crossroads_ , ed. Brendan Cassidy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), 3–15.

44 See, for example, Christiane L. Joost-Gaugier, "Dante and the History of Art: The Case of a Tuscan Commune, Part 1: The First Triumvirate at Lucignano," _Artibus et historiae_ 11 (1990): 15–30 and "Dante and the History of Art: The Case of a Tuscan Commune, Part II: The Sala del Consiglio at Lucignano," _Artibus et historiae_ 12 (1991): 23–46; Maria Monica Donato, "Famosi cives: testi, frammenti e cicle perduti a Firenza fra tre e quattrocento," _Ricerche di storia dell 'rte_ , 30 (1986): 27–42; and "Gli eroi romani tra storia ed exemplum. I primi cicli umanistici di uomini famosi," in _Memoria dell 'Antica nell'Arte Italiana_ , ed. S. Settis (Turin: G. Einaudi, 1985), 97–152; and Theresa Hankey, "Salutati's Epigrams for the Palazzo Vecchio," _Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes_ 22 (1967): 363–65.

45 The earliest known _uomini famosi_ cycle (now lost) reflects the influence of the medieval _neuf preux_ topos that celebrated the virtues of pre-Christian worthies. Painted by Giotto for King Robert d'Anjou of Naples, the figures in this Trecento cycle (which included Solomon, Samson, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Hercules, and four heroes of the Trojan War) were accompanied by first-person sonnets that united these exemplars in their devotion to duty. Each man was portrayed with the significant woman in his life, whom he berated as an obstacle to his glorious destiny. Although the visual juxtaposition of the men and their women has not been confirmed, Novati published a miniature which he believes to have been either copied from the Naples frescoes or inspired by the same tradition. In this miniature, a large hero placed on a pedestal spurns the supplications of a tiny woman at his feet. On the history of the _neuf preux_ tradition see Horst Schroeder, _Der Topos der "Nine Worthies" in Literatur and bildender Kunst_ (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1971) and his extensive bibliography of literary sources. Schroeder, 178–81, argues that _Famous Women_ was the source for fourteenth- and fifteenth-century German _neufs preuses_ literary canons. For Giotto's Naples cycle see Christiane L. Joost-Gaugier, "Giotto's Hero Cycle in Naples: A Prototype of _Donne illustri_ and a Possible Literary Connection," _Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte_ , 43 (1980): 311–18; Robert L. Mode, "The Monte Giordano 'Famous Men' Cycle of Cardinal Giordano Orsini and the Uomini Famosi Tradition in Fifteenth Century Italian Art," PhD diss., University of Michigan, 1970, 166–73; Francesco Novati, "Un cassone nuziale senese e le raffigurazioni delle donne illustri nell'arte Italiana dei secoli XIV e XV," _Rassegna D'Arte_ 11 (1911): 61–67; and Paul Schubring, "Uomini Famosi," _Repertorium für Kunstwissenschaft_ 23 (1900): 424–25. For the sonnets associated with this cycle see Giuseppe de Blasiis, "Immagini di uomini famosi," _Napoli Nobilissima_ 9 (1900): 65–67.

46 For extant evidence of several of these cycles see Donato, "Famosi cives," 27–42.

47 "Spechiatevi in costoro voi the reggete se volete regnare mille et mille anni; Seguite it ben commune et non v'inganne, Se alcuna passione in voi avete." For this fresco cycle see Sibilla Symeonides, _Taddeo di Bartolo_ (Siena: Accademia Senese degli Intronati, 1965), 166-69; and Nicolai Rubenstein, "Political Ideas in Sienese Art: The Frescoes by Ambrogio Lorenzetti and Taddeo di Bartolo in the Palazzo Pubblico," _Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes_ 21 (1958): 193–97. Siena had rejected an oligarchical form of government when it banished the famous _Nove_ , and between 1404 and 1487 functioned officially as a republic.

48 These portraits were executed in the Sala dell'Orologio of the Palazzo Vecchio by the popular painter Domenico Ghirlandaio and his workshop in 1485. See Nicole Dacos, "Ghirlandaio et l'antique," _Bulletin de I 'institut Historique Belge de Rome_ 34 (1962): 422–23; and Jan Lauts, _Domenico Ghirlandaio_ (Vienna: M. von Schröder, 1943), 50. Vasari also mentions this cycle; see _Vile_ , vol. 3,269. Similar cycles painted by unknown artists include that in the town hall of Lucignano, and on the back wall of the _loggia del giuramento_ in Pistoia, where public officials would swear to uphold communal laws. For Lucignano see Christiane L. Joost-Gaugier, "Why Janus at Lucignano? Ovid, Dante, St. Augustine and the First King of Italy," _Acta Historiae Artium Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae_ 30 (1984): 109–122; and "Dante and the History of Art," Parts I and II; also Rubenstein, "Political Ideas," 207. For Pistoia see Alfredo Chiti, _Pistoia, guida storica artistica_ , 3rd edn (Pistoia, 1956), 40.

49 An anonymous fifteenth-century drawing personifies Florence in the company of five of her 'sons'; the progeny of whom she is so proud are Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, the mathematician Paolo dell'Abaco and the doctor Tommaso del Garbo. See Donato, "Famosi Cives," 29.

50 Salutati wrote the inscriptions for this cycle; see Theresa Hankey, "Salutati's Epigrams for the Palazzo Vecchio," _Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes_ 22 (1967): 363–65.

51 _Cassoni_ averaged approximately 40-45 cm in height and 140–160 cm in length. From the late fourteenth century, _cassoni_ , filled with the bride's trousseau and objects promised in her dowry, formed an integral part of the wedding procession that wound through the streets from the home of the bride's father to that of her new husband. This practice appears to have been abandoned in the mid-Quattrocento, when baskets took the place of _cassoni_ for transportation purposes and the family of the groom assumed the task of providing and decorating the marriage chests. See Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, "Les coffres de manage et les plateaux d'accouchee à Florence: Archive, ethnologie, iconographie," in _A travers l'image: Lecture iconographique et sens de l'oeuvre_ , ed. Sylvie Deswarte-Rosa (Paris: Klincksieck, 1994), 309–23 and "Le zane della sposa: La fiorentina e it suo corredo nel Rinascimento," _Memoria_ 11–12 (1986): 12–23; see also Ellen Callmann, "Apollonio di Giovanni and Painting for the Early Renaissance Room," _Antichita_ à _Viva_ 27 (1988): 5–18. _Cassone_ workshops consisting of joiners, _mettidoro_ , and painters proliferated in Quattrocento Italy. Callmann, _Apollonio di Giovanni_ (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974), 34, provides evidence from a seventeenth-century transcription of Apollonio di Giovanni's workshop accounting book that nearly one hundred seventy _cassone_ orders were filled in his workshop alone. For possible inaccuracies in this transcription see John Kent Lydecker, "The Domestic Setting of the Arts in Renaissance Florence," PhD diss., Johns Hopkins University, 1988, 272. For the account books of another _bottega_ , that of Bernardo di Roselli (1475–1537), see Anna Padoa Rizzo and Alessandro Guidotti, "Pubblico e privato, committenza e clientela: Botteghe e produzione a Firenze tra XV e XVI secolo," _Ricerche Storiche_ 26 (1986): 535–50; see also Anabel Thomas, _The Painter's Practice in Renaissance Tuscany_ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 10–11 and 54.

52 For paintings based on Boccaccio's vernacular fiction see Victoria Kirkham, "Poetic Ideals of Love and Beauty," in _Virtue and Beauty: Leonardo's Ginevra de'Benci and Renaissance Portraits of Women_ , ed. David Alan Brown (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), 53; Ellen Callmann, "Subjects from Boccaccio in Italian Painting, 1375–1525," _Studi sul Boccaccio_ 23 (1995): 19–78; Paul F. Watson, "In a Court of Love: Giovanni Toscani and Giovanni Boccaccio at the Elvehjem," _Annual Report of the Bulletin of the Elvehjem Museum of Art_ (1985–6): 4–16; "Boccaccio's _Ninfale Fiesolano_ in Early Florentine _Cassone_ Painting," _Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes_ 34 (1971): 331–33; and "A Preliminary List of Subjects from Boccaccio in Italian Painting, 1400–1500," _Studi sul Boccaccio_ 15 (1985–6): 149–66; V. Tatrai, "II maestro della Storia di Griselda e una famiglia senese di mecenati dimenticata," _Acta Historiae Artium Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae_ 25 (1979): 27–66; and Paul F. Watson and Victoria Kirkham, _"Amore e Virtù_ : Two Salvers Depicting Boccaccio's _Comedia delle Ninfe Fiorentine_ in the Metropolitan Museum," _Metropolitan Museum Journal_ 10 (1975): 35–50.

53 The domestic function and placement of _cassoni_ are referred to by Alberti, _The Family_ , 118. See also Ellen Callmann, "William Blundell Spence and the Transformation of Renaissance _Cassoni," Burlington Magazine_ 141 (June, 1999): 338–48; and _Beyond Nobility: Art for the Private Citizen in the Early Renaissance_ (Allentown, PA: Allentown Art Museum, 1980); Peter Thornton, _The Italian Renaissance Interior_ , 1400–1600 (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1991), 192–204; and Charles de la Ronciere, "Tuscan Notables on the Eve of the Renaissance," in _A History of Private Life_ , vol. 2, _Revelations of the Medieval World_ , trans. Arthur Goldhammer (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989), 183–4; John Kent Lydecker, "Domestic Setting," 146–59; and Attilio Schiaparelli, _La casa Fiorentina e i suoi arredi nei secoli XIV e XV_ (Florence: Sansoni, 1908), repr. in 2 vol., ed. Maria Sframeli and Laura Pagnotta (Florence: Le Lettere, 1983). For a discussion of the economic and social importance of _cassoni_ and fifteenth-century 'decorative arts' see Richard A. Goldthwaite, _Wealth and the Demand for Art in Italy, 1300–1600_ (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993); and _The Building of Renaissance Florence_ (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980; reprinted 1990).

54 For Vasari's famous description of the importance, function and decoration of _cassoni_ in his life of Dello Delli see Giorgio Vasari, _Le vite de più eccellenti pittori, scultori ed architettori_ , ed. Gaetano Milanesi, vol. 2 (Florence: Sansoni, 1878), 148–49.

55 The seminal study on _cassone_ is Paul Schubring, _Cassoni: Truhen and Truhenbilder der italianischen Friihrenaissance: ein Beitrag zur Profanmalerei in Quattrocento_ , 2nd edn, 2 vols. (Leipzig: K.W. Hiersemann, 1923). For _cassone_ themes and subject matter see Paolo Tinagli, _Women in Italian Renaissance Art_ (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997); and "Womanly Virtues in Quattrocento Florentine marriage furnishings," _Women in Italian Renaissance Culture and Society_ (Oxford: Legenda, University of Oxford, 2000), 265–84; Jerzy Miziolek, _Soggetti classici sui cassoni fiorentini alla vigilia del Rinascimento_ (Warsaw: Instytut Sztuki Polskiej Akademii Nauk, 1996); Salvatore Settis, "Traiano a Hearst Castle: due cassoni estensi," _I Tatti studies_ 6 (1995): 31–82; Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, "Les Noces feintes: sur quelques lectures de deux thèmes iconographiques dans les _cassoni_ florentins," I _Tatti Studies_ 6 (1995): 11–30; Cecilia Filippini, "Tematiche e soggetti rappresentati su forzieri, spalliere e deschi da parto," in _Maestri e botteghe: pittura a Firenze alla fine del Quattrocento_ , exhibition catalogue, Palazzo Strozzi, 16 October 1992–20 January 1993 (Florence: Silvana Editoriale, 1992), 232–37; Rose Marie San Juan, "Mythology, Women and Renaissance Private Life: The Myth of Eurydice in Italian Furniture Painting," _Art History_ 25, no. 2 (June, 1992): 127–45; Cristelle Baskins, " 'La Festa di Susanna': Virtue on Trial in Renaissance Sacred Drama and Painted Wedding Chests," _Art History_ 14, no. 3 (Sept. 1991): 329‒44; and "Typology, Sexuality and the Renaissance Esther," in _Sexuality and Gender in Early Modern Europe_ , ed. James G. Turner (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 31–54; Brucia Witthoft, "Marriage Rituals and Marriage Chests in Quattrocento Florence," _Artibus et Historiae_ 3 (1982): 43–59; Ellen Callmann, "The Growing Threat to Marital Bliss as seen in Fifteenth-Century Florentine Paintings," _Studies in Iconography_ 5 (1979): 73–92; and _Apollonio di Giovanni_ (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974); and Paul F. Watson, _"Virtil_ and _Voluptas_ in _Cassone_ Painting," PhD diss., Yale University, 1970. For a related discussion of _spalliere_ see Anne B. Barriault, _Spalliera Paintings of Renaissance Tuscany: Fables of Poets for Patrician Homes_ (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1991); and "The Abundant, Beautiful, Chaste and Wise: Domestic Painting of the Italian Renaissance in the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts," _Arts in Virginia_ 30 (1991): 2–21; and "Florentine Paintings for Spalliere," (unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Virginia, 1985). Cristelle Baskins discusses multiple, non-exemplary interpretations in _Cassone Painting, Humanism, and Gender in Early Modern Italy_ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). For a more general overview see Graham Hughes, _Renaissance Cassoni_ (Polegate: Starcity Publishing and London: Art Books International, 1997); John Pope-Hennessy and Keith Christiansen, _Secular Painting in Fifteenth-Century Tuscany: Birth Trays, Cassone Panels and Portraits_ (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1980; repr. from _Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin_ , Summer 1980); and Nicoletta Pons, "Arredi domestici e oggetti di devozione privata," in _Maestri e botteghe_ , 219–31.

56 See Vasari's life of Francesco Salviati, _Vite_ , vol. 7, 20–21.

57 For the most thorough treatment of _deschi da parto_ to date, see Jacqueline Marie Musacchio, _The Art and Ritual of Childbirth in Renaissance Italy_ (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999). See also Roberta M. Olson, _The Florentine Tondo_ (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000); and "Lost and Partially Found: The Tondo, a Significant Florentine Art Form in Documents of the Renaissance," _Artibus et historiae_ 14 (1993): 31–67; Peter Thornton, _The Italian Renaissance Interior_ (New York: H.N. Abrams, 1991), 252–53; and Diane Cole Ahl, "Renaissance Birth Salvers and the Richmond _Judgement of Solomon," Studies in Iconography_ 7 (1981): 157–74.

58 Noted in the inventory of Lorenzo's estate taken after his death in 1492; see Marco Spallanzani and Giovanna Gaeta Berteld, _Libro d'inventario dei beni di Lorenzo Il Magnifico_ (Florence: Associazione Amici del Bargello, 1992), 14.

# [Chapter 1

Authorial Intent](04-9781315261478_contents.xhtml#chap1)

In the Dedication and Preface, before introducing any of his illustrious ladies, Boccaccio lays the conceptual foundation for _Famous Women_ by foreshadowing the significant themes that will be developed throughout the work. Primary among these is the threat to social stability posed by women who sought to exercise power outside the domestic sphere to which prevailing convention assigned them. A corollary of this fundamental premise is the necessity of persuading women to uphold virtues traditionally associated with female domesticity, particularly chastity and obedience. For his thesis to find fulfillment in society, Boccaccio required a male audience prepared to safeguard patriarchal institutions. Accordingly, he uses the prefatory material to define his intended readership and the influence he expects his text to have upon their moral perspective and sense of social responsibility.

## **Dedication: The Nature of Virtue**

_Famous Women_ opens with a dedicatory letter to Andrea Acciaiuoli, who, for political reasons, was chosen as dedicatee when the text was nearing completion. In choosing to honor Andrea, Boccaccio, perennially in quest of a patron, cast his net wide: she was not only the wife of an important Neapolitan military commander, Bartolomeo II di Capua, Count of Altavilla, but also the sister of Niccol6 Acciaiuoli, Grand Seneschal of the Kingdom of Naples. Boccaccio had met Niccolò when they were young businessmen in Naples, and had tried unsuccessfully for many years to parlay this connection into direct patronage.1 When, in 1362, he received an invitation from Niccolò to visit the Neapolitan court, Boccaccio prepared to present to Andrea the compendium of biographies of notable women that he had been composing over the course of the previous year.

The timing and content of Boccaccio's dedication strongly suggest that Andrea Acciaiuoli, with her close Neapolitan connections, was a screen dedicatee through whom Boccaccio hoped to recommend himself to a substantially more powerful and illustrious personage: Queen Joanna of Naples. This argument is supported by the redaction history of the manuscript, in which a number of lives (including that of Joanna herself) were added to _Famous Women_ in the interval between Boccaccio's receipt of the invitation and his visit to Naples.2 Moreover, Joanna, "that radiant splendor of Italy, that unique glory not only of women but of rulers" [ _FW_ 3], is the first person to be named in _Famous Women,_ where she is identified as the "distinguished lady" [ _FW_ 3] to whom he would have liked to have dedicated his book. Further contemplation, however, led him to fear that his work would pale against the magnificence of this monarch: "... as her royal luster is so dazzling and the flickering flame of my little book so small and weak, I gradually changed my mind, fearing that the greater would altogether eclipse the lesser light" [ _FW_ 3].3

Beyond making a suitable show of humility, the rhetoric that Boccaccio employs when writing of Joanna immediately sets the stage for the proposition that politically powerful women have the capacity to render impotent the men who come into contact with them. Boccaccio recognizes the danger to himself that such association might bring, and therefore searches for a woman whose character and station in life will not threaten to consume him. Embedded within his claim to have found in Andrea a woman whose reputation would give _Famous Women_ a favorable entrée into the public realm is the implication that her more modest stature would not overshadow his efforts as the queen's would have done.

The relationship between _Famous Women_ and its dedicatee functions as a model for relations between the sexes which emerges as the ideal over the course of the text itself. This model, based on the principle that a woman's glory should derive from that of her significant male connections, would have been compromised had Queen Joanna been selected. With Andrea, however, it is maintained, as _Famous Women_ "will do as much to keep your name bright for posterity as (with Fortune's help) the county of Monteodorisio did formerly and as the county of Altavilla does now" [ _FW_ 5]. The Counts of Monteodorisio and Altavilla were Andrea's first and second husbands respectively; Boccaccio thus defines Andrea's renown as having been substantially acquired through her associations with worthy men, among whom he now numbers himself.

In conceptualizing her two husbands as consecutively enhancing Andrea's renown, Boccaccio sidesteps an awkward situation created by his headlong rush to court patronage through Andrea. Integral to the ethos of _Famous Women_ is the moral imperative for widows to remain constant to their deceased husbands, an injunction which not only Andrea but Queen Joanna had defied. In response to the difficulty presented by the two women Boccaccio ultimately decided to honor in his dedication, he deftly reframed Andrea's remarriage as support for the facet of his thesis which holds association with great men to be a preferred path to legitimate female glory. In joining the cadre of male associates who have played an active role in shaping Andrea's reputation, Boccaccio signals his approval of women who are elevated through their alliance with prominent men. His dedication sets the stage for distinguishing between women whose road to glory is realized through their links to remarkable men, and those who seek fame on their own terms and in service of their own ambition. That he strongly disapproves of women who aspire to positions of distinction and power on their own behalf will be made abundantly evident in the biographies themselves.

But can any woman, even one possessing qualities traditionally valued in a female, merit the acclaim of serving as honorary intercessor between _Famous Women_ and its public readership? The answer, as Boccaccio continues to outline Andrea's suitability for her role as dedicatee, appears to be 'not quite':

... as I noted your generosity of soul and your powers of intellect far surpassing the endowments of womankind... I saw that what nature has denied the weaker sex God has freely instilled in your breast and complemented with marvelous virtues, to the point where he willed you to be known by the name you bear (Andres being in Greek the equivalent of the Latin word for 'men'). [ _FW_ 5]

Andrea is extraordinary—though female, she possesses virtues withheld from womankind by nature. Her paradox is rendered even more striking by her apparently providential endowment with a name that means 'men'. In justifying his decision to dedicate _Famous Women_ to Andrea, Boccaccio suggests that not only has she miraculously overcome deficiencies innate to the rest of her sex, she has been christened, with divine blessing, an honorary male. This passage introduces two premises which will prove fundamental to the judgments Boccaccio delivers throughout his text: first, men and women are different in their constitutional and moral essentials, and, second, virtues associated with masculinity are valued more highly than those associated with femininity. In Boccaccio's cosmology, there can be no higher praise for an exceptional woman than to suggest that she does not simply fall on the superior end of the female continuum but differs from other women in her very essence. This position is responsible for the accusation made by modern commentators that Boccaccio is utilizing backhanded compliments to undermine the accomplishments of praiseworthy women; on the contrary, Boccaccio intends, by distinguishing a woman from the ordinary members of her sex, to bestow on her the highest compliment he can offer to any female.

A text in which the highest praise falls to women who defy the laws of nature cannot have been intended primarily as a sourcebook of role models for women. It is not surprising, therefore, that Boccaccio does not press the exemplary function of his text on Andrea; on the contrary, he suggests that she "read it occasionally [as] its counsels will sweeten your leisure, and you will find delight in the virtues of your sex and in the charm of the stories" [ _FW_ 5]. Only after suggesting this rather frivolous approach to his work does Boccaccio note that Andrea's spirit might be spurred "to emulation of the deeds of women in the past" [ _FW 5_ ]. He then proceeds to clarify the manner in which Andrea is to reflect upon the ancients, and it becomes apparent that he means for emulation of his heroines by contemporary women to be limited to those qualities conventionally ascribed to virtuous females:

Whenever you, who profess the Christian religion, read that a pagan woman has some worthy quality which you feel you lack, blush and reproach yourself that... you have let yourself be surpassed by a pagan in probity or chastity or resolution [honestate aut pudicitia vel virtute supereris ab extera]... so you should surpass in spiritual excellence not only your contemporaries but even the women of antiquity. [ _FW_ 5, 7]

In this advice Boccaccio preempts any challenge to the status quo that might result from untutored probing into the lives of politically active women of yore, and represents a downshifting from the threat of unnaturally powerful women exercising authority in the public arena to the benign image of conventional women incorporating uncontroversial values into the private sphere of their lives.

Unlike legendary pagan women, Andrea Acciaiuoli has the hope of both earthly recognition and heavenly reward, and Boccaccio's brief accounting of the qualities required to attain both conform to contemporary standards of appropriate behavior:

Remember that you should not embellish your beauty with cosmetics, as do the majority of your sex, but increase its distinction through integrity, holiness, and the finest actions. In this fashion you will please Him who granted you beauty; at the same time, you will stand out among famous women in this earthly life and... you will be received into eternal light by the Giver of all blessings. [ _FW 7_ ]

Here, again, Boccaccio praises Andrea by distinguishing her from the common run of womankind. As noted previously, however, there is no compelling reason to interpret this as a strategy of tempering compliments with insult; rather, the dissociation of a woman from her gender constitutes the greatest good attainable, and therefore the highest honor Boccaccio can accord.

## **Preface: A Book for Men about Women**

In the Preface to _Famous Women_ Boccaccio turns from dispensing flattery and cautionary advice to his female dedicatee to discourse designed to garner the approval of a male audience and, hence, acceptance into an established realm of male-dominated scholarship. A rather apologetic statement to the effect that he has deviated in some respects from traditional form in order to accommodate the needs and tastes of female readers must be considered alongside the assertion made in the Dedication that he wrote the text for the pleasure of his friends, which more closely corresponds to the many elements in _Famous Women_ that indicate Boccaccio's intention of courting a male readership.4 The text is situated in a tradition that would only be known and appreciated by a highly educated readership overwhelmingly comprised, in the fourteenth century, of males. Boccaccio's desire to contribute significantly to the _viri illustri_ (illustrious men) genre is made apparent in the opening paragraph of the Preface, where he begins by remembering the "ancient authors who composed biographies of famous men in the form of compendia" [ _FW_ 9]. He then notes that the work of these writers is being continued and expanded upon by "that renowned man and great poet, Petrarch" [ _FW 5_ ].5 To this venerable company comes Boccaccio, who seeks to fill a gap in the genre by commemorating for posterity the names and deeds of women who "have gained a reputation throughout the world for any deed whatsoever" [ _FW_ 11]. He relates his decision to include the infamous alongside the admirable to the practice of classical biographers, further aligning his text with a revered erudite tradition.

In his _Commento alla Divina Commedia e altri scritti intorno a Dante_ , Boccaccio wrote that "there is much more art and gravity in speaking Latin than in the mother tongue," and his decision to compose _Famous Women_ in Latin not only proclaims the work as belonging to a literary tradition endowed with solemnity and authority, but also defines his target readership.6 Riccardo Fubini points out that in the fourteenth century the two distinct levels of literary discourse represented by Latin and the vernacular languages corresponded conceptually to the relationship obtaining not only between scholars and artisans but to that between maturity and youth and between men and women.7 Whereas Boccaccio's fictional oeuvre was written in the vernacular and was hence more readily accessible to all literate persons, _Famous Women_ was written in Latin, substantially narrowing the scope of its potential readership and excluding the vast majority of even literate women.8

Throughout _Famous Women,_ Boccaccio conceptualizes women who merit praise as having been animated by masculine spirits, thereby opening the door to male emulation of their example while effectively closing it to women. Boccaccio recurs in the Preface to the dual nature of the sexes as introduced in the Dedication when he asks, rhetorically,

If we grant that men deserve praise... how much more should women be extolled— almost all of whom are endowed by nature with soft, frail bodies and sluggish minds— when they take on a manly spirit... and dare to execute deeds that would be extremely difficult even for men? [ _FW_ 9]

These observations further the work begun in the Dedication to differentiate the "manly" women discussed in the text from the women of his own day, thus defusing their exemplary potential for contemporary females. As models of behavior, women celebrated for their intelligence and/or for accomplishing deeds of daring would be useless to a sex almost universally handicapped with inadequate minds and bodies. Were the rare Latin-proficient woman to acquire a copy of Boccaccio's manuscript, her ability to identify with Boccaccio's heroines would be stifled from the outset by his assertion that their deeds would have been formidable for men and impossible without the possession of a masculine spirit. While this impediment diminishes the likelihood that women might connect in a meaningful way with women noted for their unorthodox behavior, it serves to strengthen the potential of _Famous Women_ as a guide to male behavior. Once Boccaccio has pointed out that it is contrary to female nature to emulate many of the laudable women he will present, it remains for men to be inspired by their example. Invoking a male spirit to explain female accomplishment removes a barrier to male identification with Boccaccio's heroines; further, by identifying the deeds described in _Famous Women_ as challenging even for males, Boccaccio goads men to strive to be among the best of their sex, and certainly better than the best women.

In addition to using language that spoke to men, written in a language that men spoke, Boccaccio frequently employs rhetoric that specifically addresses a male audience, while at no point following the Dedication does he address himself to women directly. Perhaps due to the nature of his subject matter, and in deference to his female dedicatee, Boccaccio notes "the accomplishments of these ladies will please women _no less_ than men [my emphasis]"; this statement plainly indicates that he takes a primarily male readership for granted [ _FW_ 13].

Boccaccio notes in his preface that his is an "account that praises deeds worthy of commemoration and sometimes heaps reproaches upon crimes" [ _FW_ 11]. The exemplary value of such a text is that it may "drive the noble towards glory and to some degree restrain villains from their wicked acts" [ _FW 11_ ]. Glory, for women, is achieved through "virginity, purity, holiness, and invincible firmness in overcoming carnal desire" [ _FW_ 13], and although Boccaccio identifies these as the virtues which will aid contemporary women on their path to "true and everlasting glory" [eternam et veram gloriam, _FW_ 12–13], it will be seen that the pagan women whom he immortalizes in the pages of _Famous Women_ are held to precisely the same standard. Those women whom Boccaccio remembers for chasing "the fleeting glory of this world" [ _FW_ 13] are vilified, and the author's disapproval of female yearning for earthly fame becomes a powerful subtext that encourages men to fulfill their natural preeminence as the dominant sex.

_____________

1 For Boccaccio's troubled relationship with Niccolo Acciaiuoli see Thomas C. Chubb, _The Life of Giovanni Boccaccio_ (Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press, 1930), 229–37.

2 In analyzing the redaction history of _Famous Women,_ Pier Giorgio Ricci identified seven stages; see "Un autografo del _De mulieribus claris_ ," 115–24, and "Le fasi redazionali del _De mulieribus claris_ ," 125–35, in _Studi sulla vita e le opere del Boccaccio_ (Milan and Naples: Ricciardi, 1985). Vittorio Zaccaria has identified nine stages of revision; see "Le Fasi redazionali del 'De mulieribus claris'," _Studi sul Boccaccio_ 1 (1963): 253–332; and Guglielmo Zappacosta and Vittorio Zaccaria, "Per it testo del _De mulieribus claris_ ," _Studi sul Boccaccio_ 7 (1973): 239–70. Brown summarizes and discusses these stages; see _Famous Women,_ xii–xiv. See also Kolsky, _Genealogy,_ 17–21; Ricarda Muller, _Ein Frauenbuch des Frühen Humanismus Unterschungen Zu Boccaccios_ " _De mulieribus claris_ " (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1992); G. Pasquali, _Storia della tradizione e critica del testo,_ 3rd edn (Florence: La Lettere, 1988), 443–48; Pier Giorgio Ricci, "Studi sulle opere latine e volgari del Boccaccio," _Rinascimento_ 10 (1959): 12–21; G. Traversari, "Appunti sulle redazioni del 'De claris mulieribus'," in _Miscellanea di studi in onore di G. Mazzoni,_ vol. 1 (Florence, 1907), 225 ff.; and Attilio Hortis, _Studi sulle opere latine del Boccaccio_ (Trieste: Libreria Julius Dase Editrice, 1879).

3 Queen Joanna, who was implicated in the murder of her first husband, Andrew of Hungary, and was herself assassinated, has been seen variously as bringing about a golden age of learning and prosperity to Naples and as presiding over a degenerate and amoral court. For the former view see the account written 1572–81 by Angelo di Costanzo, _Istoria del regno di Napoli,_ 3rd edn (Turin, 1886); for the latter see the work of a fourteenth-century historian, Domenico de Gravina, _Chronicon de rebus in Apulia gestis_ , ed. Albano Sorbelli, _Rerum italicarum scriptores_ 13 (Cilià di Castello: S. Lapi, 1903). For modern accounts see Italo de Feo, _Giovanna d'Angio regina di Napoli_ (Naples: F. Fiorentino, 1968); and Emile G. Leonard, _Histoire de Jeanne I, refine de Naples, comtesse de Provence (1343– 1382)_ , 3 vols. (Monaco: Imprimerie de Monaco, 1932–37).

4 "... since women are generally unacquainted with history, they require and enjoy a more extended account" [ _FW_ 13].

5 For the influence of Petrarch's _De viris illustribus_ on Boccaccio see Kolsky, _Genealogy_ , 39–47.

6 Giovanni Boccaccio, _Commento alla Divina Commedia e altri scritti intorno a Dante_ , ed. D. Guerri (Bari: La Terza, 1918), 115.

7 Riccardo Fubini, _Humanism and Secularization from Petrarch to Valla_ , trans. Martha King (Durham: Duke University Press, 2003), 17.

8 For the Latin literacy of educated women in the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance see, for example, Armando Petrucci, _Writers and Readers in Medieval Italy: Studies in the History of Written Culture_ (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995), 170–235; and Paul Gehl, _A Moral Art: Grammar, Society and Culture in Trecento Florence_ (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993), 32–33 and 205–206.

# [Chapter 2

A Bad Example](04-9781315261478_contents.xhtml#chap2)

## Overstepping the Boundaries

Boccaccio opens the body of _Famous Women_ with a pair of biographies that alert the reader to the dangerous consequences of illegitimate female ambition. Beginning with Eve, he warns against females who seek exaltation through a self-serving path unsanctioned by patriarchal authority. In the second chapter he breaks the historical sequencing of his lives in order to further elaborate this point with the story of Semiramis, and will .subsequently recur to this theme in later biographies of politically prominent women.

From the outset, _Famous Women_ endorses the familiar Judeo-Christian claim that the woes of the world were initiated by female disobedience. Boccaccio introduces the first woman in terms of her relationship to the male for whom she was made: Eve was extracted from Adam's side "ripe for marriage" [ _FW_ 15]. Created free from original sin but not from the weakness of character inherent to females, Eve soon suffers the consequences of "a woman's fickleness" [ _FW_ 17] when she chooses to trust the serpent's eloquence over God's admonitions. Boccaccio attributes her disobedience to a desire for unwarranted exaltation, asserting that she was motivated by a belief that she could "attain greater glory" [ampliorem gloriam] and "rise to greater heights" [altiora conscensuram arbitraretur, _FW_ 16, 17]. This represents a calculated interpretation of Genesis, in which, according to the Vulgate, the serpent told Eve that eating the fruit would open their eyes and they would be like gods, knowing good and evil.1 Genesis itself does not attribute to Eve a desire to know good and evil, merely a recognition that the fruit looked good to eat.2 Boccaccio 's assertion that she sought personal exaltation through eating the fruit is entirely extratextual. Moreover, her act of sharing the fruit with Adam effectively neutralizes the suggestion that her disobedience was actuated by a selfish desire for personal aggrandizement.

Mankind's Fall, for Boccaccio, results from Eve's desire for _gloria._ The consequences of Eve's ambition are devastating, just as they will be for all females in _Famous Women_ who are similarly motivated. Boccaccio's view of female ambition contrasts starkly with his attitude toward what he considers to be the natural male yearning for worldly glory. In _De casibus virorum illustrium (The Fates of Illustrious Men,_ mid-1350s), a work bemoaning the corruption of authority, this striving is seen as a providential blessing.3 In the 'Defense of Alcibiades' he writes, "Our soul is implanted with a divine gift comprising a fiery strength, a divine beginning, and an insatiable desire for glory. When the soul is a great one, not weakened by bodily sloth, it cannot be restrained in the little prison of the breast."4 When writing of _our_ soul Boccaccio speaks to his fellow men, for unrestrained female souls, as we will see, are nothing but trouble.

Boccaccio's view that glory-seeking women ultimately imperil both themselves and the men around them is immediately supported in the biography of Semiramis, Queen of the Assyrians.5 He relates the legend that Semiramis, "belying her sex" [ _FW_ 19], masqueraded as her young son Ninyas after her husband's death in order that she might rule the empire. In this biography Boccaccio continues to portray duplicity as the natural preserve of women: Semiramis is aided by her "feminine cunning" and "womanly deceit" [ _FW_ 19]. Nevertheless, as long as Semiramis uses them for the purpose of retaining and expanding her husband's empire for the benefit of his descendents, Boccaccio does not fault her and, indeed, admires her martial talents.6

During Semiramis's reign an event took place which for Boccaccio was emblematic of her leadership and resolve. When the vassal state of Babylon rebelled against Assyrian rule, Semiramis, learning of the uprising while performing her toilette, "threw aside her comb and instantly rose in anger from her womanly pursuits, took up arms, and led her troops to a siege of the powerful city. She did not finish arranging her hair until she had forced the surrender of that mighty place" [ _FW_ 21]. Boccaccio's framing of this famous episode as the rejection of frivolous feminine occupation in favor of daring masculine endeavor is characteristic of rhetoric he employs throughout _Famous Women_ to effectively transform women into role models for men. Male identification with this warrior queen is eased by her simulation of a masculine form, and when disguised as a man she is unafraid to use weapons "with manly spirit," able to "accomplish many great deeds worthy of even the most powerful men" [ _FW_ 19, 21]. Accounting for a woman's extraordinary deeds through the observation that they had 'become male' was not uncommon in the Middle Ages, and Boccaccio's discomfort with women accomplishing even admirable deeds in traditionally male realms is such that he routinely attributes such achievement to a masculine spirit.7

Boccaccio's depiction of the life of Semiramis consists of two distinct phases, both of which further his goals for _Famous Women._ 8 In the first, epitomized by the Babylonian episode, Semiramis is deputized by the author as an honorary male acting in the role of regent for her underage son. When she no longer rules on behalf of her child but instead usurps the authority which ought to have devolved upon the now-mature Ninyas, Boccaccio abandons his treatment of her as a worthy man and begins to engage with her as a vice-ridden woman. In this, Boccaccio exploits his narrative to strengthen the principle theme of his work (the peril to men that powerful women represent) and does this by creating an image of a woman who, despite her extraordinarily admirable masculine qualities, could not overcome her corrupt feminine nature.

Boccaccio informs his reader that, "like others of her sex, this unhappy female was constantly burning with carnal desire" [ _FW_ 23]. Her prurience knew no bounds. She enacted a law by which all of her subjects could adopt any manner of profligacy without fear of censure and was herself notorious for having lovers executed once they had satisfied her sexually. Boccaccio reports that Semiramis ruled for thirty-two years; she did not content herself with assuming the reins of power for the duration of her regency, and through her continued presence on the throne began to corrupt the morals and destroy the very lives of her male subjects. Worse, for Boccaccio, Semiramis's usurpation of legitimate male power undermined the heir to the Assyrian throne as, in an "unspeakable act of seduction... more beastly than human" [ _FW_ 23], she took her son Ninyas as one of her lovers. At this point in the text Semiramis's previous assumption of a male identity takes on sinister overtones as Boccaccio notes that Ninyas, "as though he had changed sex with his mother... languished idly in bed" [ _FW_ 23]. The price of her continued virility was the emasculation of her son.

Boccaccio's account of Semiramis's ascent and decline follows a trajectory defined by the legitimacy of her power; once that power extends beyond what was hers by duty, it comes at the expense of male prerogatives and is an affront to the natural order. She begins to prey on the sexuality of men as well as on the privileges associated with their gender and rises from the bed of the rightful king energized to do battle. He, by contrast, becomes increasingly passive, enervated and domesticated. This unnatural situation is eventually corrected when Ninyas musters up sufficient anger to kill his mother and assume his rightful place on the throne.

For Boccaccio, Semiramis's eventual downfall is attributable to the same inherent flaw that led to the fall of mankind through Eve: the female nature. The feminine defects exposed in these opening chapters of _Famous Women_ are damning indeed: women are untrustworthy, and their inconstancy is fuelled by a physiological inclination towards promiscuity. More sinister than these frailties, however, is the vice shared by the two women chosen by Boccaccio to establish the principal evil addressed through his biographies, namely, a desire for greatness and glory beyond that to which nature has entitled them.

Boccaccio continues to build his argument by citing Niobe (XV), Queen of Thebes, who was so consumed by her overweening pride at having had fourteen outstanding children that she declared herself worthy of the honors bestowed on Latona, the mother of Apollo and Diana. When all of her children died shortly after her assertion of this outrageous claim, the Thebans attributed the tragedy to divine reprisal for Niobe's having compared herself favorably to the mother of two Olympian gods. In his analysis of Niobe's hubris, Boccaccio writes that, although pride is objectionable in men,

... it is perfectly unbearable to observe proud women. For the most part, Nature has made men high-spirited, while she has given a meek and submissive character to women, who are more suited to luxury than to power. For this reason, it should not be surprising if God's wrath is swifter and his sentence more harsh against proud women whenever it happens that, like foolish Niobe, they go beyond the boundaries of their weakness. [ _FW_ 69]

Like Eve and Semiramis, Niobe did not recognize the limits proper to her sex, and Boccaccio comfortably allies the Judeo-Christian God with the notoriously petty and jealous deities of antiquity in their shared view of proud women. Across all distinctions of time, culture, and religion, pride is intolerable in women because it violates their natural condition of self-effacement.

Attempting to overreach their divinely instituted limitations is an offense perpetrated by many of Boccaccio's women, and in several instances an unnatural predilection for wielding political authority is presented as one of a constellation of deviant proclivities. One of the worst offenders is Athaliah (LI), daughter of King Ahab of Israel, who became the Queen of Jerusalem when her husband, Jehoram, was crowned king. Boccaccio's framing of Athaliah's life follows a pattern, which originates in Semiramis's biography, for the depiction of legendary queens who, finding themselves widowed, ultimately seek to govern in their own right rather than as regent for the rightful heir. Employing violent and/or deceitful means, these conniving queens reign only until deposed by the legitimate male ruler. No motivation other than a craving for preeminence and control is ever ascribed to these women, and, with the exception of Semiramis, little or no mention is made of the actual quality of their leadership. The lives of these queens inevitably end in ignominious downfall, usually accompanied by dishonorable death.

Athaliah, following the deaths of her husband and son, "was inflamed with a desire to rule" [ _FW_ 209]. Failing even to mourn her dead son Ahaziah, and while "the earth was still wet" [ _FW_ 209] with his blood, she plotted the murder of the extant male descendants of the line of David. Thinking the resulting slaughter had succeeded in removing all impediments to her monarchy, she ascended the throne and reigned for seven years. Unknown to Athaliah, however, her young grandson Joash had been safely hidden and was eventually brought forward as king by the high priest. The queen was executed in disgrace.

The construction of Athaliah's biography illustrates Boccaccio's selective rendering of lives from authoritative sources. In the version of her rise and fall presented in _Famous Women,_ Boccaccio chooses to omit contextual material that sheds light on the significance of her actions. The scriptural account is found in 2 Kings 8:16–11:16, where Athaliah's father and brothers, King Ahab of Israel and his heirs, have fallen into apostasy. Her son, King Ahaziah of Judah, "also walked in the way of the house of Ahab, and did what was evil in the sight of the Lord" (8:27). In response to widespread idolatry, the prophet Elisha called for the anointing of a new king of Israel, Jehu, who not only engineered the massacre of the entire royal line of Israel but also of all the other male followers of the false god Ba'al. It was Jehu's men who killed Athaliah's son Ahaziah, precipitating her subsequent attempt to annihilate the royal family of Judah.

The motivational complexities inherent in the actions of a woman whose father, brothers, husband and son have all been murdered in a milieu of disobedience to the divinity has inspired a variety of interpretations. Racine, in his _Athalie,_ depicted her as the powerful and vengeful agent of Jehovah against Judah's apostasy—the instrument divinely ordained to complete the job of cleaning house, enabling a fresh start with the infant Joash. Boccaccio chose to ignore the psychological and spiritual intricacies of Athaliah's situation and simply attributed her behavior to the scourge that should, by this time, be familiar to his readers: female ambition.

Yet another woman whose life Boccaccio configures to follow that of his prototypical usurping queen is Clytemnestra (XXXVI), Queen of Mycenae and wife of Agamemnon, who, along with her lover, Aegisthus, took advantage of her husband's absence during the Trojan War to assume his throne. When the king returned home after a ten-year absence, he was assassinated by Clytemnestra and Aegisthus, who then reigned over Mycenae for seven years. Boccaccio posits three motives which may have driven Clytemnestra to her treacherous deed: fear that Agamemnon would discover her infidelity; the desire for power; and indignation that Agamemnon was bringing a young woman, Cassandra, home as a spoil of war. Overdetermining Clytemnestra's decision to kill her husband permits Boccaccio to catalog the feminine failings by which she and numerous other women in _Famous Women_ are dominated: thirst for power, sexual inconstancy, jealousy, and pride.

Boccaccio does not mention another potentially significant cause for Clytemnestra's hatred of Agamemnon: according to numerous classical sources, he sacrificed their daughter, Iphigenia, to the goddess Artemis in order to procure favorable winds for the journey to Troy. One of these sources was Ovid, on whom Boccaccio is known to have relied heavily for a number of his biographies. In the _Metamorphoses,_ Ovid writes "the duty of a king conquered a father's feelings... surrounded by weeping priests, Iphigenia stood before the altar, to offer her pure blood in sacrifice."9 Boccaccio excludes this crucial episode from his reconstruction of Clytemnestra's life, thereby removing any moral justification for her violence against her husband, and preserving the image of Agamemnon as the victim of "a great evil which that noble man did not deserve" [ _FW_ 141].

It is in keeping with the framework Boccaccio has established for relating the stories of power-hungry queens that he lays full blame for the murder at the feet of Clytemnestra, who "ordered the adulterous Aegisthus... to kill Agamemnon" and "handed him [Agamemnon] half-bound to her lover whom she had recruited as an assassin" [ _FW_ 141]. This rendering contradicts accounts, such as that given in _The Odyssey,_ in which the blame for conceiving the murder lies with Aegisthus, son of Agamemnon's uncle Thyestes. Agamemnon's father, Atreus, had feuded jealously and viciously with Thyestes over the kingship of Mycenae. Thyestes' antipathy had been exacerbated when Atreus not only usurped the throne, but murdered Thyestes' eldest children (Aegisthus's brothers) and fed their flesh to the unsuspecting father. In Book Three of _The Odyssey,_ Nestor tells Telemachus that Aegisthus "spent his leisure days... besieging Agamemnon's wife with his seductive talk. At first Queen Clytaemnestra turned a deaf ear to his dishonorable schemes. She was a sensible woman."10 Thus, according to Homer, Clytemnestra neither lusted for power nor did she initiate the murder of Agamemnon. Whatever sources Boccaccio relied upon for Clytemnestra's story, the profound enmity of Aegisthus for the house of Atreus is a constant, and Boccoccio's decision to ignore this element of the legend seems a pointed manipulation designed to focus the entire weight of blame upon the queen while permitting Aegisthus to appear as a feckless catspaw.11

Clytemnestra becomes the second victim of matricide in _Famous Women_ when her son Orestes, undeterred by "any feeling of respect for his lewd mother from bravely avenging his father's undeserved death" [ _FW_ 141] kills both the queen and Aegisthus. Boccaccio emphasizes the righteousness of Orestes' act and reasserts Agamemnon's blamelessness as he reiterates the belief that "the son inflicted on his guilty mother what his innocent father had suffered at the hands of an adulterous priest acting under orders from an indecent woman" [ _FW_ 141]. Once again a usurping widow and mother has been deposed by the rightful heir, who Boccaccio suggests was himself in danger from "his mother's fury" [ _FW_ 141] and survived only through the intervention of his friends.

The admirable actions of sons and the iniquities of their ambitious mothers is a dialectic Boccaccio frequently constructs to explore the issue of female power.12 In his biography of Olympias (LXI), wife of King Philip of Macedonia, Boccaccio credits the queen for having given birth to Alexander the Great and invites a comparison between the two. Olympias's panoply of familiar feminine vices (promiscuity, jealousy, pride, and uncontrollable anger) results in the assassination of her husband, the suicide of his second wife, and the murder of their child. According to Boccaccio, Olympias's subsequent rule was marked by apparently indiscriminate bloodshed ("she raged like a wild beast," _FW_ 257) until she was eventually imprisoned and executed.

What is sauce for Olympias, however, is clearly not sauce for Alexander, as, in close juxtaposition to the denunciation of his mother's violence and ambition, Boccaccio acclaims the young man's as "deeds [which] were so awesome that the man who would surpass him in glory... has never been born... nor is he likely ever to be born" [ _FW_ 255]. While there is arguably a distinction to be drawn between the self-serving butchery carried out by Olympias and Alexander's wars of conquest, in terms of the specific objections Boccaccio expresses concerning Olympias's violent career (widespread slaughter for the purpose of achieving and sustaining personal dominion) there is little beyond gender to morally distinguish one tyrant from the other. That Boccaccio selectively shaped Alexander to stand as a laudable foil to his deplorable mother becomes all the more apparent when one considers the negative picture of Alexander presented in _Fates of Illustrious Men,_ where the conqueror suffers from delusions of divinity.13 Even as the protagonists in _Famous Women_ are, in many respects, constructs molded to buttress Boccaccio's thesis, so some of the men he treated in _Fates of Illustrious Men_ have been revisited in support of a new paradigm.

Boccaccio's most disturbing account both of the mother—son power struggle and the depravity of women who crave power is presented in the relationship between Agrippina (XCII) and her son Nero. In this biography many of the dangers of female ascendancy are explored, from the deceit and depravity required to initiate it to the amorality required to maintain it. All of the monstrous vices encountered in women who violate the limits of their legitimate role meet in the person of Agrippina, who began early in life to trade sexual favors for political gain. She "slept with Lepidus in the hope of gaining power," and although this proved a blind alley, she soon saw an opportunity to "gain control of the empire for herself and her son" [ _FW_ 387]. After scandalously procuring a marriage to her uncle, the emperor Claudius, and convincing him to adopt Nero, she poisoned her husband and arranged for the adolescent Nero to be fraudulently crowned emperor over Claudius' own son Britannicus. The young Nero "seemed to have taken the title for himself and the power for his mother," and Agrippina, "atop the pinnacle of Roman dominion, shone radiant throughout the world" [ _FW_ 391]. Once again Boccaccio's commentary works to define a mother/son relationship which the reader now recognizes as morally insupportable and which must therefore end in the ignominious deposition of the mother.

Agrippina's penchant for incest and bloodshed grew with her increased status: "She had long fits of rage in which she killed and exiled many people... it was also believed that Agrippina allowed Nero to show her an illicit love exceeding the natural affection owed to a mother" [ _FW_ 391]. Boccaccio attributes her aberrant behavior to the desire to preserve her hold on her son and thus on the reins of the empire. When, "driven by female fury," Agrippina "threatened to take away the empire she had procured" [ _FW_ 391] for her son, she became the victim of multiple assassination attempts which eventually led to a brutal death at the hands of her son's henchmen.

While Boccaccio presents Nero as the logical and just instigator of his mother's "abominable but deserved death" [ _FW_ 391], one of his key sources, Suetonius, categorically places the murder in a section of the emperor's biography devoted to his most heinous crimes. Boccaccio views Nero's violence against his mother as a natural reaction to Agrippina's desire to control him, and rationalizes her murder as the only reliable way of eliminating her ongoing quest for power. According to Suetonius, however, Nero went out of his way to taunt and harass his mother, "sending people to pester her with law-suits while she stayed in Rome, and when she took refuge on her riverside estate, making them constantly drive or sail past the windows, disturbing her with jeers and cat-calls."14 Suetonius's disturbing report that upon learning of his mother's death "Nero rushed off to examine Agrippina's corpse, handling her legs and arms critically and, between drinks, discussing their good and bad points," has been sanitized in Boccaccio's account, which describes Nero's having "inspected the corpse, criticizing some parts of her body and praising others" [ _FW_ 393].15 Never one to shy away from embellishing his stories with prurient details when they serve to further his point, Boccaccio's account of Agrippina's life and death is constructed to diminish the generally sordid atmosphere which clung to her son's reign in order to focus on her reprehensible lust for power.

To further focus attention on the dangers of self-seeking women, Boccaccio continues to turn a blind eye to one of history's most notorious sadists in his biography of Nero's wife, Sabina Poppaea (XCV). Poppaea is presented as a woman who rivaled her mother-in-law in the unscrupulous machinations she devised to claw her way to the top. Boccaccio attributes to her the familiar evils of cunning and "lasciviousness, that common feminine vice" [ _FW_ 405] in addition to "the excessive softness, flattery, petulance, and tears of women—a sure and deadly poison for credulous souls" [ _FW_ 409]. Nonetheless, Poppaea's second husband Otho (Nero was her third) frequently boasted to the emperor of his wife's charms, and Boccaccio writes that he "may have been unable to endure the ways of his headstrong wife and for that reason tried to make her an object of desire to Nero" [ _FW_ 405]. Boccaccio's suggestion that Poppaea's husband would praise his wife in order to rid himself of her is an interesting twist on a section of her biography which otherwise represents a faithful paraphrasing of Tacitus's account of Otho's boasting. Tacitus notes that Otho may have praised his wife "in the hope of adding to his own influence by the further tie which would arise out of possession of the same woman."16 Boccaccio's alternative explanation contrives to transform a situation arising from Otho's attempt to exploit his wife's attractions for political gain into a sordid episode resulting entirely from faults imagined to reside in the woman.

Nero duly developed a passion for Poppaea and in response to his attentions she set her sights on marriage, eventually instigating the execution of Octavia, the emperor's wife. Like all of Boccaccio's politically ambitious women, however, Poppaea was unable to retain "the summit she had sought and attained by means of her deeply laid schemes" [ _FW_ 409]. Continuing to minimize Nero's culpability in the murder of his closest female relations, Boccaccio dispassionately reports that "she died during her second pregnancy when Nero kicked her in a fit of anger" [ _FW_ 409], leaving the reader with the impression that she deserved no less. Although Tacitus and Suetonius are not so forgiving of Nero's part in the murder of his wife Octavia (Suetonius reports that Nero had earlier tried to strangle her because she bored him) or as understanding regarding the murder of Poppaea ("he kicked her to death while she was pregnant and feeling very ill, because she dared complain that he came home late from the races"), Boccaccio does not allow Nero's crimes to distract from his righteousness in punishing a glory-seeking woman.17 The impact of Poppaea's ambitious maneuvering would be substantially weakened by dwelling on the notorious vices and crimes of her husband.

All famous women whom Boccaccio regards as power-hungry are doomed to fall and, with the exception of Irene (CII), who was exiled, die ignominiously. Boccaccio's rendering of Irene's story is unique among his treatment of ambitious rulers in _Famous Women_ in being essentially a straight historical narrative unadorned with moralizing commentary. The widowed Irene enjoyed a joint rule with her young son Constantine until, upon reaching manhood, he "asserted his right to rule alone and for eight years... excluded Irene from their joint relationship" [ _FW_ 443]. Irene, who "thirsted for power," used her "feminine cunning" to have him imprisoned and subsequently ruled the Roman Empire alone for five years [FW 443]. In the familiar rhetoric of _Famous Women,_ Constantine's supporters succeeded in "pulling Irene down from her lofty place" [ _FW_ 443] and reinstating the rightful emperor.

Constantine proved, however, to be a ruthless tyrant, and Irene was able to bribe his supporters into blinding him in order that she might regain the throne. Boccaccio clearly considers Irene to have been a better ruler than her son; nonetheless, he reports that she was soon deposed once again and either exiled to Lesbos or forced to enter a convent. That she was a better monarch than the rightful male did not ensure her continued success, nor did Boccaccio's prerogative of sampling selectively from his sources lead him to end her story on a note of triumph.

Perhaps the most frequently romanticized queen of ancient lore is Cleopatra (LXXXVIII), whose mystique has been nurtured by writers and painters for centuries. For Boccaccio, however, she was the most iniquitous of those women who, motivated by a "burning desire to rule... [succeeded] only through wickedness" [ _FW_ 361]. In fulfillment of her father's will, the young Cleopatra married her brother with whom she was to reign over Egypt. Although Boccaccio acknowledges that incestuous marriage between a brother and sister was acceptable practice among Egyptians in Cleopatra's time, he finds it "disgraceful" [ _FW_ 363] and through its mention primes his reader for events to come.

One of Cleopatra's first acts as queen was to poison her brother/husband in order that she might assume sole dominion over the land; however, Pompey the Great appointed another of her brothers to be king, and when Julius Caesar arrived in Egypt he found the siblings at war over the throne. Cleopatra used her seductive charms to manipulate Caesar, who then gave her the kingdom of Egypt since she "desired nothing else" [ _FW_ 365]. With this conquest, Cleopatra launched an extended campaign of exchanging sexual favors for sovereignty, and became "the whore of the Eastern kings" [ _FW_ 363], stripping not only her lovers but also her temples and sacred places of their wealth.

Following Caesar's death Cleopatra set her sights on Antony, who became her long-term lover after having agreed to give his paramour dominion over parts of Syria and Arabia and to murder her sister "to remove all threats to her rule" [ _FW_ 363]. Although "the craving of this insatiable woman for other kingdoms increased daily" [ _FW_ 369], Cleopatra's connivances were not always successful; her attempts to seduce Herod into giving her Judea failed, and Antony's promise to grant her control over the entire Roman Empire proved impossible to fulfill. Octavian eventually waged war against the couple, and when it became clear that Egypt would fall to the Romans, Antony committed suicide while Cleopatra made a last bold attempt to seduce the victor. Failing in this, and learning that she was to be the most spectacular prize in Octavian's triumph, she ended her life by means of the famous asps. Once again, the illegitimate ambition of an incontinent woman met its just reward.

## Action/Reaction

Far from offering role models for women who aspire to unconventional accomplishment in the public sphere, Boccaccio's treatment of women who seek political power depicts them as a hazard society cannot afford to countenance. He is concerned that if the substantially sequestered world of women rises to the point of unconditional access to the public world of men, males will be debased—not only weakened, but shamed—and in many of his biographies Boccaccio explores the issue of the emasculating effect upon men of allowing themselves to fall under the sway of women.

One of Boccaccio's strongest warnings comes in the biography of lole, the wife of Hercules and daughter of King Eurytus of Aetolia (XXIII). Hercules killed Eurytus when the king denied him permission to marry lole, and the princess, seething with resentment over her father's death, decided that the most suitable form of revenge would be the gradual feminization of the famous hero. "Naturally given to trickery," Iole used her "feminine cunning" [ _FW_ 93] to convince Hercules to lay aside his lionskin and weapons in favor of more delicate attire; she also dressed his hair, put rings on his fingers, and persuaded him to sit among the women, spinning wool and telling stories.

Fully two-thirds of lole's biography is devoted to Boccaccio's assessment of her triumph over Hercules. In this commentary he allies himself with the male audience to whom his admonitions are addressed, and counsels: "It is clear that a strong and powerful enemy threatens _us [my_ emphasis], and those concerned for their own well-being should be very much afraid and rouse themselves out of their indifference" [ _FW_ 95]. This enemy will "completely subdue a man... take away his freedom, chain and bind his mind" [ _FW_ 95]. The "eternal shame" into which Hercules fell was manifested in the denial of his masculine birthright by exchanging a life _in pubblico_ for a domestic existence with the 'other' women, "an appalling state of subjection" [ _FW_ 93, 97]. The counsel offered to men from an examination of Iole's life is to beware the insidious erosion of character that can result from permitting women to become too influential. On the matter of Hercules' own contribution to the situation (murdering lole's father in order to marry her against her will) Boccaccio is notably silent; as in his treatment of Nero and Agamemnon, he glosses over even the most extreme instances of male guilt to dramatize the woman's arguably lesser misdeeds.

Even in instances when a woman gendered as masculine has not willfully compromised the sociopolitical standing of men, Boccaccio frequently associates her strength with male weakness. A case in point is that of Epicharis (XCIII), who hanged herself rather than reveal the names of her co-conspirators in an assassination plot against Nero. In his moral summation of her life, Boccaccio contrasts her fortitude with the cowardice of her cohorts, who quickly succumbed to threats of torture. This comparison is expressly framed as a goad to male readers:

In my view, men should be ashamed to be defeated, not so much by a wanton female, but by a woman who had steeled herself to endure any difficulty. If, in fact, we are the stronger sex, is it not fitting for us to have the stronger resolve? If this is not the case, we are as effeminate as the conspirators. [ _FW_ 399]

With Epicharis, as with Semiramis the warrior/regent, Boccaccio edifies his male readership through a masculinized heroine, rhetorically regendered and thus metamorphosed into an accessible role model. Just as he attributed Semiramis's feats of arms and conquest to a "manly spirit," Boccaccio attempts to come to terms with Epicharis's fortitude by speculating on her true essence: "I am inclined to think that Nature sometimes errs when she unites souls with mortal bodies, namely, when she gives to a woman a soul which she intended to give to a man" [ _FW_ 399]. Here Boccaccio directly addresses the problematic phenomenon of women exhibiting strengths traditionally associated with masculinity, and in so doing defines the capacity to respond with courage and resolve _in pubblico_ as being, by nature, male. Moreover, by implication, if a man fails to live up to the masculine ideal, he may be thought to possess a woman's soul erroneously housed in a man's body, a conclusion plainly designed to shame the male reader into suppressing any inclination to weakness either of body or of character.

For Boccaccio, the dual threat of male decline and female ascendancy are two sides of the same coin. In the life of Pope Joan (CI) Boccaccio shapes his material to demonstrate that God's plan for human society can be thwarted when women, especially intelligent women, infiltrate male institutions. In her youth, Joan was admirably contemptuous of female domesticity and disguised herself as a man in order to pursue a life of study and teaching. Boccaccio opens her biography by noting that "from her name John would seem to be a man, but in reality she was a woman" [ _FW_ 437].18 This is not the first time that Boccaccio focuses on the significance of names; in the Dedication, following a paean to Andrea's standing as a paragon of womanhood, he parenthetically introduces an etymology of her name as a means of indicating her elevation above the common run of females. Joan's name, however (in addition to her physical disguise), was apt to deceive people into believing that she was in fact a man, and such impostering, as seen in the case of Semiramis, can be a tool of illegitimate ambition.

What may have begun as a harmless attempt on Joan's part to partake anonymously of the privileges and freedoms of the male world resulted in a dangerous inversion of the natural order: "in a wicked act of audacity" [ _FW_ 441], she succeeded in being elected to the papacy. As with Semiramis, Joan's undoing lay in the fatal combination of sexual profligacy and usurpation of male authority; like the Assyrian queen before her, her transgression of providentially determined and socially affirmed boundaries was remedied. Joan eventually became pregnant and her deception became apparent to a scandalized populace when she bore her child during a procession through the streets of Rome. Under ordinary circumstances the conception and birth of a child would have been an occasion for rejoicing; however, as with Niobe, divine retribution against illicit ambition negated this otherwise laudable female achievement:

God took pity on his people. He did not suffer a woman to hold so eminent an office, govern so great a people, and deceive them with so inauspicious a misapprehension. He abandoned to her own devices this person who boldly persisted in doing what should not have been done. [ _FW_ 439]

Joan violated the divinely instituted ordering of the Church and tainted an office and a world reserved for masculine endeavor, not merely with her presence but also with the exclusively female occupation of childbirth. Boccaccio conveys the overwhelming and universal disgust which this unnatural commingling of gendered spheres continued to foster in his own era:

Even today the popes, when they celebrate the Rogation Days... condemn her foul actions and perpetuate her infamy. The place where Joan gave birth is located at the halfway point of the procession; they abominate this site and avoid it by turning away and taking side streets. When they have bypassed the hated place, they return to the main road and complete the initial route. [ _FW_ 441]

The female impulse for self-aggrandizement which first reared its ugly head in the Garden of Eden culminates, near the end of _Famous Women,_ in a woman having illicitly obtained the most sacred office available to humankind. Boccaccio has demonstrated that, through the ages, women have not only possessed the desire to infiltrate the domains of men, but the cunning to succeed. Ultimately, however, this success is tolerated neither by God nor men, and inevitably results in humiliating (if not fatal) retribution which serves to restore the established order.

## Dangerous Minds and Bodies

Boccaccio seldom fails to employ sexual profiles of women in his shaping of their lives for moral instruction. The sexually virtuous, be they steadfast virgins, faithful wives, or continent widows, are always laudable; in some instances, sexual purity or promiscuity is the very reason for a woman's inclusion in _Famous Women._ Only a few lives are commemorated solely for their chastity: Hippo (LIB) leapt to her death in the sea rather than risk losing her virginity to the sailors who had abducted her, and the anonymous wives of the Cimbrians (LXXX) chose suicide over possible defilement and dishonor at the hands of the Romans. The chaste woman must guard against more than sexual indiscretion, however; in his biography of Sulpicia (LXVII), Boccaccio defines chastity as a consistently continent approach to life. Considered the most highly chaste Roman matron, Sulpicia was unanimously chosen to consecrate a statue of Venus Verticordia on the following grounds:

... chastity does not consist merely in abstaining from adulterous relations. This many women do, sometimes unwillingly. Indeed, for a woman to be considered completely chaste, she must first curb her wanton and wandering eyes, keeping them lowered and fixed on the hem of her dress. Her words must be not only respectable but brief and uttered at the right moment. She must avoid idleness as a sure and deadly enemy of chastity, and she must abstain from feasting, for Venus is cooled in the absence of food and wine. She must avoid singing and dancing as the weapons of lasciviousness and attend to temperance and sobriety. She must take care of her house, close her ears to shameful conversation, and avoid gadding about. She must reject make-up, useless perfumes, and superfluous ornaments. Trampling with all her strength on harmful thoughts and desires, she must be vigilant and persistent in holy meditation. In short... she must give all her love to her husband alone and take no notice of other men, unless it is to love them like brothers. Even to her husband's embraces she must go with a modest face and heart and for the sake of procreation. [ _FW_ 279, 281]

Boccaccio highlights the importance of marital constancy in defining a woman's character when he writes of Virginia (LXIII) that "it will be sufficient to relate a single but highly laudable deed of hers in order to know her entire life and to award her the fame that is her due" [ _FW_ 261]. Virginia built a shrine dedicated to Pudicitia Plebeia and urged plebeian wives "to compete with each other in the single virtue of wifely modesty, just as you see the men of this city vie continuously with each other in valor" [ _FW_ 263]. Virginia's speech distinguishes between appropriate male and female spheres of endeavor, as well as the virtues necessary to excel in each. In contrast with public displays of masculine valor, wifely modesty was realized by maintaining an essentially cloistered existence at home. Boccaccio approves of the field on which Virginia chose to do battle: "How fitting and how holy were the words of this woman!" [ _FW_ 263].

Because chastity in a woman "is the more renowned and praiseworthy in that it is only rarely found" [ _FW_ 163] and "the girls of our own day... are so giddy and of such loose morals that, at the wink of an eye or any gesture, they rush into the arms of whoever looks at them" [ _FW_ 449], Boccaccio remembers more women for their appalling licentiousness than for their modesty.19 Even when sexual conduct is not the primary focus of her biography, information concerning a woman's chastity or lack thereof is provided as a touchstone for guiding and reinforcing conclusions regarding other aspects of her behavior. If Boccaccio is critical of a woman's nonsexual behavior, it is likely that he will include evidence of sexual impropriety in her biography, thereby undermining the possibility of interpreting in a positive light any actions for which she is more widely known.

Soon after he enumerates the lecherous exploits of Semiramis, Boccaccio introduces Venus (VII), the Roman goddess of sexual love. Boccaccio takes a euhemeristic approach to the six goddesses from antiquity whom he includes in _Famous Women,_ asserting that they were actually mortals who through "the fictions of poets and the extravagant folly of the ancients" [ _FW_ 29] were revered as goddesses. Seen through the lens of antique paganism, Venus's promiscuity would not be wondered at; however, Boccaccio presents her as a human queen, and is therefore disgusted by her "incessant acts of fornication" [ _FW_ 43]. He also charges her with having instigated public prostitution by forcing married women into brothels.

For Boccaccio, Venus's lasciviousness is not anomalous, but merely represents an extreme case of "that common feminine vice" [ _FW_ 405], and he marvels at women who manage to overcome their natural proclivity for sexual wantonness. In his life of Leana, Boccaccio alerted parents to the necessity of keeping an unwavering eye on their daughters, warning that "if the feminine tendency towards wantonness is not strictly curbed and restrained by the unsleeping vigilance of their mothers, it will give way at some point, even without temptation" [ _FW_ 207]. In Sempronia's biography he reiterates the moral decay of females as a snowballing process that begins with parental indulgence; there is no force that can restrain the unleashed female libido once "virginal honor has been stained" [ _FW_ 331].

The innate female predisposition towards sexual immorality represents an ever-present threat to the patriarchal social order, and when it is combined with characteristics which are alien to women by nature, such as the desire for power and glory, the peril expands exponentially. Boccaccio regards intelligence as another of those traits providentially intended for men but which occasionally manifest themselves in women. As early as the Dedication, he introduces this view when he credits Andrea Acciaiuoli with "powers of intellect far surpassing the endowments of womankind" [ _FW_ 5]. A significant leitmotif of _Famous Women_ is that the very foundations on which a man's security and prosperity rest—domestic propriety and public opportunity, both political and commercial—are endangered by intelligent women. While illegitimate queens may use cunning to further their ambitions, not all female intellects seek to govern; women who are clever and articulate may be inclined to seek other avenues of influence, which, along with female usurpation of leadership, erodes patriarchal prerogatives.

The first suggestion that the incongruous phenomenon of female intellectual achievement is likely to cause upheaval in the natural order is seen in Boccaccio's biography of the Greco-Roman goddess Ceres (V). As Ceres' intelligence led her to invent everything that was necessary for productive agriculture, from the yoke and plow to methods for grinding grain and baking bread, she came to be regarded by the ancients as the goddess of the harvest. After listing Ceres' accomplishments, however, Boccaccio decides that mankind would have been better off without them. Whereas men who lived in the forest on acorns, herbs and river water, having "no worries... [and] contenting themselves with only the law of nature" were "sober, modest and without deceit," Ceres' discoveries "opened the door to vices still latent—vices once afraid to come out into _the open, but_ now given safe conduct" [ _FW_ 33]. This observation serves as a springboard for a jeremiad against mankind's loss of innocence. Because of the cleverness of one woman, poverty, slavery, hatred, war, laziness, concupiscence, starvation, disease and untimely death were unleashed upon an uncorrupted world. In _Famous Women_ Boccaccio not only attributes man's first departure from paradise, but also his second, to the meddling of a woman; in the second Fall the culprit is not female glory-seeking, but female intelligence.

Boccaccio's portrayal of Ceres' inventions and discoveries also presents yet another instance of the undesirable feminizing of that which was intended to be masculine. From hence

came that softening of the body, that fatness of the belly, ornament in dress, elaborate dinner table, splendid banquets... I do believe that those golden centuries, even if they were rude and uncivilized, are greatly to be preferred to our own iron age, refined though it is. [ _FW_ 33]

The social consequence of Ceres' intellectual power was the compromising of man's essential dignity and vigor through the softening and corrupting effects of cultural refinement. This theme, initiated in the biography of Ceres, would be reiterated in the story of Tole, whose cleverness was employed for the purpose of undermining the primal masculinity of mighty Hercules.20

The next woman in _Famous Women_ to be credited with exceptional intelligence is Minerva (VI), the Roman goddess of wisdom known to the Greeks as Athena. Boccaccio lists a number of inventions and discoveries with which Minerva is credited, including weaving, woolworking, iron weaponry, and the use of numbers. In order to honor their patron, the Athenians dedicated a marvelous temple to the goddess, and Boccaccio provides a detailed description of the votive statue placed therein. Each accoutrement is presented as emblematic of characteristics associated with the wise. Thus, for example,

She was helmeted to signify that the counsels of a wise man are hidden and well-defended; she was attired with a cuirass since the wise man is always armed against every blow of Fortune; she was fitted with an extremely long lance so that we might understand that the wise man's arrow strikes far. [ _FW_ 39]

In Boccaccio's account, Minerva is first transformed into a masculine, warlike statue and from thence into an allegorical personification of wisdom. Female personifications of both virtues and vices were ubiquitous in the late Middle Ages, and by redirecting the discussion of Minerva's extraordinary abilities away from the potentially dangerous reality of an intelligent flesh and blood woman to a conventional abstraction, Boccaccio could comfortably outline the attributes of wisdom as they to men.

In Boccaccio's cosmology, chastity is the issue upon which a woman's usefulness as a positive exemplar turns, and this can be seen in a comparison of the treatment of his two intelligent goddesses. The inventions and discoveries of both Ceres and Minerva had a civilizing effect on their communities. Minerva, whom Boccaccio packaged as an embodiment of admirably masculine character traits, is reported to have committed herself to perpetual virginity. Ceres, on the other hand, gave birth to a daughter as a result of an incestuous relationship with her brother Jupiter [ _FW_ 31]. This observation, made in reference to a human woman, is undeniably troublesome and augments the general impression that Ceres was, indeed, trouble. Boccaccio's ancient sources, however, considered both Ceres and Jupiter to be gods, for whom sibling marriages were not immoral or out of the ordinary. His decision to include this prurient tidbit in the biography of Ceres reinforces his negative appraisal of her accomplishments, which, in antiquity, were never regarded as anything but blessings. This is in notable contrast with his treatment of Minerva's contributions to civilization, which, as they include various necessities for warfare as well as the weaving of cloth and the use of olive oil, could well be argued to have led to more destructive martial technology on the one hand, and the softening of mankind through pandering to comfort and vanity on the other. Minerva is praised for achievements little different from those for which Ceres is vilified. Whether this favor derives from Minerva's virginity or from her masculine gendering is difficult to assess, but it contrasts sharply with the lamentation of the lost golden age which Boccaccio appends to Ceres' biography.

For Boccaccio, the most dangerous intellectual females are those whose talents lay in verbal eloquence, whether written or spoken. Women who exercise their talents within the socially acceptable confines of a domestic setting are consistently lauded for their sexual purity and praised for rising above the female proclivity to idleness. Thus, Boccaccio commemorates with cursory acknowledgement a handful of women notable for artistic ability practiced privately. Marcia (LXVI), for example, was a Roman woman whom Boccaccio praises equally for her decision to remain a virgin and for her abilities to paint and sculpt. Such was her modesty that she rarely, if ever, depicted men in her work. Tamaris (LVI) is remembered for painting an image of the virginal goddess Diana; Proba (XCVII), a Roman matron, dissected Virgilian poetry and pieced together a work of Biblical history from the fragments. In these as in many of his other biographical sketches, Boccaccio's highest accolades take the form of distinguishing a woman from the predominately contemptible run of womankind.21

Much more attention is given to women Boccaccio remembers for the sort of intelligence that manifests itself in an eloquent tongue, only one of whom receives unreserved praise. Hortensia (LXXXXIV), daughter of the orator Quintus Hortensius, appears to have employed her talents but once, in the cause of arguing against a heavy taxation on women. The triumvirs accepted her arguments, which were so compelling that "to the great admiration of the audience, she seemed to have changed her sex and was Hortensius come back to life" [ _FW_ 349]. This rhetorical metamorphosis identifies Hortensia as the legitimate, albeit temporary, dynastic heritor of the oratorical skills prized in her father, and she effectively becomes a vicar continuing the work of an illustrious male. Boccaccio highlights this relationship again in the closing line of her biography, which rejoices that "the spirit of her ancient family flourished [in her]... [and] she deserved to bear the name of Hortensia" [ _FW_ 349]. While Hortensia's pedigree accounts for her ability and justifies her actions, Boccaccio includes a tempering observation: the triumvirs who granted her request agreed that, under all but the most extraordinary of circumstances, "silence in public was a praiseworthy quality in a woman" [ _FW_ 349].

Expanding on the desirability of female silence, Boccaccio makes two references in _Famous Women_ to the proverb "women keep silence best when they are ignorant" [ _FW_ 207], supporting a belief which will continue to be expounded in the Renaissance by writers who advised husbands to conceal from their wives all but that which was necessary for domestic management. The assumption underlying this maxim is manifestly that women are incapable of keeping their own counse1.22 It is this fundamental distrust of the ability (or inclination) of females to use their knowledge and intellect appropriately that leads Boccaccio to praise one of his women, Leana (L), for the decision to render herself permanently mute. Leana was a Greek prostitute who, through her professional association with certain young men, had been arrested and tortured in the hopes of procuring the names of conspirators responsible for the murder of the tyrant Hipparchus. When she realized that her resolve to remain silent was weakening, Leana bit off her tongue.

In order to fully elucidate the value of female reticence Boccaccio closes Leana's biography by venturing the opinion that "in my view, this woman may have gained no less glory by holding, then biting off her tongue than Demosthenes earned from his compatriots by all the flowers of his eloquence" [ _FW_ 207].23 Boccaccio's decision to draw a parallel between Leana's unique brand of heroism and the accomplishments of a male orator, rather than comparing it to the corporeal sufferings of a male martyr, reveals that he means for her actions to be interpreted in terms of female decorum rather than of male valor. Consistent with the dictates of providence, the avenue by which women can "gain glory" is diametrically opposed to that traveled by men: an exemplary woman holds (or bites off) her tongue, while an exemplary man uses it. Thus, even Leana's evident bravery and resolve are entirely overshadowed by her ability, against all feminine inclination, to keep quiet.

An apt foil to Boccaccio's assessment of Leana is his biography of Flora (LXIV), who was also a prostitute and became very wealthy through having "debased herself with any and everyone" [ _FW_ 269]. When she was dying, Flora desired "to perpetuate her name" [ _FW_ 267] and, having no children, made Rome the beneficiary of her wealth on the condition that games would be held annually on her birthday. The Romans were happy to comply with this proviso, and, on their own initiative, incorporated enactments of prostitution into their celebrations. The Senate, ashamed of the way in which Flora accumulated her riches, as well as the celebration of harlotry by the Roman populace, generated a myth in which she was said to have married the wind god Zephyrus, becoming thereby the goddess of blossoming plants. The Romans embraced this fantasy, and Flora's annual festival was augmented with the building of sanctuaries and altars at which she was worshipped. Boccaccio, predictably, deplores Flora's successful rise to immortality and, with bitter irony, restores her deserved reputation by charting her iniquities and unwarranted metamorphosis from harlot to goddess.

Flora's motive for financing popular festivities was the desire for perpetual fame, which she accomplished through "womanly cunning" and "shrewdness" [ _FW_ 267, 269]. While Leana had morally compensated for her sexual depravity by disabling herself in a manner that rendered her less obtrusive, Flora sought to broadcast her existence; while Leana attempted to minimize her deleterious effect on society, Flora's misdeeds debased generations of Romans. Thus, while both women were prostitutes, and both acted in the interest of civic welfare, Boccaccio condemns one for desiring public recognition and praises the other for silencing herself.

Throughout _Famous Women_ female sexual depravity is not only correlated with the yearning for political ascendancy, but also with intellectual acumen that allows its possessor to participate in public life. Leontium (LX) was a Greek woman of "extraordinary intellectual powers" [ _FW_ 251] which she used to write condemnations of the notable philosopher Theophrastus. She was also "a courtesan, or rather, a little trollop... [1]iving in the brothels among pimps, vile adulterers, and whores, she was able to stain Philosophy, the teacher of truth, with ignominy in those disgraceful chambers" [ _FW_ 253]. Boccaccio discerns in Leontium's life an opportunity to create a confrontation between philosophy and the female libido, and in the final analysis, her "unchaste heart" [ _FW_ 253] defines her, while Philosophy is tarnished by association. Boccaccio laments the subjection of his personified abstraction to "so filthy a way of life"; although Leontium was indisputably erudite, her achievements were irredeemably compromised by her lack of "feminine decency" [ _FW_ 253]. Like other unchaste women who excelled in realms traditionally reserved for men, Leontium's lifestyle reduced her accomplishments to irrelevancy in the ultimate appraisal of her character.

If Leontium's besmirching of an honorable discipline was unforgivable, so too was her attack on a respected male participant in that discipline. Boccaccio acknowledges that the long-lasting fame of her invective suggests that it was not a "trifle"; nonetheless, rather than accepting her treatise as integral to the continuing debate that is the substance of philosophy, he speculates as to her motives for composing it. He concludes that Leontium was "prompted either by envy or feminine temerity," and that disparaging Theophrastus was "a clear sign of an envious disposition" [ _FW_ 251]. Thus, once again, the work and aspirations of a female whose talents permit her to compete in a realm of male endeavor are used to the detriment of men and their institutions.

The destructive combination of sexual wantonness and superior intellect is explored further in the life of Sempronia (LXXIX), a woman who was quick-witted, well educated, and wrote "not in the way women usually do, but with such discernment as to elicit the admiration of all her readers" [ _FW_ 329]. Her sexual appetite, however, was so aggressive that she was not so much "men's prey as their hunter" [ _FW_ 331]. Elsewhere in _Famous Women_ Boccaccio addresses the price of being captured by such a predator:

After love has completely subdued a man... taken away his freedom, chained and bound his mind... then love awakens sighs and implants cunning stratagems in our thoughts; it does not discriminate between vices and virtues so long as it achieves its goal... men forget their honor, squander their wealth, rekindle their hatreds, and very often endanger their lives. [ _FW_ 95]

The most serious casualty of a woman's carnal proclivities is the moral degradation and loss of free will and reason which overcomes the men she exploits. The likelihood that a man will succumb to this malign influence is compounded when a woman has not only physical, but intellectual allurements at her command. Boccaccio writes that Sempronia, as an eloquent and captivating speaker, had the power to persuade her audience to engage in either proper or shameful consumed with she chose the latter.

To "sum up all of Sempronia's crimes in... one wicked deed" Boccaccio relates that, "in order to enjoy a wider field for satisfying her lusts," she joined Lucius Catiline in a conspiracy to destroy the Roman Republic [ _FW_ 333]. Sempronia's intellect thereby not only proved to be a threat to the moral fabric of Roman society, but to its admirable political underpinnings. Boccaccio does not articulate his reasons for believing that Sempronia's association with the Catiline conspiracy was for the purpose of unrestrained carnal self-indulgence; this unsupported interpretation of her motives, however, serves his axiomatic assumption of the licentious proclivities of women in general and of intelligent, articulate women in particular.

In the biography of Circe (XXXVIII), Boccaccio relates, very briefly, the story taken from Greco-Roman mythology in which sailors who landed on her shores were transformed into animals through the use of enchantments or potions. He then openly seeks to interpret what he sees to be a metaphorical tale of yore: "I believe that the sense underlying this story is as follows" [ _FW_ 153]. Circe, according to Boccaccio, must have been a woman who was "forceful and eloquent but not overly concerned with keeping her chastity untarnished so long as she got something she wanted" _VW_ 153]. He supports this conclusion with the observation that "if we consider human behavior, we see plainly enough... that there are many Circes everywhere" prepared to rob men of their reason and convince them to engage in practices which they would otherwise have eschewed:

With her wiles and charming words not only did she entice many who reached her shore to join in her wantonness: some she pushed into robbery and piracy; others she induced with her tricks to cast all honor aside and take up commerce and trading; many she made arrogant because they loved her inordinately. [ _FW_ 153]

From a tale of men turned to beasts at the hands of a sorceress, Boccaccio draws a lesson for contemporary males to the effect that eloquent women will not only lead them to abandon their moral scruples, but will guide them into dishonorable and even illicit professions. His concern, again, is not merely to save souls, but to safeguard society.

On the few occasions in _Famous Women_ when an eloquent woman remains sexually virtuous, her presence _in pubblico_ (with the single exception of Hortensia, who is presented as the vehicle for her father's spirit) nonetheless proves calamitous for men. Epicharis, previously noted for having chosen to hang herself rather than risk divulging the identities of a group of men conspiring to overthrow Nero, ventured into the world of politics with consequences that proved disastrous for the forces of good. Unbeknownst to her male comrades, who were attempting to free Rome from the vicious reign of its emperor, she sought to recruit Admiral Volusius Proculus to their cause. "The outcome," as Boccaccio reports, "was very different from what Epicharis had expected" [ _FW_ 395]. Volusius decided to curry favor with Nero by alerting him to the plot, and it was thus through Epicharis's miscalculation in the realm of politics that the emperor was made aware of the scheme.

Yet another case in point is that of Veturia (LV), who was the mother of Coriolanus, a Roman noble exiled for refusing to appear at a public tribunal. Taking refuge with the Volscians, Coriolanus raised an army and prepared to attack Rome. The frantic Romans sent a number of unsuccessful ambassadors to the angry expatriate, and finally called on his mother to try to reason with him. Playing on his latent guilt for having not only turned against the republic but also for having made his mother suffer unduly in her old age, Veturia gave a long and impassioned speech which succeeded in shaming Coriolanus into making peace. Although Boccaccio considers her actions "praiseworthy" [ _FW_ 223], he considers the results of her eloquence to have been catastrophic for the long-term condition of men. To show their gratitude to Veturia, the Senate issued a number of decrees in honor of women, who "hitherto... had received little or no male respect" [ _FW_ 229]. Men were now to stand and yield the right of way to passing women; women were to be allowed to wear earrings, purple dresses, and golden bangles; and to be beneficiaries of inheritances. In Boccaccio's opinion, this opened the floodgates to a number of evils:

Thanks to feminine ornaments, masculine wealth has been depleted while women parade about in royal finery; men become paupers through the loss of their ancestral inheritance while women become rich gaining it... If Rome's liberty had not been saved by her pleas, I would curse Veturia for the haughtiness that women have assumed as a result of her actions... But what is there to say? This is a woman's world, and men have become womanish. Although time has consumed many useful things, it has not been able to destroy what in this instance was detrimental to men, nor to diminish women's tenacious and persistent hold on their own prerogatives. [ _FW_ 229, 231]

Thus, even when a woman enters the public sphere with the best of intentions and a virtuous character, her meddling is liable to work, irreversibly, against male interests. In this instance Boccaccio credits female involvement with the erosion of male wealth, and attempts to goad, wheedle and shame men into protecting their patrimony. In his view the world is not big enough for men and women to share in such treasured elements of public influence as military and rhetorical power, fame, and wealth, and he frames any 'advancement' on the part of women as a costly concession on the part of men.

## Calculated Anomalies

When the time came for Boccaccio to ingratiate himself and his book to influential patrons, Boccaccio added three biographies whose manifest purpose was to curry favor with the objects of his courtship and which did so substantially at the expense of his previous dogma. In what has been identified by Zaccaria as the sixth stage of revision, Boccaccio incorporated what would prove to be the final three additions to his book.24 One of these was the biography of Cornificia (LXXXVI), a poet who, like Proba, "succeeded in rising above her sex" and serves as a rebuke to "slothful women" [ _FW_ 355]. In Cornificia's biography, however, Boccaccio makes a declaration that is unique among the sentiments expressed in _Famous Women:_ "If women are willing to apply themselves to study, they share with men the ability to do everything that makes men famous" [ _FW_ 355]. This remark, while only addressing intellectual accomplishments, is nonetheless antithetical to the pervasive tone of his biographies, and must be considered in the light of the redactive history of the text. Along with his choice and treatment of the other two women hastily appended to _Famous Women,_ such a statement suggests that a new set of pressures led to a temporary liberalization of authorial attitude.

As previously noted, Boccaccio's invitation to Naples in 1362 resulted in his gathering together, under a dedication to Andrea Acciaiuoli, the chapters he had written up to that point. The dedication paid homage to Queen Joanna, and Boccaccio's interest in courting the favor of this monarch is evident in the second new biography, that of Camiola (CVI). Camiola was a woman living in Sicily during the reign of Joanna's grandfather, King Robert, and the first part of this lengthy biography recreates a naval battle in which Robert's forces triumphed over a Sicilian fleet, resulting in the capture and ransoming of many prisoners. The only sailor left to languish in jail was Roland, a Sicilian prince who, as his family had chosen to abandon him, roused the pity of the wealthy widow Camiola. Deciding that the only honorable way to finance his release was to secure a promise of marriage from him, Camiola sent agents to Naples who quickly succeeded in obtaining the necessary assurances from the unhappy Roland. Upon his return to Sicily, however, the liberated prince denied all knowledge of the betrothal and Camiola was forced to bring him before a judge in order to prove her claim. Roland was eventually coerced into agreeing to the marriage, whereupon Camiola launched into a long invective against the youth's vanity and treachery, and renounced her claim to him, saying "henceforth I shall be satisfied with my widowhood... indeed, **I** think a celibate life is much to be preferred to your embraces"  _FW_ 465, 67]. Camiola is the last in a long line of widows who are lauded for their decision to commit to perpetual widowhood (see [Chapters 3 and ). Unlike her predecessors, however, Camiola was willing to forgo her commitment (had, indeed, paid for the opportunity), and it seems highly improbable that Boccaccio would have considered her a worthy exemplar had she not possessed the additional virtue of giving the author an occasion to rhapsodize over the glorious ancestry of the queen.

Boccaccio's acceptance of Camiola's charitable willingness to remarry also softens the text's otherwise unwavering insistence upon widowed chastity, thereby opening the door to admit a eulogizing biography of Joanna (CVI), then married to her second husband. Boccaccio describes the queen as "more renowned than any other woman of our time for lineage, power, and character" [ _FW_ 467]. Although she came to power because there were no children of the better sex available in the royal lineage (cum nulla esset Roberto avo melioris nexus proles altera, _FW_ 468), Joanna repeatedly proves herself to be the equal of a king by virtue of her bravery, intelligence, and indomitability. Joanna is the only remarried woman in _Famous Women_ whom Boccaccio praises, and his willingness to abandon this otherwise consistent criterion for assessing female virtue in the interest of flattering a living queen and potential patron accounts for the ideological deviation with which he closes the biography of Cornificia, allowing both Joanna and Cornificia to realize male capabilities without the aid of a male spirit.

_____________

1 "Scit enim Deus quod in quocumque die comederitis ex eo aperientur oculi vestri et eritis sicut dii scientes bonum et malum" (Genesis 3:5, Vulgate Bible).

2 "Vidit igitur mulier quod bonum esset lignum ad vescendum et pulchrum oculis aspectuque delectabile" (Genesis 3:6, Vulg.). The Vulgate, which would have been Boccaccio's scriptural source, differs from the King James translation, which states that Eve "... saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, _and a tree to be desired to make one wise_ [my emphasis]."

3 Kolsky, _Genealogy,_ 76–90, compares Boccaccio's treatment of women in _De casibus virorum illustrium_ and in _Famous Women._

4 Boccaccio, _De casibus virorum illustrium,_ 102.

5 Boccaccio also relates the story of Semiramis in _Commento alla Divina Commedia,_ 116–19.

6 Semiramis "dared undertake with skill and intelligence the rule of those nations which her fierce husband had subjugated and controlled with force of arms" [ _FW_ 19].

7 For a discussion of this phenomenon see, for example, Miles, _Carnal Knowing,_ 55–56.

8 Kolsky views the two sections as "emblematic of the struggle between two views of what it is that constitutes a woman," and concludes that "the positive image of Semiramis as an active and skillful politician/general lingers in spite of Boccaccio's best efforts to reduce the effectiveness of his portrayal of the warrior queen" _(Genealogy,_ 160–61). 1 suggest that, rather than trying to undermine his own depiction of her military successes, Boccaccio attempted to bisect Semiramis's life (good man/bad woman) in order that the first could stand unsullied as an example to men while the second warned of the dangers of politically ambitious women. He uses the introduction of her rampant carnality to signal her fall from the height of being a good man into the morass of immoral womanhood, for which he condemns her and for which she is ultimately destroyed.

9 Ovid, _Metamorphoses,_ trans. Mary M. Innes (London: Viking Press, 1955), 269. Ovid relates a version in which Artemis "cast a veil of cloud" over those assembled to observe the sacrifice and, in the resulting confusion, secretly substituted a stag for the young princess. Whether or not Iphigenia was spirited away at the last minute, the Mycenaens believed she had been sacrificed. Aeschylus's _Agamemnon,_ which Boccaccio may not have known, explores the morality of the king's decision to sacrifice his daughter, and directly attributes Clytemnestra's murder of her husband to the desire to avenge her daughter's death.

10 See Homer, _The Odyssey,_ trans. E.V. Rieu (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University, 1966), 57. Boccaccio was familiar with both the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey;_ in the _De Genealogia deorum gentilium_ he writes "I owned Homer's works, and do yet, and drew from them much that was of great use to my work"; see Charles G. Osgood, _Boccaccio on Poetry_ (Indianapolis: Bobbs, 1956), 118. He further writes "It was I... who... brought back to Etruria the books of Homer... I who... first heard Leontius Pilate read the _Iliad_ in the Latin language." See Thomas Caldecot Chubb, _The Life of Giovanni Boccaccio_ (Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press, 1969), 207. Chubb also notes that, around 1359, Boccaccio and Pilate translated both the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_ into "an awkward but equivalent Latin" (208). For Boccaccio's use of Greek sources in _Famous Women_ see Ricarda Muller, _Ein Frauenbuch des Friihen Humanismus Unterschungen Zu Boccaccios "De mulieribus claris"_ (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1992), 62–65; and Cornelia C. Coulter, "Boccaccio's Acquaintance with Homer," _Philological Quarterly_ 5 (1956): 44–53.

11 For the feud between Atreus and Thyestes see, for example, Apollodorus's _Library and Epitome_ and Pausanius's _Description of Greece._ The biography of Niobe indicates that Boccaccio was familiar with the ill-starred House of Atreus.

12 Some scholars have attempted to account for Boccaccio's evident mistrust of women—particularly when in a position to wield substantial power—in terms of his relationship with his stepmother Margharita, who may have been the inspiration for his misogynistic _II Corbaccio._ It has been speculated that Margharita's favoring of her own son, Francesco, nurtured in Boccaccio an aversion to powerful women as unprincipled, usurping and emasculating. See, for example, Chubb, _Life of Giovanni Boccaccio,_ 32–35.

13 Boccaccio, _Illustrious Men,_ 118–20. For Alexander in Boccaccio's vernacular fiction see Kirkham, _Fabulous Vernacular,_ 214.

14 Suetonius, _The Twelve Caesars,_ trans. Robert Graves (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1957), 227.

15 Ibid., 228.

16 Tacitus, _The Annals,_ trans. Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb (Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1952), 138.

17 Suetonius, 228–29. Tacitus, 177, writes that "Poppaea died from a casual outburst of rage in her husband, who felled her with a kick when she was pregnant."

18 For an analysis of Boccaccio's treatment of Joan in the context of the propagation of this medieval myth see Alain Boureau, _The Myth of Pope Joan,_ trans. Lydia G. Cochrane (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2001).

19 _Famous Women_ is not the only Latin text in which Boccaccio alerts his reader to the fundamentally licentious nature of females; in _De casibus virorum illustrium,_ 41–46, he devotes a chapter entitled "Against Women" to the warning that "a woman is an alluring and destructive evil... unfaithful [and] oversexed."

20 Boccaccio frequently injects commentary on this theme of the emasculation of men through indulgence in decadent habits. Note, for example, his aside in the biography of the Amazon Penthesilea: "Through practice Penthesilea and women like her became much more manly in arms than those born male who have been changed into women—or helmeted hares—by idleness and love of pleasure" [ _FW_ 131].

21 While Boccaccio does not countenance women's involvement in traditionally male realms, he is contemptuous of traditionally female activities. This theme, which is repeated with variations throughout the text, is illustrated in the biography of Proba: "If we reflect on normal feminine practice, the distaff, the needle, and the loom would have been sufficient for Proba, had she wanted to lead an idle life like the majority of her sex... would that her example was favorably regarded by those women who yield to pleasure and idleness, who think it wonderful to stay in their rooms and waste irrevocable time in frivolous stories, who often drag out their hours from dawn to late at night in harmful or useless gossip..." [ _FW_ 415].

22 In the biography of Epicharis, this proverb is translated "women keep silent only about what they do not know" [ _FW_ 397].

23 Such is his admiration for Leana's act of self-mutilation that Boccaccio, for the first and only time in _Famous Women,_ relaxes his otherwise unshakable conviction that lewd acts compromise an otherwise virtuous character by suggesting that a woman's virtue must be acknowledged even if it "lies hidden under a shameful exterior" [ _FW_ 205].

24 See Zaccaria, "Le fasi redazionali," 253–332.

# [Chapter 3

 _Famous Women_ in Renaissance Tuscany](04-9781315261478_contents.xhtml#chap3)

## Boccaccio's Heroines

Alongside the cadre of power-hungry, promiscuous, homicidal, and treacherous women Boccaccio condemns, he presents another type of ruler: a queen who, through no fault or design of her own, finds herself in a position of authority. Usually, in the absence of any male heirs or pretenders, she is a widow who accepts the yoke left by her deceased husband (in whose death she has played no part) and does what she can to maintain his kingdom and his people. Refusing offers of remarriage, this sorrowing queen remains sexually constant to her husband's memory. The women who meet these criteria are revered in _Famous Women_ not only as paragons of the virtues required of honorable women, but also as exemplars of the virtues most esteemed in Late Medieval and Renaissance men. As female vessels of a male spirit they represent the best that womankind can hope to achieve, while at the same time serving as role models for males. It is these women, most admired by Boccaccio, who, of the scores of illustrious females commemorated in _Famous Women,_ will be selected by Quattrocento patrons and artists for visual representation.1

### _A Virile and Lofty Spirit_

Throughout _Famous Women_ Boccaccio argues for the eternal bond a woman forges when she marries, reflecting not only the author's persistent enthusiasm for chastity in all its manifestations, but also the fundamental anxiety of patriarchal Italy over the depletion of patrimony which occurred when wives remarried and took their dowries with them. Invectives against widows who remarry recur in several biographies while plaudits are lavished on those women whose lives revolve around their husbands, whether living or dead. Pompeia Paulina (XCIV), for example, is extolled for attempting to commit suicide alongside her husband, Seneca, whom Nero had condemned to death. Although she was saved at the last minute, her meritorious widowhood served to "keep alive her husband's memory" [ _FW_ 401]. Boccaccio uses the example of Paulina's constancy to berate women who "submit to a shameful second marriage":

Nowadays, most unfortunately for matronly virtue, it is the practice for women to marry, I will not say two or three times (for that is almost universal), but six, seven, or eight times if the opportunity presents itself. It is so normal for them to bring wedding torches to the chambers of new husbands that they seem to have stolen the custom from prostitutes, whose habit it is to change partners frequently during the night... Certainly it is not at all plain whether such women can be said to leave the chamber of a dead husband or the cell of a brothel... Alas, what wretches we are! To what depths have our morals plunged! The ancients... held that after remarriage it was wrong to permit such women to mingle with respectable wives. The women of our day are quite different. They conceal their itching lust and think they are more beautiful and beloved for having pleased so often the various husbands of their frequent marriages and for overcoming the misfortune of widowhood. [ _FW_ 403]

Embracing permanent widowhood was the logical conclusion to sharing a husband's infelicities during his lifetime. Antonia (LXXXIX), "though still beautiful and in her prime, thought that an honorable woman should wed only once, and no one could persuade her to enter into a second marriage" [ _FW_ 375] following the untimely death of her husband Drusus. She chose, rather, to spend the rest of her life "within the confines of her husband's chamber" [ _FW_ 375]. Agrippina, wife of the murdered Germanicus (XC), grieved so profusely at the death of her husband that his murderer, the Emperor Tiberius, had her thrown into prison, where she subsequently chose to die by starvation. An even more extraordinary show of devotion is found in the death of Julia, daughter of Julius Caesar and wife of Pompey the Great (LXXXI). Mistakenly believing that her husband had been killed, and "as if she could not bear to survive her beloved husband, Julia fell to the ground, her eyes shrouded in darkness and her hands clenched. She died immediately..." [ _FW_ 341]. Although Valerius Maximus (IV.6), upon whom Boccaccio frequently relied, reports that Julia's shock only led to a miscarriage, Boccaccio notes that her "sudden death added much more luster to her reputation" [ _FW_ 339].

The first queens to embrace widowhood in _Famous Women_ are two sisters, Marpesia and Lampedo (XI–XII). Boccaccio describes them as women whose husbands had been murdered by a band of marauders and who, "stirred by a burning desire for vengeance" [ _FW_ 53], proceeded to turn upon and rout their attackers. These women became the Amazons, assuming the mantle of both military and governmental leadership of their all-female tribe.2 In the interest of equity, the Amazons killed all of the husbands who had survived the brigands' attack, and from that time on continued as a race of warriors who never married and only engaged in sexual relations with neighboring males for the purpose of conceiving children. Baby boys were slaughtered at birth, while girls were raised in the manner traditionally reserved for males: "through hunting, running, horse-taming, martial exercises, continuous practice in archery, and similar pursuits, the Amazons hardened the young girls and prepared them to acquire a man's strength" [ _FW_ 53]. In this way the female warriors conquered vast stretches of Europe and Asia.

In Greek mythology, Amazons were among the frightening creatures that valiant heroes such as Hercules and Theseus fought and tamed. Both in their active role as warriors and in their disdain for marriage, the Amazons represented an abnormal inversion of what was believed to be natural and appropriate female conduct; it was therefore considered to be a corrective measure when a male hero succeeded in returning an Amazon to a subordinate position, either by killing or marrying her. It is not inconsistent with his moral assessments of the women he includes in _Famous Women_ that Boccaccio, however, refrains from censuring the chauvinistic behavior of the Amazons. Although restoration of the accepted order is the inevitable conclusion to Boccaccio's stories of women who have undermined male hegemony, Marpesia and Lampedo were not motivated by the desire to usurp male prerogatives. In governing themselves after "almost all the indigenous males were slaughtered by the treachery of the newcomers" [ _FW_ 51], the Amazons not only filled a void to which no man had a greater right, but were thereby able to protect themselves from the attentions of men who would attempt to replace their husbands. Further, they were as chaste as possible given the need to maintain their population, adhering to Boccaccio's optimal standard for marital chastity by having sex only for procreative purposes. Thus, while sharing Boccaccio's scorn of traditional womanly occupations, the Amazons continued to fulfill the essential female function of bearing and raising children. Additionally, they dedicated themselves to cultivating attributes that would enable them to remain self-sufficient in order that they would never again be susceptible to "entering into relationships with foreign males" [ _FW_ 53]. Marpesia and Lampedo introduce the reader to Boccaccio's specifications for the ideal female ruler: a providential commingling of the essential virtue for honorable womanhood (chastity) with the inherently masculine virtues necessary for successful leadership. Most importantly, her leadership never usurps male authority.

Throughout _Famous Women,_ a woman who legitimately inherits authority from her husband and continues to define herself in terms of that relationship by safeguarding his position and his property (including sexual rights to the wife he left behind), is admired for both her feminine modesty and for the extraordinary male spirit which has providentially enabled her to act as a worthy vicar for an absent man. As a loyal steward, this woman does not present a threat to male sovereignty. One example of a chaste female vessel housing a bold masculine spirit is Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra (C). Boccaccio reports that, as a young girl, Zenobia "rid herself of feminine weakness" [ _FW_ 429] by eschewing women's work and devoting her youth to rambling through harsh terrain in pursuit of wild beasts. She "acquired such hard, masculine vigor that sheer strength enabled her to subdue her young male contemporaries in wrestling and gymnastic contests" [ _FW_ 429]. Zenobia was as good a man as any. Significantly, it was also "her practice to scorn the love and companionship of men and to place great store by her virginity" [ _FW_ 429]. Boccaccio thus lets his reader know early in Zenobia's biography that she is to be an unqualified heroine; no woman whose chaste nature has been documented in _Famous Women_ is subject to criticism, and those who also exhibit traditionally masculine virtues constitute, for Boccaccio, the highest refinement of female existence.

When Zenobia came of age she married Odaenathus, a Palmyran prince, who soon aspired to conquer the Persian Empire. Zenobia decided to "serve under her husband" [ _FW_ 429] and accompanied him into battle, where they defeated all of the peoples along the eastern frontiers of the Roman Empire. Her eventual ascent to the throne did not occur at her instigation nor did it involve the usurpation of her children's birthright; when Odaenathus and his son were killed by the prince's cousin, Zenobia lay low until this cousin's rule was brought to an abrupt end through assassination. "With the throne left vacant... [and] since her children were still young" [ _FW_ 431], Zenobia took the reins and for a long time was able to maintain and expand her husband's territory.

Boccaccio frames Zenobia's story to give equal emphasis to her male and female virtues and thereby constructs a paragon of virginal, married, and widowed chastity as well as a model of an intelligent, disciplined, and fearless leader. Virginal until marriage, as a wife she "guarded her virtue so jealously that not only did she shun relations with other men but also... never gave herself to her husband Odaenathus... except for the purpose of procreation" [ _FW_ 433]. Boccaccio actually details Zenobia's method for restricting her marital sexual activity to the requisite minimum, and after her husband died the only male servants allowed in the household were old, morally upright eunuchs. "How praiseworthy was this woman's attitude!... Very rarely indeed will you find women of this stamp" [ _FW_ 433]. While, for men, Zenobia was an exemplar of the masculine virtues required of an astute leader and accomplished military strategist, women exposed to her story would recognize a familiar lesson in sexual conduct.

_Zenobia_ was eventually bested by the Roman Emperor Aurelian, who supplanted the Palmyran queen as illustrious paragon for male emulation in the final section of her biography.3 Boccaccio writes that "Zenobia's greatness was such that... Aurelian, who was a thoroughly upright man, moved against her for the purpose of redeeming the dishonored Roman name and acquiring immense glory" [ _FW_ 435]. As observed in Boccaccio's treatment of Alcibiades in _De casibus virorum,_ the author's endorsement of Aurelian's actions, motivations, and character present a significant contrast to his vilification of the corresponding traits and behavior observed in women whose goal was to "acquire immense glory." Even though Zenobia's reign was legitimately attained and Boccaccio never faults her, the fact that her success rankled with powerful men furthers his pervasive suggestion that a man should be able to best even an exceptional woman at what is by right a man's game.

Although Zenobia was captured, fettered, and showcased in Aurelian's Roman triumph, Boccaccio does not criticize her for submitting to this humiliation any more than he applauded Cleopatra for choosing to die rather than be paraded as a spoil of war. Female submission to male authority, as long as that authority does not endanger her sexual morality, is natural and proper and nothing to be ashamed of. In spite of his admiration for Zenobia, Boccaccio gloats with Aurelian when he notes that the golden chariot in which the queen hoped to ride "not as a prisoner but as a triumphant conqueror arriving to take possession of the Roman Empire" [ _FW_ 437] now belonged to the emperor. The reader is left with the suggestion that Zenobia's successes had begun to border on that which was unseemly for a woman; corrective measures taken by lenient men, however, led to her living out her remaining years in a lifestyle befitting a widow: "with her children amidst the women of Rome" [ _FW_ 437].

Constance Jordan interprets Boccaccio's concluding remarks as a "symbolic adjustment of status... effectively calling into question this queen's extraordinary abilities."4 While Zenobia's ultimate defeat and subjugation by Aurelian represents a "symbolic adjustment of status" in the sense that the manly conqueror has been subdued and restored to her exclusively female role as widow and mother, it is less apparent that this development is meant to call her bellicose abilities into question. Boccaccio quite pointedly indicates that it is precisely her greatness, her martial accomplishments, and, hence, her worthiness as an opponent, that moves Aurelian to take up the challenge to defeat her in a test of arms and thereby acquire glory. In spite of her ultimate defeat, Zenobia the leader/warrior stands untarnished as a paragon of male virtue.

While chastity, whether as virgin, wife or widow, was essential for a woman from the classical past to receive his stamp of approval, those whom Boccaccio regards most highly and to whom he accords the highest praise were not only good women but also good men. Many of these women were not, however, rulers or warriors. The Minyan wives, for example, were noble Spartan women who married descendants of men who had sailed with Jason and the Argonauts. The young male Minyans were vain and unappreciative of the generosity shown by the Spartans to their forefathers and unsuccessfully plotted to overthrow the Spartan state. When the conspirators were sentenced to die for their treachery, their wives devised a scheme to liberate them. The night before the scheduled executions, the women were allowed to enter the prison to say their farewells; once inside the cell, however, they disrobed and adorned their husbands with gowns and veils in order that they might escape undetected. The wives then settled down in their husbands' to await their uncertain fate.

Boccaccio derives a number of moral lessons from the story of the Minyans and their wives while concurrently accounting for the responses of both sexes. The metaphorical transformation of one sex into the other that occurred at the time that the spouses exchanged not only clothing but also positions (the wives now occupying a public role while the husbands found a secluded spot to go into hiding) is unambiguously articulated in Boccaccio's closing sentence: "To sum up: I do not hesitate to affirm that these wives were tried and true men, while the Minyan youths they impersonated were women" [ _FW_ l29].5 The male Minyans, having become women, assumed characteristics which any man worthy of the name would consider anathema: passivity, cowardice, dependence, a lack of initiative and an incapacity for selfless devotion. Boccaccio's unflinching admiration for the Minyan wives is thus exploited as an opportunity to deride men who allow themselves to be upstaged by females in manly virtue: by accepting the aid of wives who defied societal restraints on their initiative and mobility, the Minyan husbands in effect emasculated themselves. Boccaccio considers the male reliance on female saviors to be a humiliating disavowal of gender-based responsibilities, a conclusion that differs markedly from that of his source, Valerius Maximus, who closes his account of the Minyan wives with the question "What else am I to add at this point except that they were worthy to be married by Minyae?" (IV.6). This conclusion asserts that the Minyan women proved themselves deserving of their husbands; Boccaccio's serves as a rhetorical corrective to aberrant gender behavior and thereby fashions the wives into role _models_ for men.

As exemplars for male conduct, the wives of the Minyans were intelligent ("they gathered their wits and found stratagems which normally they could not have discovered"), possessed a rare sense of duty and loyalty (for which they "abandoned the clouds of sensuality" with which women are ordinarily enshrouded), and evidenced a daring exceptional among women (rather than "remaining idly at home as was their right") [ _FW_ 127, 129]. They were also, first and foremost, good wives, who did not usurp male authority, but rather restored their husbands to a position of self-governance:

Truly, I cannot admire enough such utter devotion and selfless love. I feel certain that if these women had loved less fervently, if they had been bound to their husbands by feebler ties... they would not have accomplished such great deeds. [ _FW_ 129]

### _Loyal Wives_

If a married or widowed woman is to be praised without reservation for her unconventional acts, there must be no doubt concerning her unswerving fidelity to her husband or his memory. A number of wives in _Famous Women_ went to extraordinary and even bizarre lengths to demonstrate their conjugal devotion. While Boccaccio does not commemorate many of these women for the manly spirits that enable others to distinguish themselves in the public sphere, his persistent approval of exceptional behavior in the name of connubial loyalty is a thread which binds wives of whom he approves whether or not they are politically active. It is this selfless devotion to the marital bond, whether through self-sacrifice in support of a living husband or as a loyal vicar in widowhood, that characterizes the women Boccaccio most fervently admires and distinguishes them from self-interested women who in many ways may present as superficially similar in their public behavior.

A prime example of "flawless, splendid, and eternal... conjugal love" [ _FW_ 117] is found in the person of Argia, wife of Polynices (XXIX), who shared with her husband the anguish of betrayal when his brother, Eteocles, reneged on an agreement to share the kingship of Thebes. When, after his appointed year, Eteocles refused to turn over the reins of power to her husband, Argia asked her father to provide Polynices with military aid in order that he might reclaim the throne and return from exile. The resulting battle left Polynices dead on the battlefield from which it was forbidden, upon pain of death, to retrieve corpses. Undeterred by this prohibition, Argia "cast aside... womanly weakness" to brave the dangers of a midnight foray to the scene of carnage [ _FW_ 117]. Examining one decaying corpse after another, Argia finally found the one she was looking for, and after bathing her scarcely recognizable husband in kisses and tears, had him cremated in accordance with customs of royal burial.6 A sterling example of a woman motivated by "true love, total devotion, the sanctity of marriage, and an unshaken chastity... Argia became a woman whose praise, honor, and glory should be announced with

Tertia Aemilia (LXXIV), wife of Scipio Africanus the Elder, was "a woman who should be praised to the skies with reverent homage" [ _FW_ 313] for devoting herself to protecting the happiness and reputation of her philandering husband. Turning a blind eye to his relationship with a slave girl, she arranged after his death for the young woman to be married to a freedman in order to prevent her from taking a lesser lover and thereby sullying Scipio's passion by association. The steadfastness of Tertia's love prompted Boccaccio to rail against what he believes would have been the usual wifely response to the discovery of an unfaithful husband:

Another woman would have shouted and called a council of her relatives, neighbors, and sundry female acquaintances. She would have filled their ears with slander and burdened them with endless complaints... She would have harassed her husband in public with tearful protests, and, so long as she could defend her rights with her chatter, she would not have cared that she was staining the glowing reputation of her husband, who in all other respects was a man of spotless honor. [ _FW_ 315]

Triaria (XCVI) was the wife of Lucius Vitellius, brother of the Roman emperor Aulus Vitellius, and rode with Lucius's army in the battle against Vespasian over control of the empire. Coming one night upon a town known to be hostile to Aulus, Lucius and his soldiers attacked the sleeping inhabitants. Triaria, "eager to secure his victory," massacred the defenseless victims with a savagery that Boccaccio attributes "either to her passionate love for her husband or to a cruelty naturally implanted in her soul" [ _FW_ 409]. While initially uncomfortable with Triaria's bloodthirstiness, in his final evaluation of her conduct Boccaccio looks favorably on the irrepressible "power of conjugal love in a pure heart" [ _FW_ 411]. Women in the grips of this passion rightfully "fear nothing provided that their husband's glory is extolled" [ _FW_ 411]. Triaria, brutal though she was, is to be preferred to the vast majority of women who "even in broad daylight are accustomed to faint on their husbands' bosom at the slightest noise of a mouse" [ _FW_ 411]. Boccaccio concludes that any wife who would go to such extremes "for the sake of her husband's honor" must have engaged in "other meritorious actions" which are now lost to memory [ _FW_ 411].

As with many of his heroines, Boccaccio presents in Triaria a woman whose deeds are inimitable by a female audience, but whose excesses can nonetheless be used to shame conventional women for feminine inadequacies. This formula of following up the details of a legendary wife's devotional excesses with derisive censure of wives in general is employed in a number of biographies of women whose fame rests solely on the suffering they were willing to endure on behalf of their husbands. Representative of these is Sulpicia (LXXXV), whose husband Truscellio was forced to flee to a penurious existence in Sicily during a time of political unrest in Rome. Believing that "it was improper for wives to share pleasant honors and bright fortune with their husbands and then recoil from bearing adversity with them" [ _FW_ 351], Sulpicia made up her mind to brave the raging seas and forbidding terrain to search for him. Disguising herself in the clothing of a slave, she made the treacherous voyage to Sicily. After reiterating that "it was more honorable to follow her unfortunate husband through the innumerable perils of his life than to remain at home in comfort and peace while he struggled in exile" [ _FW_ 351], Boccaccio launches into a lengthy diatribe against what he perceives to be the prevalent values and priorities of women and offers a remedy for overcoming the sloth, vanity, and greed to which females are prone:

... women should not always be resplendent with gold and jewels; they should not always be addicted to fashion... they should not always spare themselves. When changed circumstances demand it, they must, alongside their husbands, endure toil, suffer exile, bear poverty, and face danger bravely: the woman who refuses does not know how to be a wife. This is the military service that brings distinction to women; these are their battles, these their victories and their glorious triumphs. To have overcome ease and luxury and petty domesticity with virtue, constancy, and purity of heart: this is how women win perpetual fame and glory. [ _FW_ 353]

Thus Boccaccio defines the parameters of female heroism as a woman's unconditional acceptance of the lot into which she is cast by her marital state. This delimits the nature and extent of the stage upon which she is to demonstrate her capacity for virtue. Whereas _excelsior_ is a component of men's virtue, woman's virtue consists in her to embrace the condition to which she is fated.

The final paragraph of Sulpicia's biography is alarmingly vituperative; with the shining example of Sulpicia before him, Boccaccio is overcome with disgust at the rest of womankind and declares:

Shame, then, not only on those women who pursue relentlessly the mirage of happiness but even more on women who, in questions of marital convenience, fear seasickness, are worn out by light work, tremble at the sight of foreign lands, and blanch to hear an ox bellow—yet, when it comes to following their adulterous lovers, they are all in favor of flight, are delighted by the sea, and in their wickedness are ready to face courageously any and all adventures. [ _FW_ 353]

Curia (LXXXIII) was another wife who subordinated her comfort to the interests of her husband. Quintus Lucretius, like Truscellio, was listed as an enemy of the state by the ruling triumvirs. Unlike the unfortunate outcasts who were forced to flee Rome and suffer exile among the wild beasts, however, Quintus was able to find sanctuary in his own home. Curia devised a plan whereby she would "appear in public wearing an old dress and exhibiting an unkempt appearance, a sad face, tearful eyes, disheveled hair, her veils disordered, a heart wracked with sighs, and a kind of simulated mad stupor" [ _FW_ 347]. In this condition Curia would approach friends and strangers, asking the whereabouts of her beloved husband so that she might join him in exile. Her performance was so convincing that Quintus was able to wait out his proscription in comfort, and, in light of the frightful spectacle Curia made of herself, "as if in a daze, running through the city... [and] drifting around the squares," it is unlikely that she had to contend with threats to her chastity [ _FW_ 347]. Curia, "a splendid example in the ancient world of extraordinary constancy and absolute fidelity," consoled and protected her husband, and "with this holy deed... achieved–and deserved– eternal fame" [ _FW_ 347]. Again, feminine virtue is equated with marital devotion which is identified as the legitimate female path to glory.

The all-consuming passion of Hypsicratea, Queen of Pontus, for her husband Mithridates the Great (LXXVIII), led her both to endure the sufferings of Sulpicia and undertake the gender transformation of the Minyan wives. Mithridates spent most of his time battling the Romans, and since Hypsicratea not only yearned to be with him but also "thought that no one but herself could serve him properly" [ _FW_ 323], she forfeited her life of ease in order to follow him on his perilous wanderings. To contend with these rigors, she was "endowed with a manly spirit"; further, as it did not "seem right for a woman to march alongside a warlike king," she made herself "look like a man" [ _FW_ 323, 325]. In thus transforming herself, Hypsicratea was able to venture forth from the "softness... (of) the royal bedchamber" [ _FW_ 325] into the public realm of men.

It did not "seem right" for Hypsicratea to accompany the king for the same reason that it was not proper for a fourteenth- or fifteenth-century patrician woman to leave the confines of her home except under prescribed circumstances: the possibility that, in so doing, her chastity or reputation might be compromised. Boccaccio therefore makes it abundantly clear that not only was Hypsicratea single-mindedly dedicated to her husband's well-being ("0 loving breast, temple of conjugal tenderness!" _FW_ 325), but that her masculine disguise was sufficiently thorough to prevent other men from being sexually attracted to her ("she... allowed [her] face to be disfigured with sweat, dust, and the rust of armor," _FW_ 327). This resolves any concerns regarding chastity which might have arisen from Hypsicratea's unorthodox demonstration of connubial loyalty. Thereafter, her biography reads as a textbook study of proper wifely conduct. Although Mithridates had many wives and concubines, she was steadfastly faithful; while her feminine appeal was not available to other eyes, she "soothed him with the pleasures she knew he longed for" [ _FW_ 327]. She did not trust the servants to minister to his needs, but saw to them personally; she cheered him up when he was down, suffered without complaint, and "was his constant companion in victory or in flight, his helper in work, his partner in counsel" [ _FW_ 325]. In the end, Boccaccio extracts from Hypsicratea's life that virtuous element with which contemporary women could hope to identify and allows it to stand epigrammatically as a standard of wifely _devotion: "Never did any wife endure_ greater (or even similar) hardships for her husband's sake" [ _FW_ 327].

## A Woman's Place

In his dedication, as well as in a number of his lives, Boccaccio makes it clear that he expects women to emulate the virtues rather than the deeds of his heroines, and to do so within the paradigm dictated by contemporary social customs. Camilla, for example, was a warrior who fought fiercely both in battle and to preserve her virginity, and while glorifying Camilla's masculine spirit in the narrative of her biography, Boccaccio concludes by deriving the following moral injunction from her story:

I wish that the girls of our time would consider Camilla's example. When they imagine this mature and self-possessed young woman wearing a quiver and running freely through the open fields, forests, and the lairs of animals, constantly curbing wanton desire with its enticements, refusing the pleasures and luxury of elaborate food and drink, and steadfastly rejecting not only the embraces but even the conversation of young men of her own age–when they have imagined this, let them learn from her example the proper demeanor in their parents' home, in churches, and in theaters where many onlookers and the most severe judges of conduct assemble. Let them learn also not to listen to less than honorable persons, to keep silent, have a serious look in their eyes, be well-mannered, gesture modestly, and avoid idleness, feasting, excessive luxury, dancing, and consorting with young men. Young women should also realize that it is neither pious nor in keeping with a chaste life to desire everything that is pleasurable and to do everything that is allowed. When they become wiser and blossom in their precious virginity, let them enter into holy matrimony in due season and under the direction of their elders. [ _FW_ 157, 159]

Here Boccaccio contrives to transform the warrior maiden of the _Aeneid_ into a guide for young girls by framing her life as an allegory of feminine chastity tied to contemporary cultural practices. A brief overview of these practices will set the stage for an analysis of paintings of Boccaccio's heroines created in Early Renaissance Italy.

Fifteenth-century Tuscany was home to a number of independent communes operating under nominally republican forms of government. In these republics patrician births were commemorated through memoirs kept by their fathers, who jubilantly proclaimed the delivery of healthy sons while chronicling the arrival of daughters with stoical acceptance. The overwhelming preference for male children during the Renaissance reflects the prevailing view that females constituted a lesser order of humanity, morally and physically inferior to their brothers and therefore troublesome to raise and expensive to provide for once grown. The belief that female children were the result of pathological conditions at the time of conception was generally accepted and led to behavioral prescriptions such as that recorded in the diary of the late fourteenth-century Florentine merchant Giovanni Morelli. In a statement reminiscent of Aristotle's description of females as "mutilated males," Morelli warns that unless prospective parents are healthy, sober, and free of vice, they "will have children only with difficulty... will have females... [and] will have them stunted."7 His memoir illustrates the acceptance and promulgation by the educated merchant class of time-honored assumptions regarding the inborn inadequacies of females and attests to their undesirability as offspring.

A vast body of scholarship supports a wide-ranging, gender-based dichotomy of access and function in Quattrocento Italian societies. As the male line defined the family, women and girls were socially identified in terms of their relationships to the men in whose house they dwelt at any given time. Estates were passed down from father to son, and the word for house, _casa,_ was used to indicate both the concrete dwelling and the agnatic kinship group, traceable exclusively through men. When daughters married and moved away, the children they bore enhanced their husband's _casa_ , and often had minimal, if any, contact with their maternal grandparents. Christiane Klapisch-Zuber has concluded "in the sense of both [the] physical and the symbolic house, women were passing guests"; the name of a female relation, entered as an _entrata_ (one who enters) or a _uscita_ (one who exits) in family journals, was frequently forgotten after a few generations.8

### _Black Swans_

While the extent to which girls living under a communal government were educated seems to have varied from family to family, most middle and upper-class women received only a rudimentary education which would enable them to manage their husband's household and read the vernacular Bible and other religious books.9 The intelligence of a woman whose education surpassed functional literacy, while conceivably a source of gratification to her husband and the restricted circle of family and friends with whom she socialized, would have no impact on the political life of her community. Unlike the wealth of her father or her reputation for chastity, her intelligence would not figure into her attractiveness as a candidate for marriage or work to appreciably expand her sphere of influence.

Those few women whom history records as having been recognized for their exceptional learning either studied with their accomplished fathers or were educated by tutors alongside their brothers. Regardless of a father's attitude towards educating his daughter, his primary obligation was to prepare her to fulfill her duties as a wife. The paucity of documentation attesting to the educational level achieved by most women reflects the gender-based differences in the ultimate use to which such education was put; whereas educated boys eventually became clerks, statesmen, writers, and tutors, educated girls (like uneducated girls) grew up to be wives, and were thereby largely excluded from harvesting any actual fruits of their knowledge.

Only a handful of fifteenth-century Tuscan women are known to have actively sought to associate themselves with the intellectual elite. Grafton and Jardine have argued that constructive access to the humanist networks in which ideas and manuscripts were exchanged was denied to even the few women who proved themselves worthy of inclusion.10 They suggest that, rather than being considered substantive contributors to humanist scholarship, women were isolated by male humanists who, rather than focusing on the products of female intellect, focused on the extraordinary nature of the producer. This is illustrated in the language used by prominent humanist Agnolo Poliziano, who worked as tutor for the Medici family in Florence, when writing to Cassandra Fedele: "What an astonishing impact it must make upon us, truly, that it was possible for such [letters] to be produced by a woman... truly by this we know that your sex has not after all been condemned to slowness and stupidity.11 This manner of response effectively served to truncate meaningful dialogue on the content of female writings.

In a letter written by the eminent scholar Guarino Guarini he praises the Florentine sisters Isotta and Ginevra Nogarola in such a way as to abnegate any association of their abilities with real-life consequences: "Oh the glory indeed of our State and our Age! Oh how rare a bird on earth, like nothing so much as a black swan!"12 When Isotta attempted to initiate a personal correspondence with the master himself, however, he neglected to respond to her overtures. Imploring him to pardon her "if I have transgressed those rules of silence especially imposed on women," Isotta was reduced to pleading for an acknowledgement: "How often does it occur to me to lament my fortune, because I was born a woman."13 Isotta's mention of the "rules of silence" suggests that the female reticence encouraged by Boccaccio and supported by Renaissance humanists found practical acceptance in Florentine society, while her heartfelt plaint at being a woman speaks to the doors closed against women seeking public acknowledgement.14 When Guarino eventually replies to Isotta, he retracts his admiration for her:

When I saw fit to give my attention to that outstanding intellect of yours... I was accustomed beside to express strongly my opinion that you were manly of spirit... Now, however, you show yourself so cast down, humiliated and truly womanish that I am able to perceive nothing which accords with my previous magnificent opinion of you.15

Early Renaissance humanists embraced the strategy employed by Boccaccio of figuratively transforming intelligent women into miraculous hermaphrodites. Having lost her "manly spirit," Isotta forfeited her claim to join the ranks of women worthy of remembrance; without it, her intellectual pretensions became devoid of merit. Pietro Dabuson observed that Cassandra Fedele was a female vessel into which was born a male soul; Lauro Quirini praised Isotta Nogarola for having "overcome her own nature... for that true virtue, which is essentially male, you have sought with singular zeal"; and Isabella d'Este, the _prima donna del mondo,_ was possessed of an _"animo virile." 16_

On the rare occasions when a woman engaged in public oratory, whether in a lecture, oration or debate, it was regarded as an extra-ordinary, nonprofessional event. Again, the content of her discourse appears to have been irrelevant to fifteenth-century commentators, who chose to focus on the remarkability of a woman possessing the capacity for such an undertaking.17 Although eloquence was the Renaissance male humanist's most marketable commodity, the association of female eloquence and political ambition with sexual impropriety found in _Famous Women_ was promulgated by the fifteenth-century idiom that "the woman of fluent speech is never chaste."18 Isotta herself became the victim of an anonymous invective written in 1438 in which she was accused of having indiscriminate, incestuous and uninterrupted intercourse.19 At best, eloquence was a wasted talent in a woman; as Leonardo Bruni wrote to Battista Malatesta,

Why exhaust a woman with the... difficulties of rhetorical art, when she will never see the forum?... For if a woman throws her arms around while speaking, or if she increases the volume of her speech with greater forcefulness, she will appear threateningly insane and requiring restraint. These matters belong to men, as war, or battles, and also contests and public controversies.20

### _Paying the Price_

With the birth of a girl came not only the failure to produce a male heir who would perpetuate the family name and business, but the necessity of earmarking assets for a dowry which would ensure her an honorable future through marriage. The onus of providing a dowry was much bemoaned in the journals of _capi della famiglia;_ Francesco Guicciardini notes that there was nothing in life more difficult than conveniently marrying off one's daughters?21 Early in a little girl's life her father would decide, based largely on financial considerations, whether her destiny lay as a wife or as a nun.22 While giving one's daughter to the church required a concurrent pecuniary gift, this sum was substantially smaller than that required to ensure an advantageous patrician marriage.

Tuscan nuptials were carefully negotiated affairs designed to enhance the political, social and/or economic status of the families involved. 23For fifteenth-century North and Central Italians, the dowry, or dote, was a guarantee that marriage would be an honorable transaction for the families of both the bride and the groom. Although the substance varied according to individual circumstances and the relative social advantages to be gained, dowries usually consisted of cash augmented, in the case of middle and upper-class brides, by jewelry and fine apparel, household furnishings, and, occasionally, real property. 24Although Quattrocento fathers chafed at the hardships involved in accumulating dowries for their daughters, there is no evidence that beleaguered patricians ever sought to undermine or overthrow the system; rather, efforts were made to assist the community in rendering marriageable as many girls, both rich and poor, as possible. One Florentine institution devoted to this cause was the Monte delle doti (literally, dowry bank), which was established as a public fund in 1425. An initial deposit, made upon the birth of a daughter, would accrue at a guaranteed eleven to twelve-percent interest rate, at fixed terms of seven and a half or fifteen years. Although investment in the fund involved risk (if a child died the deposit was forfeited, and the fund occasionally became insolvent), investing in the Monte delle doti was considered by many to be the best safeguard against a daughter's marriage despoiling the patrimony any more than necessary.25

Renaissance families, regardless of socioeconomic standing, feared the dishonor with which the sexual impropriety of females could taint a household. The extent to which fifteenth-century societies shared Boccaccio's anxiety that an unmarried daughter was prone to carnal sin is evidenced in part by the sermons and writings of preachers, poets, and politicians, who encouraged the wealthy to bequeath dowry money to impoverished fathers. In order to promote this form of philanthropy among the patriciate, paintings were commissioned which illustrated scenes from the celebrated life of St. Nicholas of Bari.26 Learning of a destitute neighbor's plan to live off of the prostitution of his three daughters, Nicholas surreptitiously hurled lumps of gold through the man's window while the family slept; upon awakening, the grateful father immediately arranged for his daughters' nuptials. This episode was repeatedly represented by major artists throughout the Renaissance, which not only suggests a continuity of belief with Boccaccio regarding the importance of vigilantly directing female sexuality into its sole acceptable channel, but also illustrates the practice of reinforcing societal customs and institutions through the use of visual imagery.

A woman's dowry usually constituted her entire inheritance; even women with no brothers or nephews were permitted to inherit only one-quarter of their father's wealth.27 To further safeguard the patrimony of male heirs, Florentine law forbade any attempts on the part of daughters to gain possession of any portion of their deceased fathers' estates. Although a wife's dowry remained her legal property throughout her marriage, she had no legal rights to either spend or manage it, and until his death, her husband wielded autonomous control over the manner in which both goods and money were used and invested. While some husbands were known to have supported their wives' desire to spend dowry money for the benefit of religious and charitable institutions, a wife could not make any such expenditure without her husband's consent.

Laws that barred a married woman from having administrative control over her dowry were representative of a juridical establishment in which women were required to obtain the consent of men in order to engage in any legal interactions whatsoever. A fifteenth-century Florentine statute considered women to be lacking "the legitimate persona to act in law without a _mundualdus,"_ an adult male appointed by a notary to any woman wishing to engage in a legal transaction; another stated that "no woman may obligate herself in any way without... her husband's consent if she has a husband." 28

The weight of custom in combination with a contemporary presumption of female incapacity led to a legal structure in which women (including widows) needed men's concurrence in order to accept an inheritance, recover a dowry, or sell or rent property. In situations where legal actions related to the disbursement of property required the participation of a woman either as owner or potential claimant, the _mundualdus_ could clearly exercise informal influence; instances are known in which husbands and brothers manipulated or coerced their wives and sisters into financial transactions which proved advantageous primarily or solely to the men involved29. Thomas Kuehn suggests "The Florentine institution of the _mundualdus_ provided a means of dealing with those potentially dysfunctional moments in the structure of male dominance when women entered the public arena."30 On the infrequent occasions in a woman's life when it became necessary to leave the domestic sphere and enter into public proceedings conceived of as the rightful province of men, the _mundualdus_ served as a protective and guiding force ultimate male control.

Boccaccio's repeated warnings against female participation in public affairs would have resonated sympathetically with his fifteenth-century readers. The social institutions which worked to define the appropriate bounds of female activity reflected a deeply entrenched and broadly accepted view of the constitutional endowment of women and, by implication, the roles in which they could be trusted to function without their fundamental frailties leading to ruinous consequences. Boccaccio's vilification of women acting in their own behalf to influence the world at large articulates in moral terms a set of principles already well established in the traditions and practices of the society for which he wrote and which would continue to hold sway throughout the Renaissance.

### _The Problem of Widowhood_

Given that a woman's status in Italian society was defined by her association with men, widowhood represented an awkward circumstance for which established conventions offered no ready or comfortable resolution. A newly widowed woman often became the object of a tug-of-war between her family of origin and that of her deceased husband because, upon her husband's death, she gained possession of her dowry, which again became an important political tool offering both social and financial benefits to the male who could obtain control over it.31 When the widow's birth family prevailed, both her person and her fortune would he reclaimed and she would become, once more, a pawn in the game of contracting marital alliances.

When a young widow either chose or was successfully pressured into returning to her father's household, she left the children of her previous union behind. Regardless of the age at which children were left fatherless, it was unusual for them to spend lengthy periods of time with their remarried mother. Private family journals are replete with bitter reports of a mother abandoning her orphaned children and stepchildren. The acrimony generated by a woman's remarriage stemmed not from the severing of emotional ties, but from the financial hardships which frequently resulted. Demographic data suggest that the combined pressures of society at large and the individual families involved were frequently successful in dissuading a widow from remarrying; while it has been estimated that approximately thirty percent of women widowed in their twenties remarried following the death of their husbands, this number dropped to one in ten for women widowed over the age of thirty.32

In an attempt to forestall the eventuality of his heirs having to return her dowry, a dying husband would often offer his wife inducements to remain in his home after his death. For example, he might tempt his wife to maintain a perpetual widowhood by leaving her a conditional bequest which would revert back to his heirs at her death.33 This bequest might include the clothing, jewelry and furnishings he had bestowed upon her at the time of their marriage but over which he remained proprietor; if his wife was to continue to enjoy them after his death, it was necessary that the objects be specifically allocated to her in his will. The heirs themselves were known to have pledged themselves to the continued comfort of the widow-to-be.

In addition to regaining control of her dowry, a widow who did not remarry could, perhaps for the first time in her life, make financial decisions which would be felt outside the domestic sphere. Some women devoted a portion of their dowry to supporting religious institutions or to commissioning works of art: in a study of female patrons of the Renaissance, Catherine King found that widows were far more likely to finance art and architectural projects than were wives.34 Although this relative financial independence provided a woman with limited opportunities to exercise influence outside her home, the nature of this influence was not such as to challenge male political dominance in the formulation and implementation of public policy. For Boccaccio, the desirability of women's maintaining chaste and honorable widowhoods greatly outweighed any potential threat to the male establishment represented by excursions into philanthropy or artistic patronage (for which he had a soft spot).

### _Sotto Governo_

The dowry and connections a woman brought to her marriage contributed materially to her husband's _casa,_ which in turn enhanced the stature of the republic through the development of illustrious familial establishments and by promoting the mercantile prosperity which lent the commune its eminence and influence. Beyond this initial contribution, however, what were women expected and/or permitted to bring to their homes and their community? Fifteenth-century sumptuary legislation declared that "women were made to replenish this free city and to observe chastity in marriage," and from the sermons of popular ecclesiastics and the treatises of secular moralists to the letters of scarcely literate wives written with the aid of scribes, it is clear that a woman's worth was defined by her fulfillment of wifely obligations.35

Because the social networks which fueled the machinery of state were ultimately dependent upon advantageous marriages between influential families, young girls were kept essentially cloistered to protect their marriageability (i.e. virginity) against temptation or scandal. While daughters of lower-class families would of financial necessity be required to transact business in the marketplace, on occasions when unmarried patrician girls appeared outside the confines of the parental residence they would invariably be chaperoned, and often obscured by heavy veils. Restricting the movements of wives was advocated by many Renaissance writers; Archbishop Antonino Pierozzi, writing in a 1474 compendium of canon law, asserted that "[A wife] ought but rarely to wander around outside the home... and she should not go leaping about in the piazza, nor stand telling stories and murmuring in the doorway, nor talking at the window... and she should go outside the house only to church, and then she should not go by herself."36

Women who were otherwise largely confined to their homes would regularly attend mass at their parish church and occasionally attend public sermons in the more spacious _piazze._ The letters of one Quattrocento mother relate that the only opportunity she had for evaluating a potential daughter-in-law was to attend services at which she knew the young lady was likely to be present.37 The closely circumscribed range of acceptable female behavior was conveyed in sacred settings; for example, St. Bernardino of Siena, preaching to a Florentine audience in 1424, made it clear that the duty of women was to grease the wheels that allowed the machinery of men's lives to operate smoothly:

Your wife gives you children, raises them, takes care of them... What's more, I tell you that she's the caretaker and guardian of your possessions. You go out and make money, while she stays home and takes care of things... If you, the husband, make money but have no one to take care of it, the household goes to pieces.38

Husbands are further admonished to instruct, correct, and support their wives, who are to respect, serve and obey their spouses. A good wife was an indispensable asset to a patrician home, and the well-being of the individual homes which constituted a commune and the well-being of that commune were inextricably linked. In the republics of Renaissance Italy, therefore, character traits esteemed and cultivated by members of the ruling class were seen as requisite not only for individual and familial prosperity, but also for the healthy functioning of the state. The powerful impact of the ideology which underlay the running of a patrician home in Renaissance Florence can be seen in the hierarchies which developed in other social institutions. Richard Trexler discusses the concept of _governo_ as being defined by dependence and submissiveness and relates it to the functioning of guilds, monasteries, and even the governing body of the republic. Just as unmarried children and women were _sotto governo_ to their fathers and husbands, workers were under the governance of the guilds, members of religious orders were under the governance of abbots and abbesses, and there was a familial dependence upon the citizenry of all non-citizen members of the commune.39 Leon Battista Alberti, a true Renaissance man even by fifteenth-century standards, likened the patriarch of a family to an emperor, bearing sole responsibility for overseeing the conduct of his household, and had "no doubt at all that by good management, careful and diligent rule by the father, good habits, and the utmost integrity of conduct, culture, courtesy, and responsibility, the family [could]
become great and fortunate."40 Unquestioning obedience by the governed was owed both to the patriarch, upon whose provident direction the household depended, and to the citizen 'fathers' of the republic, who bore responsibility for the prosperity of the entire commune.

Alberti drew on Aristotelian notions of the correlation of physiology with character in Book III of _I libri della famiglia (On the Family,_ ca.1430) to delineate the roles that husbands and wives must assume to ensure the continued prosperity of the family. He credits writers of antiquity with providing him with ideas meant to promote the prosperity and ennoble the reputation of Florentine families. It is therefore not surprising that Alberti confounds physical and personality characteristics in delineating gender-based characteristics that point naturally to narrowly defined duties. _Della famiglia_ takes the form of a dialogue between members of the Alberti family, and in the second and third books he addresses the selection of an appropriate wife and the minutiae of managing a well-run household. Variables relevant to the former issue are summed up by one interlocutor: "... one should select a virtuous woman of good parentage, one well dowered and suited to bear a fair number of sons.41 It is also noted that if a woman has many brothers and no sisters, this is auspicious for obtaining a similar familial configuration when she herself becomes a wife and mother.42

Proceeding to a wife's duties, Alberti perpetuates Aristotelian natural philosophy and the ideology propounded in _Famous Women_ when he argues that

... men are by nature of a more elevated mind than women.... The character of men is stronger than that of women; the female is tamer and gentler in disposition than the male, less powerful... Women... are almost all timid by nature, soft, slow...43

This polarization of physical, psychological and moral attributes suggests a providentially ordained division of labor, as one speaker, Giannozzo teaches the younger Alberti: "the father of the family... must abstain from such activities as properly pertain to women."44 Further,

... it would hardly win us respect if our wife busied herself among the men in the marketplace, out in the public eye. It also seems somewhat demeaning to me to remain shut up in the house among women when I have manly things to do among men...45

These sentiments echo those of Boccaccio, whose chief grievance against Iole was that she convinced Hercules to give up more appropriately masculine pursuits to sit and spin with the women.

Alberti's Giannozzo considers the passivity of women as not only natural, but a necessary complement to a man's busy life _in pubblico._ In fact, it is a woman's role to

... sit still and watch over our things. It is as though nature thus provided for our well-being, arranging for men to bring things home and for women to guard them. The woman, as she remains locked up at home, should watch over things by staying at her post, by diligent care and watchfulness.46

As portrayed by Giannozzo, the duties of a wife define her as little more than a privileged servant whose reliability does not extend to being trusted with business dealings or private matters outside the home. Giannozzo goes on to say that, soon after his marriage, he informed his wife that she was not to meddle in his affairs and "made it a rule never to speak with her of anything but household matters or questions of conduct, or of the children."47 He also expresses disapproval of "bold and forward females who try too hard to know about things outside the house and about the concerns of their husband and of men in general."48 Alberti's Giannozzo was not alone in expressing these views; another important humanist work that addressed the role of women to a Florentine readership was Francesco Barbaro's _De re uxoria liber_ written in 1416. Barbaro supports the necessity for female seclusion as well as the theory of inborn deficiencies that render women capable only of looking after their husband's possessions. Even in the fulfillment of tasks which are properly her own and beneath the active involvement of men, a wife should confer with, and defer to, her husband.49 The republican humanist attitude on this subject can perhaps best be summed up in the words of Matteo Palmieri:

The duty proper to a wife is heedfully to govern the house well, provide for its wants, know all that is going on there, be watchful as to all that affects it, confer with her husband, ascertain his will, and follow it in such wise that his command, opinion, and custom shall serve as her law.50

From the writings of ecclesiastics and literary humanists a picture emerges of the ideal fifteenth-century marriage as one in which a capable but subservient wife manages a household under the benevolent tutelage of her husband. Needless to say, the writings of moralists cannot be accepted as a perfect reflection of social reality; indeed, if all wives behaved as prescribed, the need to delineate proper conduct would not have been so keenly felt. Nonetheless, the enthusiastic quest for evidence of female independence and authority within Renaissance society has yielded a scanty harvest, suggesting that the rhetoric intended to regulate female behavior supported societal strictures which were, on the whole, successful in confining women to their homes and domestic duties.51 In a revealing letter from an anonymous Florentine mother to her betrothed daughter there is a list of twelve commandments meant to guide the young wife in her domestic obligations. These include an injunction not to attempt to learn her husband's secrets, bother him when he is otherwise occupied, or give or lend anything without his permission

for he is so much your lord that even for the love of God you must not give to the poor without asking him. Therefore take every care of his property, for, as a man is praised for generosity, so a woman is praised for her care of her husband's goods.52

The image of the cowed Renaissance wife is further supported by another female writer, the Northern Italian intellectual Laura Cereta (b. 1469) who, widowed at a young age, wrote "Wives come to their husbands just to receive their nods of like little girls who depend on their nurse's opinion."53

The only known compilation of the lives of women to be written in fifteenth-century Tuscany owed a tremendous debt to Boccaccio's _Famous Women._ This was _Il Libro delle lodi e commendazioni delle donne illustri (On the Praise and Commendation of Illustrious Women,_ 1480s), by Vespasiano da Bisticci, a Florentine humanist and bookseller who wrote, he says, at the behest of a group of patrician women.54 His goal was to demonstrate, apparently against the tide of popular opinion, that the fifteenth century was not devoid of virtuous females; unlike Boccaccio, therefore, he only writes about women he can praise. Written in the vernacular, it is clear throughout _Lodi e commendazioni_ that Vespasiano's intended audience included both men and women.

Vespasiano's biographies were anticipated by his inclusion of the life of Alessandra de'Bardi in his _Vite di uomini illustri del secolo XV (Lives of Illustrious Men of the Fifteenth Century),_ ca. 1480. In the letter of introduction to Alessandra's biography (written to his friend Giovanni de'Bardi), he refers to a conversation in which Alessandra had been compared favorably to Portia and Sulpicia and notes that Boccaccio had honored these women "in his pages."55 This reference is not only indicative of a high level of familiarity with and respect for Boccaccio's text among Quattrocento humanists, but also a shared belief regarding the virtues appropriate to females.

Vespasiano presents Alessandra as a long-suffering widow who never remarried and devoted herself to the welfare of her children. Another widowed paragon he presents for emulation is Caterina degli Alberti, whose husband died after eighteen months of marriage when Caterina was only fifteen years of age. Nonetheless, she lived out her remaining sixty-plus years without marrying again, and Vespasiano expostulates

0 wonderful power and wisdom of God! How great is their force that they should be able to bring this young beautiful highborn woman, rich and talented, to this resolve never to marry again! She was young and subject to youthful desires... so she always wore a garment of coarse fabric, she never slept in a bed, but on one bare mattress... her house was kept like a well-ordered convent... and her face was always covered.56

Vespasiano writes that he included the life of Alessandra de'Bardi in his _Vite di uomini illustri del secolo XV_ in order that "all women may read her life and follow her example and win the favor of God."57 It quickly becomes apparent that the women God approved of in the Quattrocento were the humbly chaste sort of female Boccaccio praised in _Famous Women:_ all of Vespasiano's women upheld some combination of the conventionally approved virtues of chastity, modesty, temperance, silence, and piety. Most of these women lived in the fifteenth century; however, even those drawn from antiquity are lauded primarily for these qualities to the neglect of others they might also have possessed. The ability of the Sibyls to write and prophecy is subordinated, for example, to their willingness to maintain perpetual virginity. Intelligent women–and there are several in _Lodi e commendazioni–always_ employed their wits in the service either of God or of their families and never attempted to receive public recognition. Two cases in point are Paola Malatesta nei Gonzaga and Cecilia Gonzaga, both of whom read Latin but consecrated their literacy entirely to religious devotions.

Vespasiano shared the predominant humanist attitude that the quiet, competent management of the household was the natural vocation of women; because he was writing primarily of Christian women he also stressed the importance of an active and devout fear of God. Caterina Alberti nei Corsini "... occupied her time in reciting the hours and the offices and attending to the things necessary for the care of her house," and Giovanna Valori nei Pandolfini included her children in her daily religious rituals.58 Being a woman of _"poche parole"–few_ words– everything in Giovanna's house was accomplished with _"grandissima pace e quiete"_ (greatest peace and quiet).59 Vespasiano's exemplars, chosen as they were to demonstrate the living presence of virtuous women, suggest that the standard of female behavior endorsed by Boccaccio continued to be embraced in the Tuscan republics throughout the Quattrocento. _Lodi e commendazioni_ does not treat of women who exemplify, however paradoxically, behavior traditionally valued in men; Vespasiano's guide to exemplary female activity includes only those women who embraced conventional societal expectations of virgins, wives and widows.

Since women were legally barred from holding public office, their avenues of influence outside the home appear to have been largely restricted to any sway they may have held with their male relatives. Of those who might have been expected to achieve a measure of political influence, one looks first to the women of the Medici family, who enjoyed seigniory in Florence for most of the fifteenth century. In the personal communications of Contessina de'Bardi, wife of Cosimo de' Medici, we find the portrait of a doting wife and mother whose time was consumed by the day-to-day running of a large and prosperous household. Contessina was poorly educated and frequently dictated letters filled with details of illnesses, food, clothing, and childcare advice for the edification of family members.60 There is never any indication that Contessina took an interest in politics, even though her husband was one of the most influential men in Italy. The same observation can be made regarding Clarice Orsini, the daughter of a wealthy Roman aristocrat, whom Lorenzo _Il Magnifico_ married in 1469.61 Clarice did not share Lorenzo's enthusiasms, and, although the political and intellectual elite of the Florentine Renaissance gathered daily at the Medici _palazzo,_ she frequently retreated to her husband's country residences. Her letters focus on domestic travails. When she died in 1488, the Ferrarese ambassador to Florence wrote that, "Madonna Clarice... died three days ago, but I did not send the news at once, as it did not seem to me of much importance... She died last Wednesday at twenty-four of the clock and was buried without pomp that evening."62

By contrast, Lucrezia Tornabuoni, Cosimo's daughter-in-law and mother of Lorenzo, was the most cultivated Medici woman of the Quattrocento, and in her role as _madre di famiglia_ of the most powerful family in Florence, took an active interest in the affairs of the commune. From the time of her marriage to Cosimo's son Piero in 1444 until her death in 1482, there was not a more politically influential woman in Tuscany; nonetheless, the large body of her preserved correspondence suggests that the source and scope of her power lay largely in the extent to which she could function as intercessor with her husband or son.63 In 1474, Francesco d'Antonio and Niccol6 da Volterra sent letters to Lucrezia that are representative of the many letters sent to her by petitioners. Francesco writes "Some days ago **I** wrote to ask you to beg the Magnificent Lorenzo to appoint me as the new Vicar of Vico Pisano... Wherefore **I** beg of you as much as possible to take my part as you have always done," while Niccolo writes "... Lorenzo shall be authorized to appoint a Chancellor of the Priors... **I** beg you to do me the favor to recommend me."64 When, for Christmas of 1464, Filippo Strozzi sent her some expensive linen along with the request that she speak to Piero regarding the Strozzi family's banishment, she replied, "I spoke to Piero as you asked me to do... He heard everything most willingly, and I think he will do it...65

In a letter of consolation written to Lorenzo upon his mother's death, a canon at S. Lorenzo stated that Lucrezia "knew how to manage the most important affairs with wise counsel, and how to succor the citizens in time of calamity".66 Yet in spite of her many talents and the high regard in which she was universally held, Lucrezia's power was exercised using the same channels open to other respectable aristocratic wives and mothers; as a Tuscan wife living in the early Renaissance, her political role remained one insurmountable step removed from exercising direct control.

## Daring but Decorous: _Donne Illustri_ in the Art of the Tuscan Republics

Boccaccio's treatment of legendary and historical women makes it clear that he most admires those in whom the qualities of chastity, loyalty and service of male interests—feminine virtues—dwell side by side with such traditionally masculine virtues as courage, wisdom and leadership. These women, who can function simultaneously as exemplars for women and for men, receive the author's highest honors and his most unqualified praise. While Boccaccio's fictional oeuvre provided a wealth of narrative material in support of Renaissance values, the method he employed in _Famous Women_ for defining that which was quintessentially masculine in the lives of his heroines rendered many of them ideal as role models in situations where both men and women were meant to derive moral edification from visual imagery. Boccaccio's model for reading the lives of these heroic paragons, who were both good women and good men, was transmitted through fifteenth-century artists and patrons interested in disseminating standards of private and civic virtue to all members of patrician society.

### _At Home among Heroes: The Women of The Villa Carducci_

In a Renaissance country villa outside of Florence, three full-body portraits of women were commissioned by the politically-prominent Carducci family to accompany portraits of six male worthies. These women, painted by the acclaimed Florentine artist Andrea Castagno (ca.1445), are an intriguing component of the only approximately life-size _uomini famosi_ cycle yet extant. The Carducci coat-of-arms, incorporating the double eagle of the Greek empire awarded to Filippo Carducci by the Emperor of Constantinople, is still visible on the facade of the open loggia in which the frescoes were executed.67 This rectangular hall was a room in which the Carducci family and their guests gathered to enjoy conversation and fresh air; it would also have been the setting for gatherings of the Florentine intellectual elite, who would have appreciated the significance of the illustrious personages painted on the long interior wall.

The famous men and women who comprise the Villa Carducci cycle include three Tuscan poets (Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio) and three Florentine military leaders (Pippo Spano, Farinata degli Uberti, and Niccolo Acciaiuoli), as well as the three women (Esther, Tamyris, and the Cumaean Sibyl). The _tituli_ painted beneath the poets simply identify them by name; those accompanying the military men and the women are more descriptive. Pippo Spano is identified as _relator victorie theutocarum_ (conqueror of the Turks), Farinata as _suae patrie liberator_ (liberator of his country, Figure 3.1), and Niccolo Acciaiuoli as _neapoletani regni dispensator_ (administrator for the Neapolitan kings). Flanking the doorway in the middle of the hall are Queen Tamyris of Scythia (Figure 3.2) and the Cumaean Sibyl, while Esther appears in a half-length portrait above the door. The Cumaean Sibyl, secondarily famous for defending her virginity against all suitors, is identified by an inscription that reads _Sibilla Cumana que prophetavit adventum Christi_ (one who prophesied the advent of Christ); Esther, the Biblical heroine who married King Ahasuerus of Persia and successfully foiled a scheme to eradicate the Jews in his kingdom, is the _gentis sue liberatrix_ (liberator of her people); and Tamyris, the widowed queen of Scythia who defeated the Persian army of King Cyrus, has an inscription which reads _vindicavit se de filio et patriam liberavit suam_ (avenged her son and freed her country).68

**Figure 3.1** **Andrea Del Castagno, _Farinata Degli Uberti_ , Villa Carducci Cycle, 1448-1451, Fresco, Galleria Degli Uffizi, Florence. (Photo: Alinari).**

**Figure 3.2** **Andrea Del Castagno, _Tamyris, Villa Carducci Cycle, 1448-1451_ , Fresco, Uffizi Gallery, Florence. (Photo: Alinari).**

The figures represented in the Villa Carducci cycle support an overriding theme of civic responsibility, as each can be viewed as an exemplar who employed either might or wits to the benefit of the state.69 The men, all of Florentine origin, appear to have been selected in accordance with the tradition of glorifying the commune through the celebration of native sons noted for their accomplishments in _scienza_ (a term often used to denote poets) and _armi._ Scholarship addressing the role played by the women in this cycle generally concurs that, based on their _tituli,_ they too were meant to function as civic exemplars. But exemplars for whom? In light of the rigid societal strictures which delineated the rightful domains of the two sexes, the introduction into the Villa Carducci cycle of women known for their accomplishments _in pubblico_ raises the same questions as _Famous Women_ regarding the manner in which viewers identified with these images and thereby derived moral edification.

It is clear that all three women in this cycle meet the standards for exemplary female virtue established by Boccaccio, who would not, therefore, have perceived their masculine virtues as a threat to the established social order. In fact, both Tamyris and the Cumaean Sibyl are praised in _Famous Women,_ but Esther, like most Biblical heroines, was not included in Boccaccio's biographies.70 In the Book of Esther, she is introduced as the humble virgin chosen to replace the disobedient wife of King Ahasuerus.71 Esther risks the ire of the king to foil a plot by Ahasuerus's wicked minister Haman to slaughter all the Jews in the kingdom, then exhibits a talent for manipulating legal niceties to prevent the pogrom, which has already been launched. Esther decrees that henceforward the Jews will celebrate the days of Purim in memory of their deliverance. Thus she is remembered in the Villa Carducci as the "liberator of her people."

It can scarcely be doubted that Queen Esther would have received Boccaccio's highest approbation. A steadfast virgin until her selection to be Ahasueras's consort, and a chaste, loyal and self-effacing wife thereafter, she does not seek the glorious position with which she is honored; rather, it accrues to her in consequence of her virtue. When events conspire to place her and her people under the threat of imminent destruction, she purifies herself and bravely hazards the potential wrath of the king; again the sheer force of her purity carries the day. For Boccaccio, Esther would have embodied all that is meritorious in a woman, augmented in a crisis by the needful touch of shrewdness and courage.

The Scythian queen Tamyris (XLIX), like Zenobia, inherited the stewardship of her husband's kingdom upon his death. Boccaccio reports that when King Cyrus of Persia set his sights on Scythia, Tamyris "did not, like some timid female, look for a place to hide... instead she gathered her forces and became their commander during the war" [ _FW_ 201]. She sent one-third of the Scythian army to Cyrus's encampment under the leadership of her only son, who was "still a youth"; Boccaccio refers to this son's youthfulness repeatedly, making it clear that he was not yet of an age or sufficiently mature to assume the kingship. Cyrus, learning of the young man's approach, pretended to retreat, leaving behind much food and wine. Tamyris's son, having fallen for the ruse, led his soldiers in a drunken revelry, and once the inebriated soldiers fell asleep, the Persian army returned and annihilated them. Although the queen, "already a widow, grieved deeply for the death of her only son... she did not burst out weeping as women usually do" [ _FW_ 203]. Choosing vengeance over tears, she took a leaf from Cyrus's book and pretended to flee, luring the Persian army into a mountainous region where they were encircled and slaughtered. Although the death of the Persian king "satisfied the widow's wrath," she had his "head cut off and placed in a leather bag filled with the blood of her troops... [saying] 'Take your fill of the blood for which you have thirsted—[ _FW_ 203].

Like the other laudable queens in _Famous Women,_ Tamyris is not motivated by a lust for power but rather by an obligation to defend her husband's legacy. In this she fulfills her duty as a widow by supplanting the innate weaknesses of her sex (the tendency to hide and weep when afflicted with danger or sorrow) with the masculine virtues of bravery, intelligence, and stoicism. At each crisis point, Tamyris exhibits her command of the virtues required to resolve the challenges with which she is faced; even when her son is killed she channels her maternal grief into a strategy by which she accomplished her ultimate aim and, as commemorated in the Villa Carducci cycle, "avenged her son and freed her country."

Characteristically, Boccaccio's account is expanded beyond that of his known sources; nowhere in the concise versions of either Justin or Valerius Maximus is it mentioned that Tamyris was a widow.72 Boccaccio's clarification of her widowed status made her eligible to be both a model of widowed constancy and a suitable vessel for the leadership qualities she exhibits in all renditions of her story. For Boccaccio, it was necessary that she be a widow, since she must otherwise have either had her son out of wedlock or else had a husband who was relegated to obscurity by his domineering wife. Tamyris did not usurp her husband's (or any other rightful male's) position, but rather assumed authority in the interest of safeguarding her son's patrimony.

The third woman in the cycle is the Cumaean Sibyl, a seer likened by medieval Christians to the Jewish prophets of the Old Testament. In _Famous Women_ Boccaccio explains the etymology of the word Sibyl as referring to the prophetic powers of ten remarkable pagan women. The two "women of divine mind" whom he includes in his biographies were able, through "attentive study and divine generosity," to write descriptions of events which were later interpreted according to Christological history and Catholic doctrine [ _FW_ 87]. These women were also renowned for their perpetual virginity; in the case of Amalthea (XXVI), known more commonly as the Cumaean Sibyl, Boccaccio believed that it was in fact her "virginity that earned her the light of prophecy from that true Sun" [ _FW_ 103].73 Boccaccio relates a legend in which this shrewd woman (who was reported by poets to have "received from Phoebus... the gifts of longevity and prophecy," _FW_ 103) offered to sell nine books to Tarquinius Priscus; when he refused to buy them she burned three and offered him the remaining six for the same price. When only three remained he agreed to pay the original sum and found that they contained "the entire destiny of Rome" and were therefore cherished and consulted for years to come [ _FW_ 103].

Because of their status as prophetesses (albeit extra-Biblical), the Sibyls were represented in religious literature and art which predated Boccaccio's work. Castagno's portrayal of the Cumaean Sibyl in a secular setting among historical figures is unprecedented, however, since, as a woman given the gift of divine prophesy, her achievements would be difficult to emulate. Her presence in the Villa Carducci cycle parallels her singular inclusion in _Famous Women,_ however, where she is conceived as an exemplar whose inspired achievements are not beyond the reach of deserving men. Boccaccio writes that "We become famous through our own zeal and divine grace, and these are not denied anyone who makes himself worthy of it" [ _FW_ 103]. Boccaccio's conception of the Sibyl as an appropriate spur to male effort ("If women are able to achieve so much through their keenness of intellect and the gift of prophecy, what ought wretched men to think who have greater aptitude for everything?") renders her a legitimate in a series of exemplars [ _FW_ 105].

The three heroines in Castagno's cycle qualify as members of that elite branch of womanhood which Boccaccio most admired. As good women, they were deserving vessels for a manly spirit which enabled them to perform deeds worthy of male emulation. Esther was a loyal and obedient wife who risked all to defend her people; Tamyris remained a constant widow guided by maternal devotion and the best interests of the patrimony; and the Cumaean Sibyl was a virginal conduit for wisdom emanating from the male deity. Although womanly virtue was clearly necessary for inclusion in the Villa Carducci, it would not, in itself, have been sufficient. It was for the possession of virtues and abilities to which _men_ should aspire that these women were selected, as it was the deeds they accomplished in spheres of traditionally masculine endeavor that are immortalized in the writing beneath their images.

Although the descriptive _(dull_ pointedly serve to equate the actions of the heroines with those of the heroes, suggesting that their deeds were not subject to gender-specific limitations, the body language of these figures tells a different story. In this context the Renaissance concepts of _gagliardia_ and _leggiadria_ become relevant. The term _gagliardo_ relates to actions that, according to Renaissance conduct manuals, are appropriately performed only by men; _leggiadria,_ as defined by the mid-Cinquecento writer Agnolo Firenzuola, is suitable for ladies and is characterized by "grace, modesty, gentleness, measure, and elegance in such a way that no movement, no action, shall be without moderation... but ordered, composed, regulated, gracious."74 In constructing the ideal _donna di palazzo_ (female courtier), Castiglione emphasized that

... a woman should in no way resemble a man as regards her ways, manners, words, gestures and bearing. Thus just as it is very fitting that a man should display a certain robust and sturdy manliness, so it is well for a woman to have a certain soft and delicate tenderness... [which] always makes her appear a woman, without any resemblance to a man.75

When confronted with the military figures included in the Villa Carducci cycle, the viewer is immediately struck by the impression that the men are thrusting outward from their painted niches and intruding into the real space of the room. The stance Pippo Spano assumes is aggressively _gagliardo;_ feet firmly planted with legs widespread, his challenging expression unites with his uncompromising stance to exude an impression of raw masculinity. Chest, arms, legs, and feet clearly project forward of the pilasters that delineate the width of Spano's alcove, as do the hands that grip both ends of his sword. Farinata degli Uberti's manner is also _gagliardo;_ although he appears less combative, his elbow pierces the picture plane to protrude decisively into the viewer's space (Figure 3.1). Farinata leans his sheathed sword outward so that it partially obscures a painted pilaster, and, indeed, his tall hat precludes all possibility of his ever having been confined in his allotted space. Nicco16 Acciaiuoli extends his baton into the room, again protruding in front of the illusionistic architecture that ostensibly delimits his section of the wall. The perceived impossibility of corporally restraining these men enhances the impression of their zealous heroism.

The contrast in presentation between Castagno's heroes and his heroines is striking. The _titulus_ beneath the portrait of Tamyris suggests that she is the female equivalent of these bold men; however, this implication is confounded by her restrained and graceful appearance (Figure 3.2). Although she is clad in armor, Tamyris's sleeveless dress obscures all but the elaborate mail on her arms. Her regal bearing is softened by the manner in which she catches up her skirt, revealing a petticoat that falls to her ankles. The Scythian queen, who not only decapitated her dead enemy but had his head submerged in the blood of her fallen son and soldiers, gently holds a spear by the butt of the wooden shaft; the one finger crooked over the tip renders her grasp impotent and nonthreatening. The point of her lance is grounded on the ledge in an exhibition of pacific intent. Except for two pinnacles of her golden crown and the toes of one foot, Tamyris remains placidly confined within the architectural framework of her niche. Had _each_ figure thus conformed to his or her circumscribed area, it may rightly have been assumed that the relationship between figure and allotted space was neither a reflection of character nor an agent of differentiation. As it is, the need to break free of their boundaries is clearly a component of the virtue for which the men are being honored; Tamyris's willingness to be confined is no less crucial an aspect of what makes her both admirable and worthy of being imitated.76

While the figures of the poets are markedly less _gagliardo_ than those of their military compatriots, they too gesture in such a way as to negate the boundary between fictive and real space. Dante breaks the picture plane with a decisively extended arm, while Petrarch's hand and cloak and Boccaccio's ample sleeve project forward of their painted marble frames. Petrarch's left heel is lifted well off the ground, as if he were preparing to take a step forward. Comparing these figures with their female counterpart, who also holds a book, we find that the Cumaean Sibyl betrays neither the preoccupation nor the frenzy that had characteristically been employed to identify this pagan seer as a conduit of divine revelation in the Middle Ages. This is not the aged, wily prophetess who confronted a Roman tyrant, but a woman whose extraordinary beauty belies the legend that she lived for many centuries. In pointing heavenward, her arm not only bends in correspondence with her painted border but stays close to her body, effectively avoiding a motion that might correspond in assertiveness to those made by the other writers. Like Tamyris, she is restricted to the space within the architectural perimeter of her niche, with only the hint of a forearm, the toes of one foot and the small gold ball of her crown projecting from her designated space. Finally, while Esther's arms move more freely as her right hand reaches out over the ledge, the effect of cutting off her portrait just below the waist in this _sopraporta_ painting is to visually entrap her in a small area from which she is powerless to emerge.

In each female portrayal, ideological notions regarding equality of virtue that may be suggested by the _tituli_ are not supported by the images. By draining the assertiveness and cunning from the Cumaean Sibyl, the daring and shrewdness from Esther, and the aggression and vindictiveness from Tamyris, Castagno has succeeded in separating the lives of these heroines into that which is masculine and therefore rightly emulated by men, and that which is feminine and therefore imitable by women. While the _tituli_ preserve a unified theme of masculine valor, the figures themselves are mannequins whose inclusion in a man's world required the same superficially decorous facade demanded of contemporary women. Chosen because of their enterprising engagement in political affairs, these heroines are nonetheless as confined to their painted niches as Tuscan patrician women were to their homes. Beautiful and genteel, these unconventionally assertive women of antiquity are now safely tucked into niches from which, unlike theirmale companions, they no longer attempt to engage in the affairs of men. Because the _tituli_ were written in Latin, their celebration of traditionally masculine manifestations of civic virtue were implicitly intended primarily for men's eyes; the painted images, on the other hand, conveyed to their less erudite female viewers an unmistakable message regarding decorous conduct and the acceptance of clearly gendered civic roles.

While eight of the figures in the Villa Carducci cycle turn towards one another, Boccaccio's direct gaze invites the viewer to enter the virtuous world laid out by Castagno. Unlike his two fellow poets, who appear oblivious to the books they are holding, Boccaccio points to the large volume in his arm; the widespread appreciation of his Latin works and the specific relevance of _Famous Women_ to the visual program suggest that this was Castagno's way of crediting the author and his work with contributing, both materially and conceptually, to the content of the series."77 In addition to providing narrative histories of Tamyris and the Cumaean Sibyl, Boccaccio established a framework for interpreting the lives of unconventionally heroic women by means of which qualities valued in women and those valued in men could be differentiated within a single heroine; Castagno has converted this literary solution to a visual medium.

### _Cloelia and Civic Virtue in Renaissance Siena_

Current scholarship supports the argument that many paintings executed for the embellishment of domestic furnishings assumed both a male and a female viewership.78 In her analysis of _spalliere_ panels depicting the well-known Nastagio degli Onesti story from Boccaccio's _Decameron,_ Paola Tinagli argues that they must be viewed in terms of the didactic goal of defining gender-specific civic duties.79 Visual narratives of this tale show eternal punishment meted out to those who refuse to marry and assume societally determined roles for the sake of a stable community. Another Boccaccian legend frequently represented on _cassoni_ is that of 'The Patient Griselda' _(Decameron_ X.10).80 Griselda, a beautiful peasant girl, agrees to please and obey her husband the Marquess of Saluzzo, swearing never to become angered by anything he says or does. The Marquess tests his wife's assurances by subjecting her to agonies and humiliations that include the apparent murder of her babies and a degrading divorce. After years of uncomplaining submission to this cruel treatment, Griselda is rewarded with the knowledge that her children are in fact alive and that she is to reclaim her place by her husband's side. The visual renditions of this extreme example of _governo_ address issues that extend beyond family dynamics; in maintaining stability and propriety at the domestic level, patrician men and women promoted the interests of the state by enabling males to function optimally _in pubblico._

In spite of the acknowledgement that an audience of both sexes must be considered in the analysis of domestic imagery, it has generally been taken for granted that even though the narratives in which heroines were embedded may have held meaning for men, the women themselves are presumed to speak only to the condition of women.81 However, just as Castagno, following Boccaccio's literary example, employed the Villa Carducci heroines in a manner that offered guidance regarding civic duty to men as well as women, there is evidence that a number of narrative paintings executed for domestic settings represented stories of illustrious females with a view to delivering object lessons concerning the proper fulfillment of designated gender roles to viewers of both sexes.

_Cassoni_ (marriage chests), placed in chambers frequented by male and female family members and guests, were a staple in Tuscan patrician homes.82 When _cassoni_ fell out of fashion in the mid-sixteenth century they were frequently dismantled and either destroyed, reused, or dispersed to private collections around the world. Although hundreds of panels remain, they represent only a fraction of the thousands of representations of classical worthies and their adventures commissioned in Renaissance Tuscany. As _cassoni_ were constructed in large workshops, designs were frequently repeated; there remain even today multiple copies produced from single models. Since those which have survived frequently conform to standardized iconographical models, it is widely believed that individual extant specimens are indicative of a larger body of closely related works which are now lost.

In a diary entry written in the late fourteenth century, Giovanni Morelli expresses the common Florentine preoccupation with marrying one's children into a family of "honorable citizens who are well-liked and powerful"; he later reiterates that the best marital connections are with a family who are "powerful and trusted and free from scandal."83 It is not surprising that men who thus took politics to bed would choose to decorate bedroom furniture with narratives celebrating character traits which proved valuable in the larger civic context. Throughout the Quattrocento, classical motifs and imagery deriving from classical texts enjoyed widespread popularity in the Tuscan commune of Siena, and in the decades straddling the turn of the sixteenth century legendary heroines were frequently portrayed on patrician furnishings.84 Among those heroines whose actions spoke to Renaissance ideas regarding the virtues valued in communal societies was the Roman maiden Cloelia.

Boccaccio tells Cloelia's story in _Famous Women,_ and she would also have been known to Renaissance readers through three ancient historian/biographers: Livy, in his _History of Rome_ (2.1 3.6-1 1); Valerius Maximus, in the _Memorable Acts and Sayings of the Ancient Romans_ (III.2); and Plutarch, in the life of Publicola in _The Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans_ and in the life of Cloelia in _On the Virtues of Women_ (incorporated into the _Moralia_ ).85 The scene for Cloelia's heroism was set when the Tarquins were expelled from Rome as a result of a popular uprising triggered by the rape and subsequent suicide of Lucretia. The Tarquins later attempted a _coup d'etat_ with the aid of Porsenna, King of the Etruscans, and although this endeavor was thwarted, the Etruscans continued to hold Rome under siege. A truce was eventually established which was secured by a group of Roman peace hostages sent to the Etruscan camp on the opposite bank of the Tiber River. The hostage contingent comprised ten sons and ten daughters selected from Roman patrician families, one of whom, the virgin Cloelia, determined to escape from the Etruscan camp with several other maidens. When they reached Rome, however, the Senate complied with Porsenna's demand that the terms of the treaty be fulfilled.

Ancient accounts are brief and focus on one or two notable aspects of Cloelia's adventure. The first of these, which would become an iconographical issue in the Renaissance, was the manner in which Cloelia and her fellow virgins crossed the Tiber to return to Rome. All three classical sources agree that she plunged into the river and swam across. According to Livy, Cloelia, "with a number of other girls who had consented to follow her... eluded the guards [and] swam across the river under a hail of missiles."86 An embellishment of this account is provided by Valerius Maximus, who lists Cloelia under the heading "Of Fortitude" and states that she escaped from Porsenna's guards on horseback and, upon reaching the river, swam across.

Plutarch's version of events as reported in the life of Publicola agrees in substance with the others: "the young girls went down to the river to bathe... and seeing no guard, nor any one coming or going over, they were encouraged to swim over, notwithstanding the depth and violence of the stream."87 He then notes that "Some affirm that one of them, by name Cloelia, passing over on horseback, persuaded the rest to swim after."88 That Plutarch reports this narrative twist only in the interest of giving a fair hearing to what he considers a highly suspect theory is supported in his life of Cloelia in the _Virtues of Women._ Here he expands upon the question of whether Cloelia actually swam the river along with the other hostages or whether she alone made the crossing on horseback. In asserting that she successfully tackled the swift currents and swirling eddies of the Tiber with her clothes fastened on her head, Plutarch falls in line with Livy and Valerius Maximus and argues that those who would place the fugitive on horseback are erroneously conflating previous commentaries. He explains that in recognition of her bravery, Porsenna gave the heroine a richly caparisoned warhorse and that "many make of this an indication that Cloelia rode across the river on a horse".89

Livy and Valerius Maximus appear to be Boccaccio's primary sources for his life of Cloelia.90 After a brief introduction which sets the political stage for the action to follow, Boccaccio states that

One night she [Cloelia] evaded the guards and led many of the women hostages to the bank of the Tiber. There she mounted a horse grazing nearby—perhaps for the first time to ride such an animal. Unafraid of the deep river and the swirling waters, Cloelia brought her companions safely to the other shore and returned them to their families." [FW217]

While it is unknown if Boccaccio's rendition drew on an as yet unidentified source or if it represents a personal embellishment on otherwise scanty material, Boccaccio, alone among authors whose availability to Renaissance readers has been established, unequivocally places Cloelia on horseback for her journey across the river. He is also alone in reporting that she employed this method of transportation to convey her comrades to safety; only in his account is there is no mention of swimming. Beyond this logistical variant, Boccaccio's conception of Cloelia not only as innovator, but as leader, protector, and savior, results in a woman whose virtues greatly outnumber those of the maiden represented in ancient accounts. Livy and Plutarch only praise Cloelia for offering encouragement to her fellow hostages; Valerius Maximus omits the other women altogether, admiring Cloelia for her personal fortitude alone. Boccaccio, however, emphasizes the active leadership role assumed by Cloelia in the rescue effort, from leading her fellow hostages past the guards and down to the river, to bringing them safely across the turbulent waters, and finally to delivering them to their homes. This heroine has accepted the responsibility of personally leading and carrying out the operation from beginning to end.

Boccaccio's account of Cloelia's restoration to Porsenna closely follows that of Livy, who wrote that the Roman Senate, anxious not to give offense by seeming to countenance Cloelia's valiant if politically naive exploit, readily complied with a demand from Porsenna for Cloelia's return. Cloelia was returned alone but the Etruscan king, "amazed by the young woman's courage and pleased by her daring" [ _FW_ 219], allowed her to return home with the hostages of her choosing. In accordance with her "maidenly virtue" she chose only the little boys, which "pleased the Romans greatly because she had freed those who were of an age more susceptible to hurt" VW 219]. For this an equestrian statue was raised in her honor.91

Boccaccio's narrative expands on his sources to include, uniquely among known accounts, an attribution of Cloelia's heroism to a temporary brush with masculinity. Before proceeding with her rescue mission, she "armed her maiden's breast with a man's boldness" (in audaciam virilem virgineum pectus armavit, _FW_ 216-17), thereby joining the curious hybrids in _Famous Women_ whose incorporation of a male spirit into a female body elevated them to the ranks of "tried and true men" [ _FW_ 129].92 Again, Boccaccio has, through the use of an evocative trope, identified a heroine as an appropriate role model for men. Boccaccio's decision to place between Cloelia's legs an animal considered among the most masculine of beasts adds a further allegorical flourish to the regendered Cloelia. The account in _Famous Women_ is also embellished with the observation that she had never before mounted a horse, a detail which not only enhances the extent of her daring but serves to isolate the episode as one which can be excised and examined out of the context of her customary way of life.

To the earliest illustrators of _Famous Women,_ Boccaccio's account suggested an image of Cloelia guiding her steed back and forth across the river in order that she might deposit each fugitive, one by one, safely on the other shore. A number of woodcuts survive which appeared in the first printed edition of the biographies (Ulm, 1473) and continued to be employed or copied in a number of subsequent editions. As seen in Figure 3.3, Cloelia, identified by an inscription, grips the mane of her mount with both hands as she pilots it towards a shoreline on which previously delivered hostages stand in marked admiration of her daring.93 The young woman who sits on the horse behind Cloelia clasps her liberator and looks nervously back towards those yet to be saved—women who, by their manner and dress, show no inclination to jump into the water, but rather wait passively for their turn to be carried across.

**Figure 3.3** **_Cloelia, De Mulieribus Claris_ , Giovanni Boccaccio, Woodcut, 1473, Ib. 9110, by Permission of the British Library, London.**

It is this precise moment in Boccaccio's narrative that was illustrated on a panel attributed to an unknown follower of Pinturicchio working in Siena in the first decade of the Cinquecento (Figure 3.4). Because of its size (78 x 78 cm) and octagonal shape, the work was probably intended for use as a _desco da parto_ (birth tray) and would have been seen by members of both sexes within the immediate family as well as by friends and relations.94 Like the portraits in the Villa Carducci, the portrayal of a classical heroine in a domestic setting once again raises the question of who was meant to benefit from contemplating her image, and in what way.

The painting depicts a young woman astride a horse with another woman seated behind her sidesaddle.95 As the horse plunges into a river, the riders look back toward two other women seated on the bank. Although fleeing from hostile forces on an unfamiliar animal, Cloelia remains unshaken: her lovely face is unperturbed, her fair hair unruffled, her attire modest and her posture erect. In this she is distinguished from the two hostages who remain on shore: one appears somewhat unkempt as she adjusts her hair, while the other sits with her dress hitched up above her knees, one exposed calf resting on another bare thigh. The leaping charger, neck arched and nostrils flaring, contrasts strongly with the composure of his rider.

Cloelia's masculine manner of sitting her mount is emphasized by the feminine sidesaddle posture assumed by her companion. The heroine's composure is contrasted with the disheveled, vulnerable condition of the three women who, presumably intimidated by their situation, rely on Cloelia to lead them to safety. Cloelia has taken the reins, both literally and figuratively, and is, visually, sufficiently differentiated from her fellow fugitives that her status as woman becomes secondary to that of leader and protector. As a paragon who does not shrink from engaging in risk-taking measures to preserve the physical and moral well-being of her family, friends, and countrymen, Cloelia is an exemplum with whom the Renaissance patriarch could proudly identify. A noble woman has become, briefly, a noble man, and can therefore function as an exemplar for men.

Had Cloelia been invoked primarily for her feminine virtue (virginity), her image would have been an inappropriate choice for a tray which would by necessity have been commissioned for the birth of a child of unknown gender. That _deschi da parto_ were designed and purchased before the birth of a child is made clear through inventories which indicate not only that childless couples were in possession of birth trays, but that salvers were frequently received as bridal gifts. The images chosen to decorate these trays would therefore not have been specific to the gender of the infants with whose births they would ultimately come to be associated.

**Figure 3.4** **School of Pinturicchio, _Flight of Cloelia_ , Ca. 1510, Oil on Panel, 78 x 78 Cm, Accademia Carrara Di Belle Arti, Bergamo.**

_Deschi da parto,_ like other domestic decorations, would often impart moral instruction through the use of historical or allegorical images associated with virtuous behavior. Although Cloelia was an active participant in shaping the fates of men _in pubblico,_ and therefore problematic as a paragon of Renaissance womanhood, there was nonetheless instruction a wife could derive from carefully orchestrated visualizations of the heroine's life. As a female doing her utmost to preserve her purity, Cloelia was a paragon of feminine virtue, and as one who functioned as a commodity in patriarchal politics and whose home was defined by the dictates of male authority, she was a heroine with whom Renaissance women could identify. There is nothing to suggest, either in Boccaccio's account or in the artist's visualization, that, but for the predicament in which she found herself, Cloelia would have been inclined to take an active role _in pubblico._ Further, in spite of her unconventional actions, the social hierarchy was maintained, and following her temporary brush with masculinity Cloelia once more became a paragon of traditional womanly virtue, subject to the commands and mercies of men and looking after the interests of children. Her submissive return to the feminine realm is affirmed by this final action, the one for which all sources agree she was honored with a monument on the Appian Way. Thus, the chaste maiden can serve as a model for women, while the bold leader performs the same function for men.

As an exemplum for the decorous females of patrician families, Cloelia's representation has been rendered substantially more decorous by the painter of the birth tray than by the woodcut illustrators of _Famous Women._ That the former could have been composed without knowledge of the latter seems impossible—of the many potential episodes in Cloelia's adventure which might have been selected, the two images not only represent an identical point in time, but the same cast of characters. The horse is in the water; two hostages remain on shore; Cloelia transports one hostage to safety. Although the painted image of Cloelia shares with her printed counterpart a pervasive mood of calm control, the grimly determined Cloelia of the woodcut has been transformed into a woman of beauty, modesty and deportment. Indeed, her heroism seems almost effortless, as the two-fisted grasp of the woodcut model relaxes to a light hand which guides the plunging horse; the sober, resolute Cloelia created to accompany the text has been transformed into a remarkably unperturbed maiden who (although her horse has grown appreciably livelier) smiles serenely back towards her fellow hostages. The Cloelia on the birth tray does not get her feet wet as her horse bounds over the water–in marked contrast to the deeply submerged horse and riders seen in the printed image.

The dual nature of Cloelia's virtue made her depiction as an exemplum ideal for a community preoccupied with both civic pride and the chastity of its females. Of all the interpreters of her exploits, only Boccaccio addresses Cloelia's motivation for her initial repudiation of male authority: "Perhaps she did not deem it honorable for the state that so many young females were in the control of a foreign king" [ _FW_ 217]. The decision to flee was made by a woman who, like her Renaissance sisters, had been taught to safeguard her virginity/marriageability at all costs. Upon finding herself surrounded by men who had no stake in preserving her only asset, all factors other than the blinding need to return home became irrelevant. The years of breeding which had created a virtuous female did not allow for the concomitant qualities of political savvy and flexibility necessary to successfully negotiate in a man's world. None of the male hostages attempted an escape—they presumably understood that "escape" was not even a relevant concept in light of the voluntarily nature of the transaction. And, in spite of her courage, at the end of the day Cloelia's success in both defending her chastity and maintaining the brokered peace was not, in fact, dependent upon her chosen strategy, but rather upon the rational and even indulgent male reaction to it. The Roman Senators, being honorable and level-headed, sent the fugitive back to the Etruscans; Porsenna, astonished by the sheer novelty of her daring, allowed her to return home again. While Cloelia's decorous instinct to protect maidenly chastity stands as a positive example for females, and her courage and determination could be advantageously emulated by males, her failure to grasp the political complexities of her deed serves to emphasize the unfitness of women to dabble in the masculine world of diplomatic maneuvering upon which the well-being of the community as a whole often depended. Had the result of her flight been renewed warfare and the subsequent annihilation of Republican Rome, Cloelia's name would be placed among the infamous.

Another level of discourse suggested by Cloelia's presence on the _desco da parto_ is supported by recent scholarship on representations of Gualdrada, another heroine commemorated in the pages of _Famous Women._ Pamela Benson examines the legend of this medieval Florentine maiden whose father, in an attempt to curry favor with the Holy Roman Emperor Otho IV, suggested that the beautiful young girl might give him a kiss.96 The modest Gualdrada refused her part in the scheme, saying "unless force is used, absolutely no one except the man to whom you will give me in lawful and holy matrimony shall receive what you are offering so freely" [ _FW_ 449]. The emperor was impressed by her elegant refusal and presented her with both a dowry and a young nobleman to wed. Benson argues that, in a number of ways which would have spoken directly to a Florentine audience, Boccaccio politicized Gualdrada's gesture in order to represent her not only as a paragon of feminine chastity, but a champion of republican virtue. In defiantly refusing an unreasonable (and even unconscionable) offer to compromise her integrity for the pleasure of an alien power, Gualdrada assumes the idealized image of a commune struggling against both insidious internal forces (in this case, nobles) and potential oppressors from without.

Several parallels can be drawn between Boccaccio's treatment of the legends of Cloelia and Gualdrada. In each case a virginal noblewoman was offered to a foreign prince by her own patriarchal authority for reasons which might benefit that patriarch while potentially sacrificing the integrity of the lady. Both maidens refused to place themselves in a position which could conceivably compromise their virtue and hence their marriageability and sense of self-worth. This masculinized defiance was obviated by a compassionate male whose actions immediately returned the temporarily emboldened maidens to a gender-appropriate status. While Cloelia was honored for the role she played as surrogate mother to the hostage children, Gualdrada "had many children and at her death left her husband's illustrious house adorned by her own noble progeny" [ _FW_ 449]. From a sociopolitical standpoint, all's well that ends well: temporary fluctuations in gender-appropriate behavior, justified by the universally-acknowledged importance of maintaining feminine purity, were resolved through judicious male intervention that served to guide the rebellious women back onto an accepted path. The women, never having sought the role for which they came to public attention, were content to resume their status in the domestic sphere.

Cloelia may also be seen to take on an allegorical significance comparable to that of Gualdrada. In refusing to compromise her moral dignity in submission to a tyrannical foreign power, Cloelia, like Gualdrada, becomes emblematic of the defiant (though frequently thwarted) republicanism associated with many Renaissance communes. Having been gendered as both a male and a female exemplar, Cloelia becomes an even stronger candidate for symbolic representation, as her image unites all of the virtues conceived as vital to the smooth running of a state. The introduction of Cloelia into Sienese art as a role model for republican men was unlikely to be interpreted as an attempt to undermine the prevailing gendered social order. The Cloelia who embodied male virtues as a courageous and innovative strategist, a charismatic and enterprising leader, and an active and challenging participant in the political arena would have been alien to a patrician woman's sense of her obligations to family and community. Further, if Boccaccio's rendition of her escape revolves around a humanist injunction to men to be brave and potentially self-sacrificing in the interest of civic duty, the subtext is the necessity, for civilized society, of female submissiveness.

Boccaccio's was not, of course, the only version of the Cloelia legend to which Renaissance patrons and painters had access, nor _were their artistic_ compositions necessarily fettered to any authoritative version of her tale. Where alternative thematic emphasis was intended, Cloelia's unorthodox conduct could lend itself to narrative depictions which stressed the rebellious, self-indulgent elements of her tale, and other sources offered imagery which could be skillfully manipulated to represent the Roman heroine as willful, thoughtless, and anything but heroic. Around 1480, approximately thirty years before Cloelia appeared on the _desco da parto,_ a dramatically different representation of her legend was painted in Siena (Figure 3.5).97 Commissioned for the wedding of a son of the Sienese Sberghieri family and attributed to Guidoccio di Giovanni Cozzarelli, this depiction of Cloelia's adventure was painted on a _cassone_ panel.98 The narrative sequence begins in the center, where a number of hostages, in accordance with non-Boccaccian texts, are depicted swimming across the Tiber from the pavilions of Porsenna's camp on the left toward the gates of Rome on the right. As on the _desco da parto,_ the river flows down the center of the panel, but on the _cassone_ it works to visually segregate the previously warring parties. Cloelia is represented multiple times: first as a swimming fugitive, then as a Roman returning to her native city, and finally as a penitent who has been restored to her Etruscan guardian. The only portrayal of human interaction in this painting centers not on the relationship of Cloelia to her fellow hostages, but on Cloelia and two male figures in the Etruscan camp. The older, apparently apologetic, gentleman is presumably the Roman Consul Publicola, who has personally returned all of the fugitives to a markedly younger Porsenna. Cloelia kneels before the stern king in a gesture of submission, while the other hostages stand abashed behind her.

While aspects of this representation of Cloelia's escape follow that of ancient accounts, the painting strays from all known sources in certain crucial respects. There is no textual referent either for the Roman leader's accompaniment of the wayward hostage back to the Etruscan monarch, or of the humble posture Cloelia assumes before the man she regarded as her jailer. Far from receiving the fugitive with admiration and respect, Porsenna assumes a defiant stance, legs widespread with hands on hips, and glares down at her. Nothing in this tableau suggests that the confrontation will (or should) end happily for Publicola and the hostages, who appear cowed and remorseful before the ire of Porsenna and his retinue.

**Figure 3.5** **Guidoccio Cozzarelli, _Legend of Cloelia_ , ca. 1480, tempera on wood, 38.4 x 109.9 cm, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Frederick C. Hewitt Fund, 1911 (11.126.2).**

Whereas the discrete moment represented on the _desco da parto_ encourages identification with the protagonist, it has long been recognized that the narrative format of _cassone_ panels demands allegorical interpretation.99 It has been convincingly argued that the initial scene of literary allegory functions to introduce the primary theme around which the subsequent narrative will revolve; previous critical analysis of this painting, however, has focused solely on the figural group presented on the left bank.100 In developing a strategy for imaging the Cloelia story, Cozzarelli sought to define compositionally the premise that would underlie all levels of discourse in this painting: the necessity of dividing society into units whose boundaries were not meant to be breached. The theme of compartmentalization is prominently introduced by the river, which conspicuously divides the work into two clearly distinguishable realms. Keith Christiansen has suggested that the arrangement of figures indicates the patron's sympathy with the Etruscan position; since the flags flying over the Etruscan tents depict the armorial device of the Sberghieri family, the youthful Porsenna may represent the groom for whom the _cassone_ was commissioned.101

The scene in the Etruscan camp can readily be seen as representing a marriage in which the elderly _paterfamilias_ hands over his daughter (and the paternal authority to govern her) to the younger and more potent groom. As a vignette of a patrician marriage, the relationship between Cloelia and Porsenna serves to reinforce the hierarchical structure and associated division of responsibilities considered essential to the running of aristocratic Renaissance homes. The triad of Cloelia, Porsenna and Consul Publicola also serves to clarify one strand of the complex network of relationships forged on the occasion of a marriage, viz., that it was a wife's duty to support her husband, even if his interests conflicted with those of her natal family. Support for this reading can be found in the Renaissance conception of women as property in the game of marital politics: once a woman (and her dowry) made the transition from the home of her father to that of her husband, they both fell legally under the husband's control. This was no guarantee, however, that the bride's natal family would not prove a liability. Alberti addresses this concern in _Della famiglia_ in his discussion of the important factors to consider when choosing a wife:

Many marriages have ruined the family, as one may hear and read every day, because they involved union with a litigious, quarrelsome, arrogant, and malevolent set of men... Sometimes the links of family have proved a trouble and disaster to the man, who has had to support both his own family and that of the girl he married.102

Central to Cozzarelli's conceptualization of Cloelia's story is the necessity for a well-functioning Renaissance society to consist of individuals whose civic and domestic roles are clearly delineated according to their nation, family, profession, and gender. Porsenna's righteous indignation at the disloyalty of a woman whose purpose was to insure his interests is emphasized not only by the humble reactions of the maiden who escaped to her home of origin, but by the conciliatory actions of the patriarchal figure to whom she fled. Whether or not the young wife who saw this painting on a daily basis was familiar with the particulars of Cloelia's legend, she would have no trouble identifying with a woman who was being passed from an old man to a young one, nor in recognizing her role in the transaction as passive and submissive. Similarly, her husband, as a patriarch-in-the-making, would understand the position of authority he was meant to assume both with his new wife and with her family. The injunction to the relatives of the bride, and most especially to her father, is to respect this authority. The divisive river speaks eloquently to the perceived necessity of maintaining a discernible separateness between newly united families and becomes metaphorical of a maiden's one-way journey to her husband's home. Attempts to return to her natal family are not only fruitless, but suggest divided loyalties that result in nothing but trouble for all concerned.

Cloelia's subjugation to Porsenna and her submission to censure for defying male authority engages a level of discourse that extends beyond the family units which comprised Renaissance republics. Cozzarelli's _cassone_ panel serves not only to help define elements of power and loyalty necessary for the smooth operation of a newly established household, but also illustrates and reinforces other gendered divisions of Renaissance society. Although in the classical narratives Cloelia returns to Rome, in Cozzarelli's representation she does not actually cross the threshold into the city. Leading the visual narrative directly from the gates of Rome back to Porsenna's camp serves as a visual reminder of the realms to which Renaissance women had access and those to which their way was barred. The distinction between the world properly inhabited by women, depicted on the left bank of the river, and that from which they were turned away, on the right, is enhanced by the architectural gendering of space: the fortress-like, crenellated stone walls of Rome enclose a conglomeration of masculinized structures (prominent among them being the Coliseum and a triumphal arch) which is set in contrast to the soft, feminized tents of Porsenna's camp. The Roman buildings speak to a public existence where cities are ruled and defended while the pavilions of the Etruscan camp suggest private, individual domiciles. The cowed women standing behind Publicola give the impression that every woman has been returned to her rightful place.

Not only is female disregard of male authority censured in Cozzarelli's panel, but each iconographical choice made by Cozzarelli supports a reading that discourages women from taking initiative _in pubblico_ and engaging in what had been socially and legally defined in the Quattrocento as a man's world. A bad example is less dangerous than an effective leader, so the artist has stripped Cloelia of all of the attributes which Boccaccio introduced to support his metaphor of "manly armor." Rather than taking the responsibility for safely transporting each woman on horseback, or even of regrouping the scared and tired fugitives after their ordeal, she simply looks back over her shoulder as she reaches the gateway to Rome. The desynchronization of the women's actions–variously entering the water, swimming, clambering ashore, and making their way to the city gate–while serving to drive the narrative, does so in a way which de-emphasizes the role of any central planning (or planner). Cozzarelli depicts Cloelia as having left the other hostages to founder on their own; when they are next brought together for the viewer, it is for the public acknowledgement of Cloelia's error. In scattering the fugitives about and disallowing an image of their return to Rome, any visual suggestion of the collective power of women successfully working to undermine male authority has been eliminated. It is therefore not surprising that there is no hint of the historical denouement of the narrative, in which Porsenna responds to Cloelia's courage by freeing her, nor is the abject Cloelia of this picture a likely candidate for sculptural enshrinement by the Roman people.

Cloelia's story is rife with themes which were of practical and ideological significance to fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Italians, and the markedly different manner of representing her escape in these two panels signals the intent to support divergent ideological objectives. The images examined here present two distinct solutions to explicating her problematic actions for the benefit of a world that looked to the classical past for direction and inspiration. In both cases, images deriving from her legend were employed as guides to behavior, but were constructed according to shifting social and political exigencies. Although with Renaissance domestic paintings one can rarely assert with certainty a direct linkage between works of visual art and contemporary issues, a plausible basis for understanding the thematic disagreement between these pictures may be found in the historical record of fifteenth-century Sienese politics.

Throughout the Quattrocento, two large citizen assemblies governed the Sienese: an executive council (the _Consistoro_ ) and a legislative body (the _Consiglio del Popolo_ ). Ascendancy among the factions whose members comprised the pool of candidates for state offices, however, shifted frequently throughout the century, and in the final two decades of the Quattrocento measures were taken to stabilize the government.103 _Balie_ , committees of men selected for their experience and wisdom, were organized to deal with the escalating rivalries, and by the turn of the century, one member of the increasingly powerful _Balia_ had unofficially established himself as _signore_ of Siena. Pandolfo Petrucci, who not only held a number of mandated posts but was also in command of the city guard, had gained control over the _Concistoro_ through political alliances and questionable intervention in the process whereby new members were admitted. His 'tyranny', although accomplished within the juridical framework of the republic, vvas comparable in influence to that of the fifteenth-century Medici in Florence; like Lorenzo, Pandolfo was referred to as _11 Magnifico_.

The appearance in Sienese art of the heroic Cloelia depicted on the _desco da parto_ suggests a cautious and intellectual avenue through which republican sentiment was expressed during the years of Pandolfo's supremacy. Even as there were always Florentines who resented and conspired against Medici seigniory, the Sienese citizenry were far from unanimous in accepting Pandolfo Petrucci's rise to power. Symptoms of a sustained resistance to his authority include documented assassination plots and an unwillingness on the part of fellow _Balia_ members to allow Pandolfo's return to Siena after his brief exile in 1503.104 Just as Michelangelo's _David_ was employed as an emblem of Florentine liberty after the expulsion of the Medici, so representations of Cloelia created in the first quarter of the sixteenth century can be seen as attesting to the Sienese republican spirit and as an implicit admonition to defy oppressors of liberty. Pandolfo's wielding of tyrannical and self-serving authority over a people whose government was mandated to act for the common good may well have been viewed as analogous to that of Porsenna's exercise of tyrannical control over members of the Roman republic and his usurpation of the liberty to which their citizenship entitled them. Cloelia's selection for representation at this time carries an unmistakable reminder that the civic virtues required of a republican citizen must extend, in times of threat, to embrace courage and initiative beyond that which is normally sufficient.

In spite of the remarkably different ways in which she was portrayed, Cloelia's role in the lives of the Renaissance Sienese was always that of a classical figure through whose legend essential civic virtues could be taught. Beginning with her return to Porsenna by the Roman Senate, Cloelia's status as a heroine depended on the male response to her behavior and the male interpretation of her motives. Cozzarelli's painting of Cloelia as an antiheroine whose actions benefit no one and whose behavior cannot be construed as valorous, is supportive of societal strictures defining the legitimate activities of women. Commissioned at a time when the Sienese government was still operating according to republican principles that had guided it for almost a century, Cozzarelli's narrative reinforced conventions on which the orderly functioning of society was seen to depend. In this context Cloelia could be put forward as a chastened woman whose initial failure to submit to the patriarchal authority ritually invested in her husband at the time of her marriage threatened to undermine the system of effective social contracting upon which the larger masculine sphere of public action depended. As represented by Cozzarelli, the remedy for Cloelia's self-indulgent act was the restoration of sanctioned sociopolitical boundaries and hierarchies established to secure the peace and prosperity of the community. The later panel, executed during a period when the republican identity of the Sienese commune was under threat from the tyrannical ambitions of Pandolfo Petrucci, emphasizes instead Cloelia's courageous leadership and implicitly challenges men to rise to her example in meeting the extraordinary demands of extraordinary times. Boccaccio's decorous equestrian heroine has supplanted the bedraggled maid Cozzarelli extracted from ancient texts, and the message of wifely subordination is replaced by one of manly responsibility.

_____________

1Although some of the females condemned by Boccaccio in the pages of _Famous Women_ will later develop a mystique that Baroque artists will exploit, the art of the Early Renaissance eschews these women as subjects for artistic representation.

2Boccaccio also includes brief biographies of two additional Amazon queens, Orithya and Antiope (XIX–XX), daughters of Marpesia.

3Kolsky, _Genealogy,_ 165–66, perceptively suggests that Roman power, embodied by Aurelian, is "to be understood as the archetypal masculine." He reads some of the details of her reign, such as Boccaccio's mention that "She... drank with the Persian and Armenian princes for the purpose of beating them in wit and affability" [ _FW_ 433] as "insinuating perhaps that she was involved in superficial, unheroic and possibly questionable activities which might throw some doubt on her acceptability as a model of perfect political and sexual governance" (164). Boccaccio, however, specifically states that "she guarded her virtue... jealously" and that her sexual attitude was entirely "praiseworthy" [ _FW_ 433]. He also notes the iron discipline of her military activities which was such that "the troops accorded her fear and respect in equal measure" [ _FW_ 433].

4Jordan, "In-Famous Women," 37–38.

5Kolsky, _Genealogy,_ 170–71, sees the story of the Minyan wives as Boccaccio "evincing a contradictory attitude towards women assuming male authority." There is no fundamental conflict, however, since Boccaccio excoriates the Minyans for their weakness while praising their wives both for their fidelity and the fact that their loyalty was manifested in the form of manly courage and enterprise.

6In the more commonly told version of this legend, Polynices' sister Antigone flouts Creon's decree in order to find and bury her brother, for which she is buried alive in his tomb. Boccaccio's authority is Statius's _Thebais_.

7Giovanni Morelli, _Ricordi,_ ed. Vittore Branca (Florence: Sansoni, 1956), 212– 13.

8Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, _Women, Family and Ritual in Renaissance Italy,_ trans. Lydia Cochrane (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985), 117–18. See also Sharon Strocchia, "Remembering the Family: Women, Kin and Commemorative Masses in Renaissance Florence," _Renaissance Quarterly_ 42 (1989): 635–54.

9See Ann Crabb, _The Strozzi of Florence: Widowhood & Family Solidarity in the Renaissance_ (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000), 51–52; Armando Petrucci, _Writers and Readers in Medieval Italy: Studies in the History of Written Culture_ (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995); Paul F. Grendler, _Schooling in Renaissance Italy: Literacy and Learning, 1300–1600_ (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989), 87–102; Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, "Le chiavi fiorentine di Barbabln: L'apprendimento della lettura a Firenze nel XV secolo," _Quaderni Storici,_ n.s., 57 (1984): 765–92; Maria Ludovica Lenzi, _Donne e Madonne; L 'educazione femminile nel primo Rinascimento italiano_ (Turin: Loescher, 1982); and Margaret King, "Book-Lined Cells: Women and Humanism in the Early Italian Renaissance," in _Beyond Their Sex: Learned Women of the European Past,_ ed. Patricia H. Labalme (New York: New York University Press, 1980), 66–90. See also Clarke, _Politics,_ 19–23.

10Anthony Grafton and Lisa Jardine, _From Humanism to the Humanities: Education and the Liberal Arts in Fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Europe_ (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986).

11Ibid., 49. For the conflicted response of Renaissance humanists to educated females see also Marta Ajmar, "Exemplary Women in Renaissance Italy: Ambivalent Models of Behaviour?" in _Women in Italian Renaissance Culture and Society_ (Oxford: Legenda, University of Oxford, 2000), 244–64.

12Grafton and Jardine, _Humanism,_ 35.

13Ibid., 37-8.

14In Leon Battisti Alberti's _I libri della famiglia,_ ca. 1430, Giannozzo applauds the rules of silence Isotta refers to: "Silence is as it always has been, the peak of dignity and the source of respect for a woman." See _The Family in Renaissance Florence,_ trans. Renee Neu Watkins (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1969), 217; while Francesco Barbaro agrees that "It is proper that the speech of women never be made public; for the speech of a noblewoman can be no less dangerous than the nakedness of her limbs." See _On Wifely Duties,_ in _The Earthly Republic: Italian Humanists on Government and Society,_ ed. Benjamin G. Kohl and Ronald G. Witt (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1978), 205.

15Grafton and Jardine, _Humanism,_ 52.

16For Dabuson and Quirini see King, "Book-Lined Cells," 76 and 89. In the _Chronica di Mantua,_ Equicola writes that "Questa, raffrenato it dolor et lacrime al che lo amor et l'affectione la constrengeano, piglib animo virile et quella virtu che fino alhora era stata sopita se excitò con duplicato valore." Cited by Stephen Kolsky, "Images of Isabella d'Este," _Italian Studies,_ 39 (1984): 62.

17Grafton and Jardine, _Humanism,_ 45, n. 44.

18See A. Segarizzi, "Niccolo Barbo patrizio veneziano del sec. XV e le accuse contro Isotta Nogarola," _Giornale storico della letteratura italiana_ 43 (1904): 39–54.

19Ibid. For the equation of female speech with promiscuity see also Margaret W. Ferguson, "A Room Not Their Own: Renaissance Women and Readers and Writers," in _Renaissance Poetry,_ ed. Cristina Malcolmson (New York: Longman, 1998), 153–77.

20For this letter see Leonardo Bruni, "On the Study of Literature (1405) to Lady Battista Malatesta of Montefeltro," in _The Humanism of Leonardo Bruni, Selected Texts,_ trans. and intro. Gordon Griffiths, James Hankins, and David Thompson (Binghamton: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1987), 240–51. See also Clarke, _Politics,_ 24–31.

21Francesco Guicciardini, _Ricordi,_ ed. Raffaele Spongano (Florence: G.C. Sansoni, 1951), 117. For the perceived burden involved in amassing a suitable dowry see also Heather Gregory, "Daughters, Dowries and the Family in Fifteenth-Century Florence," _Rinascimento_ 27 (1987): 217–37 and Iris Origo, _The Merchant of Prato_ (London: Cape, 1957), 310.

22While daughters who were physically or mentally handicapped were frequently consigned to the convent, the escalating value of Quattro and Cinquecento dowries led to families (especially those with multiple daughters) to increasingly force girls to take the veil against their will. See, for example, Stanley Chojnacki, _Women and Men in Renaissanc Venice_ (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000), 38–39; and Richard C. Trexler, "Celibacy in the Renaissance: The Nuns of Florence," in Richard C. Trexler, _The Women of Renaissance Florence,_ vol. 2, _Power and Dependence in Renaissance Florence_ NY: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and 17–20 and 26–27.

23There is a vast body of scholarship pertaining to Renaissance views of women, marriage and family in the Renaissance; see the classic work by Joan Kelly, "Did Women Have a Renaissance?" in _Becoming Visible: Women in European History,_ ed. Renate Bridenthal and Claudia Koonz (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1977), 137–64; and 2nd edn, ed. Bridenthal, Koonz, and Susan Mosher Stuard (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987), 175–201; and reprinted in _Women, History and Theory,_ ed. Kelly (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1984), 19–50. For extensive bibliographies of related scholarship prior to 1993, see Merry E. Wiesner, _Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe_ (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1993); see also Francis W. Kent, "La famiglia patrizia fiorentina nel quattrocento: Nuovi orientamenti nella storiografia recente," in _Palazzo Strozzi: Metà Millenio 1489–1989,_ ed. Daniela Lamberini (Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 1991), 70–91. Important recent and seminal studies include Crabb, _Strozzi;_ Adrian Randolph, "Performing the Bridal Body in Fifteenth-Century Florence," _Art History_ 21 (1998): 182–200; Margaret L. King, _The Death of the Child Valerio Marcello_ (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994) and _Women of the Renaissance_ (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991); Sharon Strocchia, _Death and Ritual in Renaissance Florence_ (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1992); Lorenzo Fabbri, _Alleanza matrimoniale e patriziato nella Firenze del '400: Studio sulla Famiglia Strozzi_ (Florence: Olschki, 1991); Christiane Klapish-Zuber, _La maison e le nom: Strategies et rituals dans 1 'Italie de la Renaissance_ (Paris: Editions de l' Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, 1990); Heather Gregory, "Daughters, Dowries and the Family in Fifteenth-Century Florence," _Rinascimento_ 27 (1987): 217–37; David Herlihy and Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, _Les Toscans et leurs families_ (Paris: Presses de la Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques, 1978) and the translation, _Tuscans and Their Families: A Study of the Florentine Catasto of 1427_ (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985); Origo, _Merchant of Prato;_ Gene Brucker, _Giovanni and Lusanna: Love and Marriage in Renaissance Florence_ (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1986); Richard C. Trexler, _Public Life in Renaissance Florence_ (New York: Academic Press, 1980); Francis W. Kent, _Household and Lineage in Renaissance Florence: The Family Life of the Capponi, Ginori, and Rucellai_ (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977); Richard Goldthwaite, _Private Wealth in Renaissance Florence: A Study of Four Families_ (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968); Lauro Martines, _The Social World of the Florentine Humanists, 1390–1460_ (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963); Ruth Kelso, _Doctrine for the Lady of the Renaissance_ (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1956). Recent surveys can be found in Luke Syson and Dora Thornton, _Objects of Virtue: Art in Renaissance Italy_ (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2001), 12–77; and _Virtue and Beauty: Leonardo's Ginevra de 'Benci and Renaissance Portraits of Women,_ ed. David Alan Brown (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001).

24On the institution of the dowry see Julius Kirshner, "Pursuing Honor While Avoiding Sin: The Monte Delle Doti of Florence," _Quaderni di Studi Senesi_ 41 (1978): 177–258. For the substance of dowries see also Gene Brucker, _The Society of Renaissance Florence, A Documentary Study_ (New York: Harper and Row, 1971), 33; G. Niccolini di Camugliano, _The Chronicles of a Florentine Family, 1200–1470_ (London: Cape, 1933), 77ff; and Buonaccorse Pitti, _Cronica,_ ed. A. Bacchi Della Lega (Bologna: Romagnoli Dall'Acqua, 1905), 25. For the origins and development of the dowry system, including an extensive bibliography, see Diane Owen Hughes, "From Brideprice to Dowry in Mediterranean Europe," _Journal of Family History_ 3 (1978): 262–296.

25In addition to providing dowries, Florence used the _Monte delle doti_ to finance costly wars. On the _Monte_ see Anthony Molho, _Marriage Alliance in Late Medieval Florence_ (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994), 30–79; Kirshner, "Pursuing Honor"; and Kirshner and Anthony Molho, "The Dowry Fund and the Marriage Market in Early Quattrocento Florence," _Journal of Modern History_ 50 (1978): 403–38; also Marvin B. Becker, _Florence in Transition,_ vol. 2: _Studies in the Rise of the Territorial State_ (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University, 1968), 235–37.

26The life of St. Nicholas was recounted by Jacobus de Voragine, _The Golden Legend,_ trans. Granger Ryan and Helmut Ripperger (New York: Arno Press, 1969), 16–24. Dante also speaks of Nicholas and "the gifts he gave the maidens so that they might be honorably wed;" see _Purgatorio,_ Canto XX, 31–33.

27See Manlio Bellomo, _La condizione giuridica della donna in Italia: Vicende antiche e moderne_ (Turin: ERI, 1970), 41–43 and _Ricerche sui rapporti patrimoniali tra coniugi_ (Milan: Giuffre, 1961), 163–85.

28Thomas Kuehn, _"Cum consensus mundualdi:_ Legal Guardianship of Women in Quattrocento Florence," _Viator_ 13 (1982): 310–11. Kuehn quotes the fifteenth-century jurist Biagio da Morcone. For more on the legal status of women in the Renaissance see Christine Meek, "Women between the law and social reality in early Renaissance Lucca," in _Women in Italian Renaissance Culture and Society,_ ed. Letizia Panizza (Oxford: Legenda, University of Oxford, 2000), 182–193; Thomas Kuehn, _Law, Family and Women: Towards a Legal Anthropology in Renaissance Italy_ (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991).

29Ibid, 321–26.

30Ibid, 332.

31Among the best documented o f fifteenth-century widows is Alessandra Macinghi Strozzi, who did not remarry and whose attitudes and manner o f living have been preserved in seventy-three letters written to various family members throughout a twenty-year period (1447–ca.l466). For Alessandra and Renaissance Florentine widowhood see Crabb, Strozzi; and The Strozzi o f Florence; and "How Typical was Alessandra Macinghi of Fifteenth-Century Florentine Widows?" in _Upon My Husband's Death. Widows in the Literature and Histories of Medieval Europe,_ ed. Louise Miner (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1992), 47–68. See also Alessandra Macinghi negli Strozzi, _Lettere di una gentildonna fiorentina del sec. XV ai figliuoli esuli,_ ed. C. Guasti (Florence: G.C. Sansoni, 1877). See also Isabelle Chabot, "Lineage Strategies and the Control of Widows in Renaissance Florence," in _Widowhood in Medieval and Early Modern Europe,_ ed. Sandra Cavallo and Lyndan Warner (London: Addison Wesley Publishing Company, 1999), 127–44; and "Widowhood and Poverty in Late Medieval Florence," _Continuity and Change_ 3 (1988): 291–311.

32Klapisch-Zuber, _Women, Family and Ritual,_ 224–27.

33See, for example, Klapisch-Zuber, _Women, Family and Ritual,_ 121–22; and Kirshner, _Pursuing Honor,_ 7–8. Alessandra Macinghi Strozzi benefited from a stipulation in her husband's will that as long as she did not attempt to reclaim her dowry she would receive continuing financial support from his estate.

34Catherine E. King, _Renaissance Women Patrons_ (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998); and "Women as patrons: nuns, widows and rulers," in _Siena, Florence, and Padua: Art, Society, and Religion, 1280–1400,_ ed. Diana Norman, vol. 2 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995), 243–66.

35Ronald Rainey, "Dressing Down the Dressed-Up: Reproving Feminine Attire in Renaissance Florence," in John Monfasani and Ronald G. Musto, _Renaissance Society and Culture: Essays in Honour of Eugene F. Rice,_ Jr. (New York: Italica Press, 1991), 232.

36King, _Renaissance Women Patrons,_ 28.

37See Adrian Randolph, "Regarding Women in Sacred Space," in _Picturing Women in Renaissance and Baroque Italy,_ ed. Geraldine A. Johnson and Sara F. Matthews Grieco (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 17–41.

38Excerpt from the twenty-fifth sermon in a series delivered in Florence during the Lenten season of 1424. See Roberto Rusconi, "St. Bernardino of Siena, the Wife, and Possessions," in _Women and Religion in Medieval and Renaissance Italy,_ ed. Daniel Bornstein and Roberto Rusconi, trans. Margery J. Schneider (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 182. For more on women in St. Bernardino's sermons see Iris Origo, _The World of San Bernardino_ (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1964); and V. Lugli, _I Trattatisti della Famiglia nel Quattrocento_ (Bologna and Modena: Formaggini, 1909).

39See Richard C. Trexler's discussion of _governo_ in _Public Life,_ 29–30.

40Alberti, _Family,_ 211.

41Alberti, _Family,_ 118. For more on Alberti's view of women and marriage see Dilvvyn Knox, "Civility, courtesy and women in the Italian Renaissance," in _Women in Italian Renaissance Culture and Society,_ ed. Letizia Panizza (Oxford: Legenda, University of Oxford, 2000), 2–17; Stephen Kolsky, "Bending the rules: marriage in Renaissance collections of biographies of famous women," in _Marriage in Italy, 1300–1600,_ ed. Trevor Dean and Kate Lowe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 241–46; Francesco Furlan, "L'idea della donna e dell'amore nella cultura tardomedievale e in L. B. Alberti," _Intersezioni: Rivista di storia delle ideel0_ (1990): 211–38; and Giulio Dolci, "Leon Battista Alberti scrittore," _Annali della R. Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa: Filosofia e filologia_ 23, no. 2 (1912): 101–160.

42Alberti, _Family,_ 116.

43Ibid., 207–208.

44Ibid., 208. For more on Alberti's view of see 241–46.

45Alberti, _Family,_ 207.

46Ibid., 208.

47Ibid., 210.

48Ibid., 209.

49Francesco Barbaro, _De re uxoria liber,_ in _Atti e memorie della Accademia di Scienze, Lettere, ed Arti in Padova,_ n.s. 32, ed. Attilio Gnesotto (Padua: Battista Randi, 1916), 6–105. See also Alberto Tenenti, "La _res uxoria_ tra Francesco Barbaro e L. B. Alberti," in _Una famiglia veneziana nella storia: I Barbaro,_ ed. M. Marangoni and M. Pastore Stocchi (Venice: Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, 1996), 43–66.

50W. Boulting, _Woman in Italy_ (London: Methuen, 1910), 150–1.

51See, for example, Natalie Tomas, _'A Positive Novelty': Women and Public Life in Renaissance Florence_ (Victoria, Australia: Monash Publications in History, 1992); and Elaine G. Rosenthal, "The Position of Women in Renaissance Florence: Neither Autonomy nor Subjection," in _Florence and Italy: Renaissance Studies in Honour of Nicolai Rubinstein,_ ed. Peter Denley and Caroline Elam (London: Westfield, College, University of London, 1988), 369–81.

52Yvonne Maguire, _The Women of the Medici_ (London: G. Routledge and Sons, Ltd., 1927), 7–11.

53Laura Cereta, _Collected Letters of a Renaissance Feminist,_ trans. and ed. by Diana Robin (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997), 72.

54A fifteenth-century manuscript of _Il Libro delle lodi e commendazioni delle donne_ is now in the Biblioteca Riccardiana, Florence (Cod.Ricc. 2293); a partial version appears in _Il Libro delle lodi e commendazioni delle donne. Vite di uomini illustri del secolo XV,_ Collezione di opere inedited o rare, ed. Ludovico Frati, 72 (Bologna, 1893), 289–305; the _Vita di Alessandra de' Bardi_ is also included in this volume (245–88). See also Filippo-Luigi Polidori, "Frammenti di un trattato storico morale e notizie di alcune illustri donne del secolo XV scritte da Vespasiano Bisticci," _Archivio storico italiano,_ ser. 1,4, part 1 (1843), 439–51. The _Vita di Alessandra de' Bardi_ and its accompanying Proem is translated in Vespasiano da Bisticci, _Renaissance Princes, Popes and Prelates: The Vespasiano Memoirs/Lives of Illustrious Men of the XV Century,_ ed. and trans. William George and Emily Waters (New York: Harper and Row, 1963), 439–62.

55Vespasiano, _Renaissance Princes,_ 440. Vespasiano also makes reference to _Famous Women_ in _Il Libro delle lodi e commendazioni delle donne;_ in his short life of Andrea Acciaiuoli he notes that she was the dedicatee of Boccaccio's biographies (see Frammenti, 442).

56Vespasiano, _Renaissance Princes,_ 461.

57Ibid., 440.

58Vespasiano, "Frammenti," 446–49. For Vespasiano see also Kolsky, "Marriage," 245–47; and Benson, _Renaissance Woman,_ esp. 36–40.

59Ibid.

60For Contessina's correspondence see Maguire, _Women of the Medici,_ 18–59.

61For the correspondence of Clarice Orsini de'Medici see Ibid., 127–72.

62Janet Ross, _Lives of the Early Medici as Told in their Letters_ (London: Chatto and Windus, 1910), 397.

63For a bibliography of the letters and writings of Lucrezia Tornabuoni, as well as scholarship relevant to her life and work, see Rinaldina Russell, ed., _Italian Women Writers: A Bio-Bibliographical Sourcebook_ (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1994), 431–40. See also Lucrezia Tornabuoni Medici, _Lettere,_ ed. Patrizia Salvadori (Florence, 1997). For Lucrezia's role in the Medici family see Francis W. Kent, "Sainted Mother, Magnificent Son: Lucrezia Tornabuoni and Lorenzo de' Medici," _Italian Culture and History_ 3 (1997): 3–34; Friederike Hausmann, _Die Macht Aus Dem Schatten: Alessandra Strozzi and Lucrezia Medici, Zwei Frauen im Florenz der Renaissance_ (Berlin: Verlag, Klaus, Wagenbach, 1993); Natalie Tomas, "Neglected Spaces: Gender, Power and the Medici Women in Renaissance Florence" (PhD diss., Monash University, 1977); and the survey in Brown, _Virtue and Beauty,_ 38–39.

64Maguire, _Women of the Medici,_ 97–98.

65B. Felice, _Donne Medicee avanti ii Principato_ (Florence, 1905-6), 102.

66Maguire, _Women of the Medici,_ 121.

67Filippo, the Gonfaloniere at the 1439 Ecumenical Council of Florence and a member of the Medicean Council from 1447, was most likely responsible for commissioning this cycle. The nine frescoes were transferred to plaster ground in 1954 and are now in the Uffizi in Florence.

68On the short wall to the left of the figures as they were originally situated were frescoes of a Madonna and Child sitting under a _baldacchino_ flanked by the figures of Adam and Eve. These works are now seriously damaged, and any which may have been executed on the opposing short wall are lost.

69See Margaret Franklin, "A Woman's Place: Visualizing the Feminine Ideal in the Courts and Communes of Renaissance Italy," in Thelma S. Fenster and Clare A. Lees, eds., _Gender in Debate from the Early Middle Ages to the Renaissance_ (New York: Palgrave, 2002), 189–205; Creighton Gilbert, "On Castagno's Nine Famous Men and Women: Sword and Book as the Basis for Public Service," in _Life and Death in Fifteenth-Century Florence,_ ed. Marcel Tetel, R. G. Witt and Rona Goffen (Durham: Duke University Press, 1989), 174–92; Christiane L. Joost-Gaugier, "Castagno's Humanistic Program at Legnaia and its Possible Inventor," _Zeitschrift fair Kunstgeschichte_ 45 (1982): 274–82; and Marita Horster, _Andrea del Castagno_ (Oxford: Phaidon, 1980), 179. Vasari mentions this cycle; see _Vite,_ vol. 2,670 and 680.

70Josephine Dunn, "Andrea del Castagno's Famous Women: One Sibyl and Two Queens," _Zeitschrift Kunstgeschichte_ 58, no. 3 (1995): 359–80, tenuously links the three women to a fourteenth-century preaching treatise. There is no reason to believe, however, that the humanist programmer of this cycle would have limited himself to one text; the men depicted in the Villa Carducci cycle could not have derived from this treatise, and there is no suggestion that they are linked by any other single source.

71See also The Rest of Esther (Apocrypha).

72Justin 1.8; Valerius Maximus briefly mentions her under the heading "Of Revenge" (IX.1 0).

73Boccaccio writes that another sibyl, Erythraea (XXI), prophesied Christ's incarnation, mission, passion, death and resurrection.

74Agnolo Firenzuola, _Dialogo delle bellezze delle donne_ in _Opera scelte,_ ed. Giuseppe Fatini (Turin: Giulio Einaudi, 1957, rpt. 1966), 509–10. For a discussion of _gagliardia_ and _leggiadria_ as they relate to Renaissance portraiture, see Rona Goffen, "Lotto's Lucretia," _Renaissance Quarterly_ 52 (Autumn, 1999): 742–81; see also Sharon Fermor, "Movement and Gender in Sixteenth-Century Painting," in _The Body Imaged: The Human Form and Visual Culture Since the Renaissance,_ ed. Kathleen Adler and Marcia Pointon (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 129–45.

75Baldesar Castiglione, _The Book of the Courtier,_ ed. and trans. George Bull (London: Penguin, 1976), 211. See also _Il libro del cortegiano,_ ed. Giulio Preti (Turin: Giulio Einaudi, 1969), 251.

76On the topic of female beauty and decorum in the visual arts of the Renaissance see Francis Ames-Lewis and Mary Rogers, eds., _Concepts of Beauty in Renaissance Art_ (Brookfield, VT: Ashgate, 1998); Paolo Berdini, "Women under the Gaze: a Renaissance Genealogy," _Art History_ 21, no. 4 (December, 1998): 565–90; Elizabeth Cropper, "The Beauty of Woman: Problems in the Rhetoric of Renaissance Portraiture," in _Rewriting the Renaissance: The Discourses of Sexual Difference in Early Modern Europe,_ ed. Margaret W. Ferguson, Maureen Quilligan, and Nancy J. Vickers (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1986), 175–90. Sara F. Matthews Grieco's observation that "Women's social identity has long been conditioned by their culture's perception of their bodies" is not without relevance here; see "The Body, Appearance, and Sexuality," in _A History of omen,_ vol. 3: _Renaissance and Enlightenment Paradoxes,_ ed. Natalie Zemon Davis and Arlette Farge (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1993), 46–84. See also Miles, _Carnal Knowing,_ 1989; Gisela Bock and Giuliana Nobili, eds., Il _corpo delle donne_ (Ancona and Bologna: Transeuropa, 1988); and Susan R. Sulieman, ed., _The Female Body in Western Culture_ (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986).

77Boccaccio was painted in the company of exemplars in another lost turn of the century series of famous men (commissioned by the _Arte dei Guidici e dei Natal);_ see L. Mehus, _Vita Ambrosii Traversarii_ (Florence, 1759), 266 and 329. As it is impossible to estimate the number or content of Quattrocento _uomini famosi_ cycles which have disappeared without leaving a record of their existence, the extent of Boccaccio's inclusion in a genre which was employed extensively in the decoration of both private and public edifices is unknown. He did continue to be represented in group portraits of celebrated writers into the sixteenth century, however. Raphael included him in his portrayal of great followers of the Muses on Mount Parnassus in the library of Pope Julius II; see Kirkham, _Fabulous Vernacular,_ 1; and "L'immagine del Boccaccio nella memoria tardo-gotica e rinascimentale," in _Boccaccio visualizzato,_ ed. Vittore Branca, vol. 1 (Turin: Einaudi, 1999), 85–144; Margaret Franklin, "A Note on Boccaccio in Hiding," _Source_ 14, no. 1 (Fall, 1994): 1–5; and Paul F. Watson, "On a Window on Parnassus," _Artibus et Historiae_ 16 (1987): 127–48; and "To Paint Poetry: Raphael on Parnassus," in _Renaissance Rereadings: Intertext and Context,_ ed. Maryanne Cline Horowitz, Anne J. Cruz, and Wendy A. Furman (Urbana: University of Illinois, 1988), 114–41. Vasari depicts him as one of _Six Italian Poets_ and writes that Bronzino painted "a portrait of Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio... very beautiful," in the lunettes of the bedroom of Bartolomeo Bettini. See Vasari, _Vite,_ vol. 7, 595. For a discussion and listing of fifteenth-and sixteenth-century images of Boccaccio, including author portraits, see Victoria Kirkham, "Portraits of Boccaccio," _Studi sul Boccaccio_ 15 (1985–6): 275–305, and "Renaissance Portraits of Boccaccio: A Look into the Kaleidoscope," in "Boccaccio visualizzato II," _Studi sul Boccaccio_ 16 (1987): 284–305. See also Vittore Branca, "Un primo elenco di codici illustrati di opere dell Boccaccio," in "Boccaccio visualizzato I," _Studi sul Boccaccio_ 15 (1985–6): 121–48; and _Boccaccio visualizzato,_ ed. Vittore Branca, vol. 2 (Turin: Einaudi, 1999).

78See Baskins, _Cassone;_ and Tinagli, "Womanly Virtues."

79Ibid. See also Christina Olsen, "Gross Expenditure: Botticelli's Nastagio degli Onesti Panels," _Art History_ 15, no. 2 (June 1992): 146–70.

80See Cristelle Baskins, "Griselda or the Renaissance Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelor in Tuscan _Cassone_ Painting," _Stanford Italian Review_ 10 (1992): 153–75. Watson, "Preliminary List," 149–66, catalogs twelve panels or sets of panels known or believed to represent the Griselda story. This number is believed to represent a small proportion of those narratives actually executed in the fifteenth century. For Griselda see also Lee Bliss, "The Renaissance Griselda: A Woman for all Seasons," _Viator_ 23 (1992): 301–343; and Charlotte C. Morse, "The exemplary Griselda," _Studies in the Age of Chaucer_ 7 (1985): 51–86.

81See, for example, Tinagli, _Women,_ 31–2.

82For the equal access of the sexes to narratives on _cassoni_ panels see, for example, Alison A. Smith, "Gender, ownership and domestic space: inventories and family archives in Renaissance Verona," _Renaissance Studies_ 12, no. 3 (1998): 375–91.

83"Buoni cittadini e amati e potenti... potente a bene creduto e sanza macula." Morelli, _Ricordi,_ 253 and 274.

84For classical themes in Sienese art see Giovanni Agosti and Vincenzo Farinella, "Interni senesi 'all'antica," in _Domenico Beccafumi e it suo tempo_ (Siena: Electa, 1990), 578–99. For Sienese _donne illustri_ cycles see Roberto Guerrini, "La figura di Tanaquilla in un dipinto del Beccafumi con distico Latino. Ricerca sulle fonti letterarie classiche," _Atheneum_ 58 (1980): 159–64; and V. Tatrai, "II Maestro della Storia di Griselda e una famiglia senese di mecenati dimenticata," _Acta Historiae Artium_ 25 (1979): 27–66.

85Livy and Valerius Maximus were well-known throughout the Renaissance; see, for example, Maria T. Casella, _Tra Boccaccio e Petrarca: I volgarizzamenti di Tito Livio e di Valerio Massimo_ (Padua: Antenore, 1982); Roberto Guerrini, _Studi sul Valerio Massimo: Con un capitolo sulla fortuna nell'iconografia umanistica: Perugino, Beccafumi, Pordenone_ (Pisa: Giardini, 1981); and Albinia de la Mare, "Florentine Manuscripts of Livy in the Fifteenth Century," in _Livy,_ ed. Thomas A. Dorey (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1971), 177–99.

86Livy, _The Early History of Rome,_ trans. Aubrey de Selincourt (Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books Ltd., 2002), 120. Plutarch's _Moralia,_ unknown to Boccaccio, was published in a Latin translation for the first time in 1485.

87Plutarch, _The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans,_ trans. John Dryden (New York: Modern Library, n.d.), 128.

88Ibid.

89Plutarch, _Moralia,_ trans. Frank Cole Babbit (London: Heinemann, 1961), 517.

90Modern editors of Boccaccio's text have been unable to identify other sources for Boccaccio's biography; see Boccaccio, _Famous Women,_ 492; _De mulieribus claris,_ ed. Zaccaria, 519; and Guido A. Guarino, _Concerning Famous Women_ (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1963), 255. Although Boccaccio had a limited knowledge of Greek, his claim to have written the first work devoted to notable women suggests that he was unfamiliar with Plutarch.

91Valerius Maximus, having established that Cloelia was a paragon of fortitude, does not mention other hostages or follow the drama to its conclusion. Plutarch records Cloelia's return to the Etruscans, but notes that the Roman consul Publicola returned _all_ of the fugitives. He writes that Porsenna looked on Cloelia "with a cheerful and benignant countenance" and decreed that all of the hostages were to be restored to freedom, after which, "reconciled to the Romans, (he) gave them a fresh instance of his generosity and commanded his soldiers to quit the camp taking only their arms, leaving their tents, full of corn and other stores, as a gift to the Romans." Plutarch, _Lives,_ 128.

92In her well-known discussion of the treatment of learned Renaissance women by their male peers, Margaret King, _Beyond their Sex,_ 75-76, argues that Early Renaissance humanists "transformed the sexual identity of intelligent women... not quite male, not quite female... [they] belonged to a third and amorphous sex."

93A copy of the first printed edition of _De mulieribus claris_ is in the Rosenwald Collection (Incun. 1473.B7) of The Library of Congress, Washington, DC (Ulm: Johann Zainer, 1473). Other fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century editions which used either the same set of woodblocks or nearly identical copies were printed throughout Europe. Those now in the Rosenwald Collection in the Library of Congress include Incun. 1487.B6 (Louvain: Egidius van der Heerstraden, 1487); Incun. 1488.B6 (Strassburg: Johann Priiss, 1488); PQ 4274.D5D8 (Antwerp: Ghepret, 1525); and _De las mujeres illustres en romace,_ Voll. H3337a (Zaragoza: Hurus, 1494).

94The catalogue entry of the Accademia Carrara suggests that the panel may have been part of a decorative ceiling, favoring this option due to the lack of a decorated back panel associated with the piece. However, several extant _deschi da parto_ have been separated from their original backings; see Jacqueline Marie Musacchio, _The Art and Ritual of Childbirth in Renaissance Italy_ (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999), 64. As with most domestic furnishings, there is no documentation to confirm either the artist or place of execution of this salver. However, in addition to evidence of style, inventories and identifiable pieces indicate that the vast majority of birth trays were created for Tuscan patrons. See examples throughout Musacchio, esp. 13.

95 _The Flight of Cloelia_ is now in the Accademia Carrara, Bergamo, Inv. N. 945.

96Pamela J. Benson, "Transformations of the tuona Gualdrada' legend from Boccaccio to Vasari: a study in the politics of Florentine narrative," in _Women in Italian Renaissance Culture and Society,_ ed. Letizia Panizza (Oxford: Legenda, 2000), 401–20.

97I know of two other _cassone_ narratives that have been tentatively labeled in modern times as portraying the legend of Cloelia, but believe that neither of them has yet been accurately identified. One appears in Graham, _Cassoni,_ 47 and 181, and depicts men crossing a river on horseback accompanied by figures blowing trumpets. The other, entitled _Episode from Ancient History (Story of Cloelia?),_ attributed to Cozzarelli and now in the Museo Civico Amedeo Lia in La Spezia, bears even less iconographical resemblance either to literary or visual sources of Cloelia's adventure.

98 _The Legend of Cloelia,_ Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY, Frederick C. Hewitt Fund, 1911 (Acc. No. 11.126.2). The painting was first recorded in the collection of Charles Butler, London, by 1897, then sold by Christie's to the MMA in 1911, when it was attributed to Matteo di Giovanni. The panel measures 38.4 x 109.9 cm.

99See, for example, Baskins, _Cassone;_ and Barriault, _Spalliera;_ and Ellen Callmann, _Apollonio di Giovanni._

100See Maureen Quilligan's analysis of allegory in _The Language ofAllegory: Defining the Genre_ (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1979).

101Keith Christiansen, Laurence B. Kanter and Carl Brandon Strehlke, _Painting in Renaissance Siena 1420–1500_ (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1989), 282–83.

102Alberti, _Family,_ 116–17.

103For an analysis of the Sienese political situation during this period see Riccardo Terziani, "L'instaurazione del regime oligarchico-signorile, 1487–1488," in _Siena e it suo territorio nel Rinascimento,_ ed. Mario Ascheri, vol. 3 (Siena: Il Leccio, 2000), 195–208; and "Le vicende politico—istituzionali di Siena e I Libri dei Leoni, –1525," PhD diss., University of Siena, 1998; Christine Shaw, "Memory and Tradition in Sienese Political Life in the Fifteenth Century," _Transactions of the Royal Historical Society_ 9 (1999): 221–31; "Politics and Institutional Innovation in Siena, 1480–1498," _Bullettino senese di storia patria,_ Part I, 103 (1996): 9–102 and Part II, 104 (1997): 196–307; and _L'ascesa al potere di Pandolfo Petrucci II Magnifico, Signore di Siena 1487–1498_ (Siena: II Leccio, 2001).

104This exile had been effected by Cesare Borgia.

# [Chapter 4

Famous Women and Famous Women: Boccaccio and the Court Consorts](04-9781315261478_contents.xhtml#chap4)

Assumptions and standards regarding the appropriate role for patrician women in the Tuscan republics appear to have remained fairly static during the Quattrocento, and female political influence continued to be narrowly restricted by the patriarchal system. By contrast, the position of female consorts in the principalities of Northern Italy underwent a perceptible evolution over the course of the fifteenth century as fledgling courts coalesced into dynastic strongholds. A duchess or marchesa, rather than assuming an inferior position to all male members of an extended family, was expected to act both as official and unofficial ambassador for her husband's court and assume her husband's authority when he was unable to fulfill his duties as head of state. The potential for deputized leadership enjoyed by royal consorts therefore contrasts strongly with the political disenfranchisement of women in republics.1

From the beginning of their emergence as seigniorial powers, the princes of Northern Italy followed a distinctively different sociopolitical agenda for establishing their authority from that cultivated by their ruling class counterparts in republican communes. In the quest to legitimize their rules, Northern princes tended to follow the strategic course of contracting marital alliances with other royal families, thus equating the right to rule with prescribed bloodlines.2

Accordingly, the procreative function of the ruling _pater patriae_ achieved a significance greater even than that of republican patrician males, and while his illegitimate children were raised as members of the family, only those children born to his wife were eligible to marry into, and thus perpetuate, the network of Italian royalty. While the Medici of Florence shunned the formal trappings of civic rule, preferring to exert their political influence from behind the scenes, the Este of Ferrara and the Gonzaga of Mantua looked beyond the Alps to Burgundy for models of absolute suzerainty and created governing courts which awed and intimidated their subjects, allies and enemies through an ambiance of opulence and learning. The importance to Quattrocento despots of establishing courts which would be admired by the cultural elite led them to retain prominent humanists as educators for their children; sons and daughters alike became well-versed in Latin and the works of classical authors.3

Although daughters born into the ruling families of Italian courts were fairly cloistered, often raised in suites to which male access was essentially limited to family members, tutors and specially sanctioned functionaries, the quality of their education distinguished them from the vast majority of girls born in Renaissance Italy. Leonardo Bruni's famous letter to Battista da Montefeltro Malatesta (wife of Galeazzo Malatesta who ruled Pesaro jointly with his two brothers from 1429) regarding the education of her daughter, Elisabetta, recommended that young women read the Latin texts of Virgil, Cicero and Livy as well as translations of Homer, Plato, and Pythagoras. He also suggested maintaining a personal compilation of observations made in the course of reading, which would aid in composing original works.4

The correspondence between Bruni and Battista suggests that a humanist education was considered to be important for the role Elisabetta was likely to assume as an adult. Females born into ruling dynasties were educated with the expectation that they would eventually use that education to the political benefit of their families. Usually married very young, the advanced level of education attained by many of these women attests to the enhanced part they were destined to play as wives of princes. Battista herself, having been educated in the _studia humanitatis_ , addressed a congratulatory oration to Pope Martin V in the capacity of envoy for her father-in-law in 1418; fifteen years later, following a rebellion in Pesaro, she delivered an oration to the Emperor Sigismund to appeal for his intervention in the to her husband's rule.5

The well-known profile portraits of Duke Federigo da Montefeltro of Urbino and his wife Battista Sforza painted by Piero della Francesca sometime between 1459 and 1475 reflect the elevated status accorded to Quattrocento court consorts.6 The manner in which these portraits were arranged speaks to the duke's intention to celebrate his spouse; the left-hand side on which Battista appears was usually reserved, as the heraldic place of honor, for the husband in conjugal portraits.7 When these hinged panels were closed they revealed images which were, again, unparalleled in the domestic art of the republics—both the duke and duchess are shown seated on triumphal chariots with accompanying inscriptions and personifications of virtues.8 The verbal rhetoric and visual idiom employed to convey the virtues of Battista follow traditional eulogies of praiseworthy wives: she is accompanied by the theological virtues Faith, Hope and Charity as well as the personification of Chastity, and pulled by two brown unicorns, again symbolizing chastity. The inscription beneath her chariot reads "It is said of Battista that she exercised modesty in happiness and that she is adorned with the fame of her great husband; this is the reason for her name to be on everyone's lips.9 The establishment of Battista as a loyal wife served as an essential prelude to and justification for her visual depiction on terms of approximate equality with the duke. In her short twenty-six-year life, Battista lived up to her portrait, proving to be a model consort who fulfilled both her traditional role as procreator (bearing seven children) and her new role as deputy, having an official mandate to rule Federigo's vicariates in his stead and often serving as his ambassador to other Italian courts.

Two consorts whose careers served to exalt the role to new heights of status and authority were Eleonora d'Aragona d'Este of Ferrara and her daughter Isabella d'Este Gonzaga of Mantua. Their position as counselor, ambassador, and deputy-at-need for their husbands, as well as their activity as rulers whenever their spouses were absent or indisposed, enabled them to exert an unprecedented influence on courtly culture in Quattrocento Italy.

## Eleonora d'Aragona d'Este

In 1473, Eleonora d'Aragona, daughter of King Ferrante I of Naples, arrived in Ferrara to marry Duke Ercole d'Este. This auspicious event signaled the possibility that a normal pattern of succession, with seigniorial authority passing from father to son, would be reestablished in a dynasty that had been threatened by the twenty-two year reign of Borso d'Este (1450–1472), an unmarried and childless ruler. Along with her substantial dowry, Eleonora brought to her new home a prestigious link with a prominent ruling family that served to elevate Ferrara's diplomatic position with respect to other political powers.10 Among the notable consorts in Quattrocento Italy, there were none who could claim a more illustrious network of family connections than Eleonora d'Aragona d'Este, and emblematic of Ercole's zeal to associate himself and his leadership with his new in-laws was a bronze medal he commissioned depicting the profile portraits of himself and his wife.11 The rather startling sense of spousal equality evoked by this portrayal, while alien to the imagery of republican communes, echoes that of the Montefeltro portraits.

Although her obligation to provide heirs was accomplished with remarkable efficiency (she gave birth to seven children in eight years), the woman who was a princess before she became a duchess never relinquished either the air or trappings of authority.12 On the occasion of Eleonora's marriage, Giovan Marco Cinico of the Neapolitan court described her as having "been educated further than is customary for well-born women to be instructed, clearly so that she might be ignorant of nothing praiseworthy either practical or intellectual."13 Before she left Naples, the esteemed humanist Diomede Carafa dedicated an important treatise on the duties of a prince to Eleonora which detailed the responsibilities of a head of state should she one day find herself in the position of having to rule Ferrara as regent for her underage son.14 Yet another treatise on the subject of governing, _Del modo di regere e di regnare (The Art of Ruling and Reigning)_ by Antonio Cornazzano, was dedicated to Eleonora in the late 1470s. The presentation copy contains a profile portrait of the duchess that shows her receiving the baton of leadership directly from the hand of God.15

Widely respected throughout Italy for her piety, generosity, and statecraft, Eleonora maintained a retinue in her fulltime employ which consisted not only of tailors, maidservants and musicians, but of seven male administrators and seven male _scudieri_ (squires).16 In 1485, her staff, the _famiglia della duchessa_ , numbered eighty-five.17 As the wife of the acknowledged incumbent of a hereditary throne, the power Eleonora assumed when ruling in his stead assumed the absolute nature of that which he himself enjoyed. Visits to healing baths as well as excursions for pleasure and military campaigns meant that Ercole was frequently absent from Ferrara, when the task of administering the affairs of the court fell to Eleonora. She was left in charge of Ferrara during Ercole's absence in 1478–79, and, when her husband lay seriously ill and incapable of taking command in the 1482 war between Ferrara and Venice, Eleonora oversaw the resistance to a concerted Venetian attack.18 Four years after her death in 1493, Jacopo Foresti included a biography of Eleonora in his _De plurimis claris sceletisque mulieribus_ in which he noted that

her husband recognized the intelligence and wondrous prudence of his young wife and soon entrusted her with most of the administrative duties of the country, especially because he was often gone from home on military campaigns; she assumed these duties until her death (CLXXVII).

Eleonora's twenty-year tenure as Duchess of Ferrara marks a perceptible increase in the political influence wielded by the elite category of women to which she belonged, women who might realistically aspire to emulate Boccaccio's heroines, not only in the exercise of wifely duty, but in the wielding of temporal authority.

### _Boccaccio's Heirs_

The emergence of a class of erudite, powerful, politically active women inspired a number of writers to compose literary works expressly intended to appeal to them, for which projects the precedent of _Famous Women_ proved useful. Rather than defining a genre to which subsequent authors closely adhered, _Famous Women_ triggered a variety of responses in fifteenth-century writers eager to capitalize, in ways dictated by issues of patronage as well as personal inclination, on the popularity of Boccaccio's work. In addition to Vespasiano, who appealed to a republican audience, a handful of humanist writers employed biographies of famous women in an attempt to procure or maintain the favor of the dynastic families that ruled Northern Italy. Even as Boccaccio had revamped ancient sources in the service of forwarding a particular late medieval ideology, so Quattrocento humanists found in _Famous Women_ a wellspring of material amenable to modifications which better defined the role, nature, and expectations of a court consort. The resulting treatises, which owe a substantial debt to Boccaccio's seminal work, selectively adapted the wealth of legendary/historical information contained therein to arguments which largely repudiated his conclusions. Like _Famous Women_ , these works were rhetorical in intent, and while they subscribed to a humanistic interest in authoritative argument, did not represent a disinterested attempt at the objective reevaluation of entrenched beliefs and assumptions. Seeking primarily to please influential female dedicatees by defending the character of womankind from detractors and/or presenting the lives of virtuous and praiseworthy paragons, these authors selectively sifted Boccaccio's biographies for material which could either be imported directly or molded to suit new arguments. A number of critics have addressed this body of Quattrocento literature in terms of the rhetoric used to reassess female virtue and ability.19 Most recently, Pamela Benson has emphasized that the recasting of classical heroines in what can be considered proto-feminist discourse must be viewed as representative of ideas which were circulating in the milieux of the Northern courts rather than as isolated and idiosyncratic musings.

The most radical reevaluation of the nature and role of women was written by Bartolommeo Goggio who, in 1487, sought to prove the innate superiority of women to men in a treatise dedicated to Eleonora d'Este. Goggio was a humanist-trained notary in the employ of Duke Ercole's court and worked primarily in the circle of administrators maintained by Eleonora herself.20 He states in the letter of introduction to _De laudibus mulierum (In Praise of Women)_ that his desire to celebrate the peerless excellence of women resulted from the ties of friendship, apparently referring to the duchess herself, who had a copy of the work in her library.21 Goggio's composition of a second treatise, written on the occasion of Eleonora's death, also suggests that she may have been his patroness and guiding inspiration in composing _De laudibus mulierum. 22_

Written in the vernacular (despite its Latin title) rather than Latin (a language Eleonora herself did not read), _De laudibus mulierum_ would have been accessible to readers of both sexes. In the first chapter of Book One, Goggio seeks to defend the female sex against _ad hominem_ attacks made, among others, by Boccaccio in the _Corbaccio_. Defensive rhetoric is supplanted in Books Two and Four by evidence that supports Goggio's astonishing claim that women were the founders of all nations and the inventors of all things. Following Boccaccio's lead, he consults numerous classical authors and fills his chapters with historical exemplars; his pool is much larger, however, as he also includes heroines recorded in the Old Testament and in Christian martyrologies. Although _Famous Women_ is itself a significant source for _De laudibus mulierum_ , the moral lenses employed in the two texts usually bear little relation to one another; like Boccaccio, Goggio selectively extracts his material from accounts which will yield the conclusions for which he advocates. Thus, for example, Semiramis's incest and Pope Joan's fornication are omitted from Goggio's biographies in favor of narrative which highlights their historically valuable contributions and personally admirable achievements.

Goggio's argument regarding the natural superiority of one sex to the other pointedly transposes the positions of men and women from those asserted in _Famous Women_. As he never invokes a male spirit to account for female accomplishments in leadership, military exploits, or intellectual pursuits, women's achievements are represented as manifesting innate capacities. Whereas Boccaccio, wherever possible, identifies his women through their relationships to men, Goggio rarely diminishes the standing of his heroines as autonomous exemplars by introducing men as contributors to their worth. He refutes traditional misogynistic arguments with 'proofs' of the superiority of women in terms of virtues ascribed to conventional female paragons (beauty, humility, and modesty), as well as the traditionally conceived masculine attributes of wisdom, ingenuity, and heroism.

In Books Six and Seven Goggio enters into a lengthy analysis of Eve's role in the fall from grace. It is revealing to note the ways in which Boccaccio, Vespasiano and Goggio interpret the significance of the First Mother for the human race in general, and as prototypical of the nature of womankind in particular. As well as blaming her for the abysmal state into which mankind has fallen, Boccaccio identifies in the original woman two of the fundamental and destructive vices evidenced in many subsequent females—deceitfulness and the desire for self-glorification. Vespasiano absolves Eve of her contribution to the fall from grace, but only because she, unlike Adam, was incapable of using reasoned judgment to countermand the serpent's advice. Goggio, however, asserts that as Eve's disobedience in the garden was integral to God's long-term plan for man's salvation, she must be lauded as instrumental to the realization of His ultimate goal. Even as Boccaccio sculpts his narratives and interpretations to fit the social and political ideology he supports, Goggio manipulates history and doctrine in the service of the elaborate compliment he is fashioning for the benefit of his patron. Perhaps more significantly, however, while Boccaccio's biographies are constructed in support of the status quo regarding the condition of women in contemporary society, Goggio veers in the extreme opposite direction, with the result that an alternative version of the nature of woman is offered for inclusion in the continuing humanist debate.

As the readership of _De laudibus mulierum_ was likely to have been confined to a small, intellectual circle presided over by a woman of extraordinary capabilities and pedigree, Goggio may have felt the freedom to express views which might otherwise have been considered dangerous. Werner Gundersheimer notes, however, "if anyone had tried to make Goggio's position the basis of a new social order in his own Ferrara, he might well have hastened to dismiss his work as _a jeu d'esprit." 23_ Benson agrees that, although Goggio invokes the politically independent woman to provide evidence for exceptional female ability, he fails to derive a pragmatic course of action from his theories.24 She also notes that Goggio's role as champion of women is undermined by his use of rhetorical strategies traditionally employed when speaking to and of women; for example, when addressing himself to Eleonora he "... assumes that she is not interested in philosophical disputation, apologizes to her for having entered into it, and suggests that the rest of his work will be more delightful."25 Although Goggio had not fully divested himself of the prejudices which he apparently sought to rebut, _De laudibus mulierum_ signifies a major shift in thinking away from Vespasiano's contemporaneous attempt to glorify feminine passivity.

A second Northern Italian treatise written in the praise and defense of women was the _Defensio mulierum (Defense of Women_ , ca.1501) by Agostino Strozzi, Prior of a monastery near the principality of Mantua.26 His treatise was commissioned by and is dedicated to Margherita Cantelma, the wife of Ferrarese courtier Sigismondo Cantelma. In the first of two books Strozzi presents and rebuts a number of calumnies against women while in the second he provides several examples of admirable women in the form of brief biographies organized according to the accomplishment he wished to celebrate. The _Defensio mulierum_ currently exists in three early sixteenth-century manuscripts, two Italian and one Latin, and significant variation among the texts obscures Strozzi's fundamental assumptions regarding the nature of woman.

In Book One of the Italian manuscript now in Florence, women are presented as having the inherent potential to be the physical and intellectual equals of men. Countering Aristotelian arguments for the inevitable constitutional (and hence behavioral) polarity of the sexes, this extraordinary section of the _Defensio_ argues that, as "la conditione de le Donne" is equivalent to that of men, apparent differences in aptitude and ability between the sexes can only be attributable to custom.27 If cultural practices were to change, women would excel at those occupations and opportunities which had become the province of men.

The revolutionary sentiments expressed in the Florentine manuscript are replaced in the other extant versions of the _Defensio_ , however, with a section that argues that the natural order requires woman's place to be inferior to man's.28 Although the author is an ostensible apologist for women, the nature of his defense in this section revolves around Aristotelian notions of physical and mental inferiority: the female incapacity for self-governance largely absolves them from blame for immoral behavior. It is the God-given responsibility of men to guide and restrain them. Benson attempts to account for these substantively divergent explanations of gender-based sociopolitical hierarchies; one possibility is that Strozzi introduced the custom versus biology issue for the benefit of his female dedicatee but toned down his assertions for other readers. Alternately, scribes may have modified his argument either to fall in line with more traditional teleological views or to introduce a radically new paradigm to account for social and institutional inequalities.29

In Book Two of each manuscript, Strozzi honors a number of legendary and historical women for excelling in traditionally male pursuits. He categorizes his heroines according to their virtues or professions, and, like Goggio, draws extensively on Boccaccio's biographies for detail. Forty of the fifty-three women classified as excelling either in letters, feats of arms, statecraft, arts and inventions, conjugal devotion or "diverse virtues and worthy acts" are also represented in _Famous Women_. If, however, the index to Strozzi's work resembles Boccaccio's, the biographical sketches do not; as with _De laudibus mulierum_ , the lives are "tutto in laude delle donne" (all in praise of women).30 Not only does he neglect to report the deplorable deeds that Boccaccio employed to forge his moral lessons (and hence avoids the awkward necessity of accounting for them), he also reformulates the motivations and effects of his heroines' actions. For example, whereas Boccaccio enlists an incestuous relationship to support his argument that Semiramis was not only supplanting but draining the masculine force from the male heir to the throne, Strozzi praises the Assyrian Queen for reigning in the place of her cowardly and slothful son and does not mention any deviant sexual practices. Similarly, the concessions made to women by the Roman Senate in response to Veturia's persuasive speech to Coriolanus are presented by Strozzi as just and reasonable rewards for having saved Rome from destruction, in marked contrast to Boccaccio's tirade against the erosion of male prerogatives. Like Goggio, Strozzi diverges from Boccaccio in his presentation of illustrious women as _exceptional_ rather than _extraordinary_. In omitting from his rhetoric the invocation of manly spirits and the providential tampering with natural design, Strozzi transforms Boccaccio's hybrid creations into women who could, at least theoretically, serve as role models for contemporary women.

A short Latin work entitled _De mulieribus_ , also dedicated to Margherita Cantelma, was written at her request by her longtime secretary, Mario Equicola.31 Equicola eventually became Isabella d'Este's private secretary; that she is one of only three contemporary women whose biographies are included in his work suggests that the book's contents may have been geared towards pleasing this most influential of Renaissance patrons.32 Equicola argued for the innate equality of men and women, observing that the inferior position occupied by women in contemporary society is the result of custom; to support these claims he interprets God's creation of rational 'man' as inclusive of both sexes. He cites examples of ancient societies in which the position of women was elevated beyond the domestic sphere to include prominent roles in government and leadership. Although he draws exemplars from _Famous Women_ , like Goggio and Strozzi he shifts his emphasis to support a view of women in which society, rather than biology, is responsible for any perceived inferiorities. Blaming contemporary Italian limitations placed on the roles of married women, he writes that a woman is "given into the dominion of a husband. If she aims higher or raises her sights... she is declared unfit for household management, as if this is a top occupation or high profession."33 In the second half of his work, Equicola briefly lists legendary/historical women under the categories of Prudence, Fortitude, Temperance, and Justice as well as classifying a number of women according to their accomplishments in literature, philosophy, prophecy and theater.

The desire to please a confirmed or potential patron through the composition of an encomiastic treatise on women is nowhere more evident than in the work of Sabadino degli Arienti. Sabadino worked in Bologna as secretary to Andrea Bentivoglio in the 1470s and 1480s and was also associated with the Este court in Ferrara in the 1490s. During this time he wrote a number of vernacular humanist works dedicated to, and celebrating the lives of, the ruling families of Bologna and Ferrara.34 His expressed purpose in composing the _Gynevera de le dare donne_ (1483) was to delight and glorify Gynevra Sforza di Bentivoglio, wife of Sante Bentivoglio, the Lord of Bologna.35 Sabadino's work survives in two manuscripts; a third, now lost, was sent to Isabella d'Este.36

The _Gynevera_ consists of thirty-three biographies of late medieval and early Renaissance women, focusing on Quattrocento members of royal or ruling families. Gynevra's own natal and married lineages are well represented by four Sforzas and two Bentivoglios; additionally, the virtues of several contemporary women with royal connections are briefly listed in the penultimate chapter. Sabadino's sycophantic writing represents less a reasoned attempt to challenge entrenched misogynistic claims than an unqualified eulogy of prominent women. Although he salutes an abundance of conventionally feminine virtues, his cornucopia of laudable talents also includes government and military leadership which, like Goggio, Strozzi, and Equicola, he does not qualify as being inherently foreign to women.

Although Sabadino draws distinctions between the noble women he is praising and the common run of womankind, the _Gynevera_ is unprecedented in the clear and unqualified parallels it draws between the virtues of contemporary and legendary/historical women.37 While Sabadino does not include full biographies of women drawn from antiquity, he uses historical details which appear to have been taken directly from the pages of _Famous Women_. Vittorio Zaccaria has demonstrated the unabashed plagiarism of Sabadino's borrowing, which is employed for the purpose of likening contemporary women to their illustrious predecessors.38 Like other court humanists wanting only to praise and defend womankind, Sabadino omits inflammatory material; Ursina Visconti is compared to Semiramis for her "alteza de animo et astutia militare" (greatness of spirit and military perspicacity).39

Intelligence and eloquence are particularly valued in Sabadino's biographies, and are never accompanied by Boccaccio's concern that clever women are a destabilizing influence on society. Isabella of Aragon is thus compared to Veturia, who, with her "pietose et prudent parole" (pious and prudent words), liberated Rome from the threat of destruction at the hands of her son.40 Sabadino only smiles on the decisions made by the Senate to honor Veturia's patriotism. In response to the _Gynevera_ , Kolsky notes that, for court consorts, Sabadino "provides a model of behaviour that can be extended to the public sphere – a form of union in which the married woman can work towards political goals in conjunction with her husband."41

In spite of the reevaluation of traditional masculine virtues as naturally accessible to both sexes, fifteenth-century encomiasts continued to emphasize the importance of female chastity and loyalty. Sabadino notes, for example, that Agnola da Nogarola was "merciful, devoted and charitable, and always kept the favor of her magnificent husband with greatest modesty, temperance and chastity."42 Thus, while virtues that would have been considered irrelevant for women living in the Tuscan republics were valued in the female members of ruling families, there was no less a premium placed on the unmarried virginity and marital constancy of daughters and wives through whom dynastic lines would be maintained.

Two works, similar to but distinct from the above, complete the catalogue of fifteenth-century writings known to have borrowed extensively from Boccaccio's lives. The Augustinian prior Fra lacopo Filippo Foresti da Bergamo came closest to frank plagiarism of _Famous Women_ with his Latin treatise _De plurimis claris sceletisque mulieribus_ , published in Ferrara in 1497.43 Foresti dedicated his work to Beatrice d'Aragona, Queen of Hungary and Bohemia, sister of Duchess Eleonora of Ferrara and aunt of Isabella d'Este Gonzaga. Of the seventy women included in the first section of Foresti's work, sixty-one are also addressed by Boccaccio; further, they are presented in roughly the same order, convey the same information, and frequently follow Boccaccio's detours into obliquely related morality lessons.

Finally, in 1467 a Piacentine poet named Antonio Cornazzano wrote a vernacular poem in _terza rima_ entitled _De mulieribus admirandis_ , which he dedicated to the duchess of Milan, Bianca Maria Visconti Sforza.44 Cornazzano was neither a philosopher nor an historian, and his attempts to please the ladies of the Milanese court are devoid of the authoritative defenses and praises written by humanist courtiers. That he knew _Famous Women_ is substantiated in his opening, where he criticizes Boccaccio for his haphazard selection of women; in spite of this disapproval, seventeen of the twenty-eight women Cornazzano included in _De mulieribus admirandis_ had been memorialized in _Famous Women_.

Cornazzano's method of categorizing his women is immediately suggestive of the essentially superficial treatment he accords to their lives: Book One is devoted to 'The Beautiful' while Book Two celebrates 'The Chaste'. As his purpose in writing _De mulieribus admirandis_ was to celebrate conventional feminine ideals, he frequently glosses over Boccaccio's accusations of immorality. On his list of beautiful women are Venus, Faustina Augusta, Medea, Circe, Helen and Sabina Poppaea, all of whom Boccaccio vilified for their brazen disdain of sexual propriety. Although Cornazzano managed to extract a great quantity of information from _Famous Women_ , he presents it with such a light touch that no hint of Boccaccio's moralistic stance seeps through into the lyrical narrative.

The writings of Goggio, Strozzi, Equicola, Sabadino, Foresti, and Cornazzano (along with Vespasiano) comprise the catalogue of known works written in praise and defense of women in fifteenth-century Italy.45 While the readership for these works appears to have been small and limited to the courtly milieux to which they were addressed, another text that addressed the nature of women enjoyed much broader renown. Baldasar Castiglione's _II libro del cortegiano_ represents "a portrait of the court of Urbino" presided over by Duke Guidobaldo da Montefeltro and his wife Elisabetta Gonzaga in the opening years of the Cinquecento.46 Although not published until 1528, after decades of revision, the court represented in the _Cortegiano_ portrays a level of intellectual and social sophistication that had been enjoyed for well over a generation under the Duke's father, Federigo.

Although Castiglione praises female members of a number of prominent families (including the Este and Gonzaga) late in the body of his work, it was not to them that the _Cortegiano_ was dedicated nor for them that it was written; in fact, Isabella d'Este is the only woman mentioned who was still living at the time of its publication. It is worth noting, however, that Castiglione was born in Mantuan territory and maintained a lifelong connection with the courtly circles of Mantua and Ferrara; indeed, Margherita Cantelma, the dedicatee of Equicola's treatise, was among the recipients of presentation copies of the _Cortegiano. 47_

The discussions which comprise the _Cortegiano_ are conducted by courtiers and presided over by the duchess after the sickly duke has retired for the evening. Book Three is devoted primarily to a dialogue between two courtiers, the Magnifico Giuliano de'Medici, who begins by verbally fashioning his ideal female courtier, and Gaspare Pallavicino, who resorts to conventional misogynistic

accusation in order to argue against her conceivable existence. Castiglione's discourse on sex and gender in the _Cortegiano_ has received much attention from modern commentators, and will be mentioned here only in the context of perceived differences in the natural endowment of virtues between the sexes.48 The description the Magnifico gives of the perfect lady of the court could largely have been derived from any contemporary conduct manual on female behavior:

[she should] shun affectation... be naturally graceful... well mannered, clever and prudent... neither proud, envious or evil-tongued, nor vain, contentious or clumsy... and also the qualities that are common to all kinds of women, such as goodness and discretion, the ability to take good care... of her husband's belongings and house and children, and the virtues belonging to a good mother.49

Although the issue of chastity remains paramount for the Magnifico, he recognizes the widespread and natural occurrence of female intelligence. _Donne di palazzo_ are actually required to be "knowledgeable about literature and painting... [as the] virtues of the mind are as necessary to a woman as to a man."50 This expectation is considered reasonable because "in essential substance men are no more perfect than women... [who] are naturally capable of the same virtues as men"; in fact, "everything men can understand, women can too; and where a man's intellect can penetrate, so along with it can a woman's."51 The Magnifico thus allies himself with the two strongest defenders of women, Goggio and Equicola, and is at odds with the ideologies of Boccaccio and Alberti, which were based on notions of gendered virtue.

### _Out of the Shadows: Ercole de'Roberti's Donne Illustri_

Current scholarship supports the assertion that a series of three panels depicting famous women was commissioned for, and probably by, Eleonora d'Aragona d'Este, and painted by Ercole de'Roberti. Ercole was an official Ferrarese court painter from the mid-1480s until his death in 1496 and is documented as having executed a number of works for the duchess.52 The women depicted in this _donne illustri_ cycle (Portia, Lucretia, and, tentatively, the anonymous Wife of Hasdrubal), although much smaller than life size, are presented as full-body portraits. The vertical format employed in these small paintings precludes their having been _cassone_ panels; it is likely that they were created either as embellishment for a different type of furnishing or were set into the wall of a bedroom as _spalliera_ panels.53

The humanists responsible for devising this portrait cycle had access to Boccaccio's biographies of two of the heroines, Portia and Lucretia, and would therefore have known that he treated both as admirable paragons. At least two manuscript copies of _Famous Women_ were among the classical and humanist texts in the Este library: a manuscript now in Florence preserves the dedicatory prologue to Niccole III d'Este of Donato's Italian translation, _Delle donne famose_ , and the Este and Malatesta coats of arms are still visible on the opening page of a second copy, now in the Bodleian Library in Oxford, testifying to its having been made for Niccolò III d'Este and his wife Parisina Malatesta.54 The dates of this short-lived marriage, which ended in Parisina's execution, place the commissioning of the Bodleian manuscript somewhere between 1418 and 1425. The presence of marginal notes and revisions made in a number of apparently contemporary hands suggests that this manuscript was actively consulted by members of Nicco court. It is not known which of the Este manuscripts was referred to in a 1436 inventory of the duke's library listing _"Libro uno chiamado Bochazo 'De mulieribus claris_ ' _,"_ or if this documents the Latin original used for Donato's translation.55

In the title of his biography of Portia (LXXXII), Boccaccio identifies her as the daughter of Cato Uticensis. The opening sentence is devoted to Cato, who led Pompey's army across the deserts of Africa but "unable to endure Caesar's victory" [ _FW_ 341] ultimately committed suicide. That his death is regarded by Boccaccio as a response to Caesar's successful campaign to undermine Roman republicanism is suggested in his description of Portia as "an extraordinary woman... [who] fully inherited her father's bravery and perseverance" [ _FW_ 341]. Further, Boccaccio clearly supports the plan developed by "the more rational senators," to assassinate Caesar, "who as permanent dictator was obviously aspiring to kingship" [ _FW_ 343]. Brutus, Portia's husband, was among these conspirators, and "knowing well Portia's integrity" [ _FW_ 343], took her into his confidence.

On the night before the assassination, Portia intentionally cut herself with a razor and Brutus, believing his wife had harmed herself while attempting to trim her nails, scolded her for not allowing the barber to see to it. Portia then explained "What I did was not done, as you think, in some ill-considered fashion, but to see if I would have the courage to kill myself with a sword and endure death if your enterprise should not succeed as you wish" [ _FW_ 343]. Her focus at this point is not on Brutus's safety, but on the outcome of his mission. In asserting that she would willingly die for their political convictions, Portia associates herself with her father's brand of ideological heroism.

Boccaccio continues with the story of the assassination, which was met, unexpectedly, with condemnation by the rest of the Senate. Although the conspirators took flight, Caesar's armies defeated them at Philippi and Brutus died in the battle. Upon receiving this news, Portia, feeling that "the future held no _happiness_ for her now that her husband was gone" [ _FW_ 343], swallowed hot coals in order to accomplish her own demise. Portia the courageous republican (and therein like her father) is fused with Portia the devoted wife whose life has meaning only in relation to her husband. Her conjugal devotion provides the necessary underpinning of feminine virtue that validates the masculine traits for which Boccaccio admires her. She is admirable insofar as she resembles or is dedicated to the men in her life.

Portia's political convictions and conjugal devotion were closely intertwined, and the decision to portray her either as wounding herself or as committing suicide would arguably represent a conscious intention to highlight one or the other of these virtues. The image (often depicted in Tuscan Renaissance art) of Portia swallowing live coals does not in itself distinguish her from any another legendary wife who chose death rather than life without a beloved husband. For the cycle of illustrious women painted for the Este, however, Ercole de'Roberti and his advisers (who may have included the duchess herself) chose to depict the moment in which the wounded Portia explains her actions to Brutus (Figure 4.1). This is Portia at the stoical peak of her republican resolution, sharing his political convictions and prepared to share in their consequences.

The Renaissance concept of _gagliardo_ that was given visual expression in the Villa Carducci cycle is relevant to an understanding of Ercole's worthies, where, significantly, the movements and attitudes traditionally ascribed to and visualized in each gender are reversed. Rather than being closely confined to a carefully circumscribed space, Portia's pose is strikingly _gagliardo_ in its unguarded assertiveness. She stands in a fully-frontal _contropposto_ pose with her arms lifted to the side and outstretched towards the viewer. Her hands are held wide open, her palms on the brink of illusionistically breaking through the picture plane into the viewer's space. With this gesture Portia invites spectators to gaze at her body and most particularly at the slightly raised and bared foot, with its bloody wound. The decisive nature of Portia's behavior is emphasized by contrast with her lugubrious and apparently immobilized husband. Brutus, standing quietly to the side and rear of his wife with his hands crossed before him, assumes a secondary and passive role in this painting.

Although her dress is modest and her hair neatly veiled, Ercole's representation of Portia clearly defies many standards of female decorum, not the least of which is the close-mouthed silence so valued in Renaissance women. In Quattrocento art, even protagonists who may be assumed to be speaking to one another are typically portrayed with their mouths closed; here, however, Portia's mouth is open, emphasizing the importance of the explanation she is vocalizing. Perhaps even more astonishing is the fact that her husband has manifestly yielded precedence and is listening intently to what she has to say. This choice of portrayal does not belie the understanding implicit in any representation of Portia that she was uncompromisingly faithful and committed to her husband; however, this representation in unconventional terms of a woman universally acknowledged for her virtue, and depicted in a genre whose entire purpose was the illustration of admirable character, serves to offer as unmistakably virtuous an entirely new vision of womankind.

**Figure 4.1** **Ercole de'Roberti, _Portia and Brutus_ , ca. 1490, tempera on panel, 48.7 × 34.3 cm, Copyright 2004 _by Kimbell Art Museum_ , Fort Worth, Texas.**

In considering sources of inspiration which may have driven Ercole's daring break from convention in the portrayal of a classical heroine, a reasonable beginning would be Bartolommeo Goggio's treatise _De laudibus mulierum_. Joseph Manca favors this theory because Goggio mentions two of the women in the series, Portia and Lucretia, as being celebrated for their constancy and fortitude.56 However, dedicating _De laudibus mulierum_ to the premise that women are superior to men, Goggio states that he will not be focusing on matrons who are widely known for their marital constancy. He writes that women such as Portia and Lucretia have already received due honor for their roles as wives and therefore he does not provide biographical sketches of their lives. If Goggio's work did not actually provide the material on which Ercole based his portrait of Portia, however, his views regarding the nature and capacity of women would nonetheless have influenced and supported an unconventional portrayal of a heroine created as a virtuous model for a popular and powerful duchess.57

Ruth Wilkins Sullivan suggests that while Goggio may have consulted with the artist on the conceptual formulation of the program, the source for material on the heroines was Valerius Maximus. Although this classical author does include all three women in _Factorum dictorumque memorabilium libri_ , his assessment of their virtues does not suggest a unified theme. Portia is listed under both 'fortitude' and 'conjugal love', while the wife of Hasdrubal is mentioned only under 'fortitude' and Lucretia under 'chastity'. Further, Valerius Maximus's conceptualization of the virtues of these heroines does not clearly support the theme Sullivan suggests for the series, which she posits as deriving from the _impresa_ of Eleonora's father, King Ferrante I. _Imprese_ were emblems, adopted by Renaissance men of the ruling classes, by which individuals or families could be recognized. Laden with chivalric associations and significance often obscure to the uninitiated, _imprese_ consisted of both a decorative design and a motto which the owner believed best expressed his own deeply felt beliefs and principles. In 1465, King Ferrante I announced his creation of the Order of the Ermine which incorporated his personal motto "malo mori, quam foedari" (I prefer to die rather than be defiled).58 While Eleonora's connection with the Neopolitan court remained a source of status and pride, there is little evidence that Eleonora specifically employed her father's emblem, and Ercole's decision to focus on Portia's wounding, rather than her suicide, compromises this interpretation.

The rise of the court consort in Renaissance Italy created a population of women who corresponded to Boccaccio's profile of a simultaneously dutiful and powerful wife. In spite of his view of the ordinary run of womankind, it was in fact the women Boccaccio most admired who would be the most appropriate paragons for these princely females. If the majority of women were unlikely to identify with heroines whose lives were extreme exceptions to the conventional female lot, Eleonora would have readily recognized the parallel between herself and Portia, who was the daughter of one politically powerful man and married to another. The relationship between Eleonora and King Ferrante found an exploitable analogue in the brave and persevering spirit with which Boccaccio united Portia and her father. The father—daughter bond, highlighted only by Boccaccio, informed the selection of Portia who, like Eleonora, was a woman whose public image was enhanced by her parentage and whose commitment to political principles deriving from that parentage was as fervent as her husband's. Portia's razor injury speaks to more than just her relationships with illustrious men, however: she is willing and able, in support of her ideals, to think and act on her own initiative. Ultimately, however, her conduct, like that of Boccaccio's heroines, was substantially actuated by her devotion to her husband. In Ercole's portrait Portia's masculine spirit is not compromised by a decorous facade; rather, her willingness to sacrifice herself for the greater good is visually reinforced by assertive body language.

An iconographical analysis of Ercole's portrait of Portia gives strong support to the argument that not only was Boccaccio instrumental in the conception of this heroine as a role model for Eleonora, but also that the humanists responsible for developing this series of _donne illustri_ relied on an early printed copy of _Famous Women_ as a guide to representing Portia's story. A woodcut which accompanied the life of Portia in the first printed edition of _Famous Women_ and was both reused and employed as a prototype in a number of subsequent editions, begins on the left with the heroine displaying and explaining her wound to a concerned Brutus (Figure 4.2). One of her hands is raised in an oratorical manner while the other points to her foot, which actually appears pinned to the floor by the straight razor which pierces it. The roles assumed by husband and wife here were surely models for Ercole's image. Further, neither Boccaccio nor Valerius Maximus specifies the anatomical location of Portia's wound.59 Plutarch, the only other author known to relate this story, writes that she "gave herself a deep gash in the thigh."60 As this detail was omitted in _Famous Women_ , the positioning of the injury was left to the illustrator, who, alone among all sources and commentators, chose to place it in the precise location that Ercole would adopt a number of years later.

**Figure 4.2** **_Portia, De mulieribus claris_ , Giovanni Boccaccio, woodcut, 1473, IB. 9110 by permission of the British Library, London.**

Differences apparent in the printed and painted representations of Portia reveal the court artist's originality in constructing an image which would be faithful to the persona Eleonora enjoyed in Ferrara. The woodcut illustration adheres closely to the spirit of the larger text of _Famous Women_ in that Portia's dual acts of heroism are peripheralized in order to showcase the political message intended for Boccaccio's male readership. Portia's two acts of physical self-harm bracket the centrally positioned assassination of Caesar; the injunction to fight tyranny embedded in the text is visualized by Brutus's plunging a knife into a Julius Caesar who wears the robes and crown of a king. This scene is omitted in Ercole's construction of a heroine who not only takes center stage but stands on her own two feet so that she neither appears physically weakened or in need of comfort. Eleonora's Portia does not suffer the psychological disadvantage of the woodcut heroine, who is shown sitting or kneeling at a level lower than the men.

The second heroine in Ercole's series of _donne illustri_ is Lucretia. Her well-known story, as presented by Boccaccio (XLVIII), closely follows Livy's account. Sextus Tarquinius, son of the tyrant Sextus Superbus, saw and lusted after Collatinus's chaste wife Lucretia while a guest in his house outside of Rome. Late one night Sextus entered Lucretia's bedroom with a drawn sword but found her ready to resist his assault even if it meant her death. He then threatened that unless she acceded to his demands, he would kill both her and a servant and spread the lie that he had done so upon finding them in bed together. At the thought of her name being thus dishonored, Lucretia submitted to the rape but in the morning sent for her father, her husband, and her husband's relative Junius Brutus (ancestor of Portia's husband), and related to them the details of the crime. Although her relatives were quick to comfort her in her distress, she nonetheless turned a dagger on herself and died in their arms. Boccaccio's narrative stops there, with the observation that "Her action not only restored the reputation that a dissolute young man had destroyed with his filthy crime, but led ultimately to freedom for Rome" [ _FW_ 199]. Livy takes the narrative further, recounting Brutus's resolution both to avenge Lucretia's death and to ensure that Rome will never again come under the rule of a monarch. Garnering public support by displaying Lucretia's body in the public square, Junius Brutus leads an armed mob to Rome and succeeds in deposing Sextus Superbus and exiling his family.61 Valerius Maximus categorizes Lucretia under the heading "Of Chastity" and notes that her death "gave the Roman people reason to change the authority of kings for that of Consuls" (VI.1).62

Unlike Portia and the wife of Hasdrubal, images of Lucretia proliferated in Quattrocento Italy. Extensive modern scholarship has associated Florentine representations of Lucretia's story with republican sentiment. Jerzy Miziolek has demonstrated that as early as the last two decades of the fourteenth century, Tuscan _cassone_ panels frequently depicted a fairly standardized treatment of the legend which included Sextus's assault on Lucretia in her bedchamber, Lucretia stabbing herself in the presence of onlookers, and the expulsion of the Tarquins from Rome.63 Miziolek associates the popularity of these _cassoni_ with the _Declamatio Lucretiae_ , a treatise written by the Florentine Chancellor Coluccio Salutati, which honored Lucretia's suicide as an emblem of republican liberty at a time when the commune was seriously threatened by Giangaleazzo Visconti of Milan.64 Miziolek, in support of previous scholarship, attributes the resurgence of visual representations of Lucretia's legend in the second half of the Quattrocento to a revival of interest in republican liberty as a reaction against Medici hegemony.65 These later images appended the public display of Lucretia's corpse to the otherwise familiar iconography of her rape and suicide. Perhaps most well-known among these is Botticelli's _Tragedy of Lucretia_ , in which the figure of Lucius Junius Brutus, the defender of liberty, raises his sword above the victim of tyrannous abuse (Figure 4.3).66 While Lucretia's body lies lifeless in the center of the composition, Lucius stands behind and over her, ennobled by a column which rises to support a marble statue of David. This Old Testament hero had served for years as a Florentine symbol of republican freedom.

Ercole de'Roberti, in choosing to depict neither her sexual violation nor her subsequent suicide, avoids visualizing signs of vulnerability or victimhood but focuses instead on Lucretia's moment of greatest power (Figure 4.4). While representations centering on the fomenting of plebeian revolt would have been anathema to Ercole and his advisers, it is also the case that, in capturing Lucretia in the moments before she has committed her violent deed, the emphasis is not only redirected away from the subsequent actions of others but also from her destruction. Whereas, as Cristelle Baskins points out, Florentine images center on a woman who has been silenced, Ercole's Lucretia is portrayed delivering the final speech which confirms not only her chastity, but also her resolve to perform the fatal act by which she condemns the Tarquins. 67 She stands straight and elegant, saddened but calm, as she firmly grips a dagger and raises it to her breast. The two gentlemen on her left, Collatinus and Junius Brutus, gaze mournfully at her, as humbled in the face of her iron will as was Portia's husband.

**Figure 4.3** **Sandro Botticelli, _Tragedy of Lucretia_ , ca. 1504, tempera and oil on wood, 40 x 83.5cm, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston.**

**Figure 4.4** Ercole de'Roberti, _Lucretia, Brutus and Collatinus_ , ca. 1490, tempera on panel, 48.7 × 35.5 cm, Galleria Estense, Modena. (Photo: Alinari).

Ercole has diverged dramatically both from the literary and visual traditions in creating this dry-eyed female pillar of strength and in failing to surround her with imploring friends and family. It is clear, however, that he once again turned to an illustrated text of _Famous Women_ for a visual model which he could adapt to his own ends. As with the illustration accompanying the biography of Portia, the woodcut of Lucretia contains multiple scenes (Figure 4.5). On the left Lucretia is shown in bed, modestly attempting to cover herself in the face of Sextus' attack, while on the right are Lucretia, Collatinus and Junius Brutus, the same grouping of figures employed in the painting. As in Ercole's image, all three are standing, with the two men positioned to one side opposite Lucretia, who holds her dagger. A single prominent difference distinguishes the two groupings from one another, however. In the print, Lucretia has just plunged the dagger into her breast and is beginning to buckle, while Collatinus supports her with his arm. Ercole's transformation of the woodblock image follows the same conceptual and visual deviations from its predecessor as did his metamorphosis of Portia: both heroines now appear strong and self-sustaining. Neither his Lucretia nor his Portia require either physical or emotional support from their husbands; Ercole's male figures back off from the female protagonist ensuring that her heroism is not diminished by their ministrations.

**Figure 4.5** **_Lucretia, De mulieribus claris_ , Giovanni Boccaccio, woodcut, 1473, IB. 9110, by permission of the British Library, London.**

That Portia and Lucretia were famed for their marital chastity is far from irrelevant to their inclusion in this cycle; for a court consort, feminine virtue was an absolute prerequisite for celebrating any manifestation of her masculine qualities. For this extremely select breed of female, however, wifely loyalty demanded the capacity to function as a man. It is therefore consistent with a consort's role that she would want to emphasize her ability to act independently of (although, of course, in the name of) her husband, since it was at times when the ruler was absent or indisposed that it became crucial for her to take up the reins of power. The populace, the courtiers, and the duke himself had to believe that the duchess would be able to competently assume his position when military duties took him away from home or if he were to fall critically ill. There was also the possibility that a consort would need to defend the interests of the dynasty as regent should the prince die before an heir had reached the age of majority. In Ercole's portraits of Portia and Lucretia, the heroines demonstrate to their husbands an ability to act decisively, selflessly, and with courage under adverse circumstances, and to do so on their own volition.

It may appear paradoxical that two champions of republican freedom would be chosen as exemplars for the wife of a prince; the plan which resulted in Portia's suicide led to the murder of a leader suspected of royal ambition, while Lucretia's death rapidly led to the exile of another. It is indeed a tribute to the intellectual sophistication of the individuals involved in creating these paintings that they were able to recognize that the heroism of these women was not confined by historical context. Further, these images are notably lacking in republican iconography, such as the statue of David included in some Tuscan depictions of Lucretia's story. Rather than being employed as emblems of political abstractions, Ercole's women are celebrated for their strength of character through images which document the moment in which they declare their resolve to sacrifice themselves for the sake of their ideals. Ercole's heroines are exemplars for a woman who would remain steadfast in adherence to her ideals, cost what it might, and his pictorial representations of them celebrate the nobility of their commitment rather than mourning the pathos of their deaths.68

A derivative of Ercole's portrait of Lucretia not only provides corroboration for the argument that the cycle was executed for the Este family to display in Ferrara, but reveals the phenomenon of symbiosis between textual and atextual portrayals of _donne illustri_. Jacopo da Foresti's _De plurimis claris selectisque mulieribus_ , a rather crude conflation of Boccaccio's _Famous Women_ and Sabadino degli Arienti's _Gynevera_ , was published in Ferrara in 1497. With the exception of portrait likenesses created to resemble the contemporary women whose biographies they accompany, only a few of the woodcuts used to illustrate this work were specifically designed in accordance with the particular details of individual lives. For the most part, a dozen or so generic blocks were repeatedly employed: a queen, a young woman with a flowing banner, an armored warrior, etc. The print used to illustrate the biography of Lucretia, however, was used only once and bears a remarkable resemblance to Ercole's painting (figure 4.6). The compositional structure is nearly identical, with Lucretia on the right, balancing the two male observers on the left. The male figures in the two works view Lucretia's actions in a comparably distanced manner, making no attempt to intervene. The figure of Lucretia herself could not have been constructed without reference to Ercole's work: both portray a round-faced idealization of Eleonora herself (whose likeness is known through contemporary portraits), standing erect with her right arm raised and bent at the elbow, while the left remains at her side. The woodcut illustrator's decision to plunge the dagger into Lucretia's breast does not impinge on any other aspect of her demeanor; her body remains firmly erect and death seems far from imminent.

Figure 4.6 **_Lucretia, De plurim is claris selectisque mulieribus_ , Jacopo da Foresti, woodcut, 1497, 167.h.l7, by permission of the British Library, London.**

While the subject of the final portrait in Ercole de'Roberti's cycle has been disputed over the past two centuries, most current scholarship accepts Gardiner's identification of these figures as being the anonymous _Wife of Hasdrubal and Her Children_ (Figure 4.7).69 There is no known late medieval or Renaissance reference to this woman, and there is no precedent for her representation in fifteenth-century art. The legend is related most fully by Appian, who described the defeat of Hasdrubal's Carthaginians by the Romans under Scipio Aemilianus in 146 BCE. When Hasdrubal's wife witnessed her husband pleading for his life, she determined that neither she nor her children would suffer such indignities at the hands of the conqueror. She therefore killed her children and carried them into the burning Temple of Asclepius where she met her own death. Valerius Maximus's account differs in some particulars from Appian's: he notes that she "reproached him [Hasdrubal] with disloyalty in that he had been content to get Scipio's consent to spare his life for himself only" (III.2).70 Then, taking her children by the hand, she "exposed herself to the flames of her burning country."71

While both versions of this story can reasonably account for the ruined architecture and flaming embers over which the figures are running in this painting, neither account offers a clear iconographical reading or a convincing explanation for this woman's inclusion in the cycle. According to Valerius Maximus, Hasdrubal's wife was angry with her husband for failing to secure the safety of his family, and apparently preferred suicide to execution. His view of her bravery is based on her willingness to be the agent of her own death, not that she has chosen "death over dishonor." While Appian considers her suicide/infanticide as a prophylactic alternative to potential degradation, the children in Ercole's portrait have not been slain prior to her flight into the burning temple. Even allowing for a conflation of the two accounts, in which a theme from Appian was illustrated with details from Valerius Maximus, the story is problematic in that Hasdrubal was not an admirable ruler, husband, or father. Whether he was begging for mercy on his own behalf or had already sacrificed his city and family at the time his wife made her decision to die, he is not a prince with whom Ercole d'Este would have wanted to be associated.

**Figure 4.7** **Ercole de'Roberti, _The Wife of Hasdrubal and Her Children_ , ca. 1490, tempera and oil on panel, 47.1 × 30.6 cm, Alisa Mellon Bruce Fund, Image © 2004 Board of Trustees, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.**

The uncertainties associated with the subject of this painting do not negate the striking fact that, as with the other two women in the cycle, the _Wife of Hasdrubal_ is presented in a revolutionary manner. Ignoring the dictates of Quattrocento arbiters of female conduct who insisted that women were not to engage in vigorous activity, the Wife of Hasdrubal runs screaming into the fire, dragging her protesting babes along with her. Feet (and even one ankle) bared, she thrusts her elbows out in an attempt to control her small children. While her hair is veiled in a manner befitting a married woman, her manner is aggressive as she grips the unwilling infants, one of whom attempts to push her hand away. Like Portia, the Wife of Hasdrubal opens her mouth wide, perhaps exhorting her children to be more cooperative. If this is indeed The Wife of Hasdrubal, she would fit the pattern of stoicism and self-sacrifice established by Portia and Lucretia, who were prepared to sacrifice themselves in support of ideals which were linked not only to their husbands' honor but to the honor of their state.

The conjoining of personal integrity and political loyalty render images of Portia and Lucretia singularly apt models for the consort of a ruling prince. A significant aspect of each of these representations is the pointed demonstration by the heroine, not only to the viewer but also to her husband, of her willingness to devote her life to the ideals required of a woman in her position. In identifying herself with these women, Eleonora would have acknowledged her obligation to maintain the trust and respect of the Duke and his people, not only by adhering to conventional dictates of female morality but by taking active measures to prove her allegiance, even in adversity, to the realm she helped to govern. The woodcut image which accompanies Foresti's biography of Eleonora in the _De plurimis claris selectisque mulieribus_ alludes to both the masculine and feminine aspects accorded to her role as Duchess of Ferrara. In this portrait of Eleonora, she is depicted as a portly matron, modestly dressed with a cloth covering her head and shoulders (Figure 4.8). In her hand, however, she holds a long baton as a sign of leadership, and in the background is a schematic representation of Ferrara, where her joint rulership with Ercole was not only acknowledged, but welcomed. It is perhaps not surprising that a new way of visualizing female worthies of antiquity would be inspired by a living woman in whose hand illustrators did not hesitate to place a symbol of political power.

In conveying masculine virtues through masculinized images, Ercole de'Roberti united the bodies and souls of his women in a way which was anathema to fifteenth-century republican representations of classical heroines. Unlike the heroines in the Villa Carducci cycle, Lucretia, Portia and the Wife of Hasdrubal have been allowed to convey their courage, loyalty, daring, and indifference to physical harm in depictions which call attention to these very characteristics rather than having them concealed behind placid, decorous façade. The elimination of this visual incongruity for perhaps the first time suggests not only an unparalleled acceptance of unconventionally heroic women as exemplars for contemporary _women_ , but a challenge to the notion that virtue is gender-specific. While the humanist advisers to the Este court chose two of their female paragons from among the masculinized chaste wives Boccaccio most admired—and for the same reasons—Ercole's figures, unified in body and spirit, are a visual manifestation of the late fifteenth-century reevaluation of the nature of women.

**Figure 4.8** **_Eleonora d'Aragona d'Este, De plurimis claris selectisque mulieribus_ , Jacopo da Foresti, woodcut, 1497, 167.h.17, by permission of the British Library, London.**

## Isabella d'Este and Mantegna

Eleonora's daughter, Isabella d'Este, followed in her mother's footsteps when she married into a family whose sociopolitical status, in terms of titles of nobility and extent of territorial control, was beneath her own. In 1474 she became the wife of Francesco Gonzaga, Marchese of Mantua and, owing perhaps in part to a confidence engendered by her illustrious parentage, immediately began to cultivate a unique persona based upon the humanistic education she had received at the Ferrarese court.72 While the new marchesa did what she could to play an active role in Mantuan politics (she is on record as pointing out to Francesco that if she were allowed more input into governing the principality she would not be overweight) her husband generally excluded her from policy-making decisions. Nonetheless, she exercised authority during his absences on military campaigns and traveled widely throughout the courts of Renaissance Italy.73

Among the many gestures which Isabella made towards equating herself with politically-prominent men was her creation of a personal _impresa_.74 The motto she chose for herself was "Nec spe nec metu" (neither by hope nor by fear), an unqualified statement of the steady control with which she wished to be associated. The stoical inflection of this motto suggests a chafing against the traditional notion that women were unable to dominate their passions through the force of reason. In designing her own _impresa_ , Isabella declared herself as not only belonging to that stratum of personages whose importance merited recognition through symbolic embellishment, but as the possessor, in her own right, of belongings which could be affixed with her personal seal.

Isabella's participation in a world dominated by men was most successful in the realm of artistic patronage. Her mother's patronage had been heavily weighted towards religious commissions, a traditionally accepted avenue for upper-class women in control of their own fortunes to participate in contemporary artistic culture. An inventory of Eleonora's personal library reveals an overriding interest in devotional works; in marked contrast, Isabella amassed an impressive library containing both classical and contemporary texts and her commissioning of secular paintings and sculpture to adorn her private apartments was a decisive move towards the equating, at least in cultural terms, of her influence with that of the educated male elite.75 She became a discerning patron of contemporary artists as well as a collector of books and antiquities; precious objects and works of art were considered to be tangible expressions of authority during the Renaissance, and Isabella utilized her extensive sphere of influence to ensure that she acquired a collection which would reflect the elegance and learning of its owner.

Unlike humanists who devoted themselves to the study of philology, Isabella devised strategies, with the aid of learned advisors, to assimilate those aspects of antiquity which answered best to the image she desired to create for herself. Kolsky observes that "Connected with her desire to be surrounded by rare and precious objects [was] her desire to be innovative, that is, to create and control her own rarity."76 Although she filled several rooms in the Gonzaga Castello di San Giorgio and Corte Vecchia with paintings and fine objects produced by some of the most illustrious artists of the day, her favorite project was the decoration of her private study, or _studiolo_ , in the Castello. Isabella is the first woman known to have created this type of Renaissance space, which became popular among aristocrats and princes as a private sanctuary where precious objects could be housed and contemplated.77 Adopting the fashion of collectors and patrons who employed their collections of valuables to politically advantageous ends, Isabella opened her private apartments to foreign dignitaries; the rooms also became a focus of scholarly discussion and poetic productions and may have been the setting for private musical performances.78

Andrea Mantegna painted four paintings of famous women, _Tuccia, A Woman Drinking, Dido_ , and _Judith_ , while he was the court painter to the Gonzaga at Mantua.79 The portraits were painted in a style called _bronzi finti_ (feigned bronze), employed by Mantegna as a _trompe l'oeil_ simulation of highly chased gilt bronze relief sculpture.80 Corroboration for the argument that his _donne illustri_ were commissioned either for or by Isabella rests both in Isabella's passion for acquiring antique and _all'antica_ sculpture, and her interest in _donne illustri_ as a literary genre. Further, although we know of no fifteenth- or sixteenth-century documents that can be conclusively associated with these paintings, included in a 1709 inventory of the Duke of Mantua's paintings is an entry of "Quattro quadri (2 x 4 [quarte]) l'uno rappresenta chiari e scuri, la Bella Judith et altre figure di mano del Mantegna". As the _quarta_ equals a modern _spanna_ , the dimensions correspond almost exactly to two of Mantegna's _donne illustri, Judith_ and _Dido_.81

Mantegna's interest in utilizing what had always been a sculptural approach to figure construction in paintings that actually simulated bronze and marble reliefs was not realized until Isabella d'Este's arrival in Mantua. The court painter shared with his new patron a fervent interest in collecting antique Roman sculpture, which may account for the innovative nature of the grisailles he executed for her. An inventory of 1542 reports that a "painting in feigned bronze... by master Andrea Mantegna showing four figures was placed above one of the doors of Isabella's _studiolo_."82 While we cannot be sure that this listing refers to the four _donne illustri_ , only one additional painting in this style, traditionally referred to as _A Sibyl and a Prophet_ , has survived. This genre was rarely experimented with outside of Mantua, and there is no evidence that the monochromatic works executed by Mantegna and his workshop were commissioned by anyone outside of the Gonzaga family.83 Further, Keith Christiansen has observed striking similarities between elements of Mantegna's _bronzi finti_ and the _all 'antica_ statuettes executed by another court artist, the sculptor Pier Jacopo Alari-Bonacolsi (called Antico). Christiansen notes stylistic congruities and specific analogues between the _Dido_ and _Judith_ pendants and Antico's Roman bust imitations in the sharply cut drapery and the exaggerated emphasis on coiffure.84

Isabella was raised in an environment where court humanists created both literary and visual works dedicated to exemplary _donne illustri_ , and it was there that she may have developed an interest in the lives of legendary paragons. In addition to the copies of _Famous Women_ belonging to the Este family, she would also have had access to Cornazzano's _De mulieribus admirandis_ (which was written in Ferrara and never left the Biblioteca Estense) and Goggio's _De laudibus mulierium_. That Isabella regarded knowledge of the lives of _donne illustri_ to serve an exemplary function is attested to in a letter she wrote upon receiving Sabadino degli Arienti's _Gynevera:_ "This work was extremely pleasing to us because... it contains useful material. We will read it attentively, and we will attempt to follow in the footsteps of those illustrious ladies."85 A copy of Jacopo Foresti's _De claris selectisque mulieribus_ was also in her personal library, and Isabella was herself included in the encomium to women written by Equicola.86

### _Poison or Ashes?_

Mantegna's paintings of _donne illustri_ were conceived as two pairs of pendants, the members of one set having been reliably identified as Dido and Judith. Because of uncertainty over the identity of one of the women in the second pair, one of the paintings is simply entitled _A Woman Drinking_ , and the other _The Vestal Virgin Tuccia with a Sieve_. The classicized grandeur of each of these women, frozen on a shallow stage at a significant moment of personal resolve, attests to their function as virtuous exemplars. Boccaccio does not include Tuccia in _Famous Woman_ , but her story is recorded in two ancient accounts: Valerius Maximus places her under the heading "Of Signal Public Judgments—Absolved" (VIII.1), and Pliny includes her in his _Natural History_ (28:12). Tuccia, having been accused of incest, successfully entreated the Roman goddess Vesta to help her demonstrate her innocence by allowing her to carry a sieve of water from the Tiber River to the temple of the goddess without spilling a drop. This account is also repeated in verse by Petrarch in the _Triumph of Chastity_.87 In Mantegna's representation, Tuccia is shown striding forward holding a large sieve half full of water; she bends slightly and holds it against her body, suggesting that it may be heavy as well as awkward.88 She is dressed modestly, as are all four of Mantegna's worthies, in classicized drapery which falls in multiple pleats and folds. There is an air of determination about this figure which is enhanced by a steady gaze fixed on something or someone in the spectator's space.

The figure painted as a pendant to _Tuccia_ shares her decisiveness of action, but it is an action which has been variously interpreted. A stately woman holds a large goblet to her lips with one hand while she gently fingers her drapery with the other; as there are no other apparent iconographical indicators to aid in the identification of this dignified heroine, she has been catalogued as _A Woman Drinking_ (Figure 4.9). She is generally referred to in art historical scholarship as _Sophonisba_ , an identity favored by the National Gallery in London, although the catalog listing offers Artemisia as an alternative candidate.89

The story of the Carthaginian princess Sophonisba, as recorded by Livy and expanded by Boccaccio (LXX), is one of political intrigue, lust, and suicide. The Carthaginian prince Hasdrubal engineered the marriage of his beautiful daughter Sophonisba to the Numidian king Syphax in order to win his support against Rome in the first Punic War. Eager to obtain Sophonisba's hand, Syphax treacherously turned against Rome but was promptly defeated in battle by Scipio's ally King Masinissa. When she saw that her husband had been defeated, Sophonisba begged Masinissa to do with her as he pleased as long as he spared her from capture by the victorious Romans.

Masinissa's solution to Sophonisba's dilemma was to contract a bigamous marriage with her; when Scipio learned of this, however, he reproached Masinissa for having married a captive. Knowing that he would be made to relinquish his booty, Masinissa sent a cup of poison to Sophonisba, in keeping with his pledge to help her avoid capture by the Romans. She accepted the poison and, according to Boccaccio, died leaving this acerbic message for her husband: "I would have had a better death had I not married on the very day I was to die" [ _FW_ 295].

Sophonisba is not included in Quattrocento encomiums to female worthies nor does there appear to be a precedent for her representation in the visual arts of the fifteenth century.90 This is not, perhaps, surprising: Sophonisba's efforts to evade capture included contracting a bigamous marriage with a stranger the day following her husband's crushing defeat. In the interest of self-preservation, she not only refused to share in Syphax's misfortune, but was willing to bargain away her chastity—a compromise which, according to Boccaccio, she bitterly regretted when on the point of death. Sophonisba became resigned to suicide only when she believed all other courses of action had been exhausted and that the alternative would in some way prove more horrific. Although she eventually chose death over degradation, her willingness to jettison all forms of wifely loyalty would seem to exclude her from a cycle devoted to virtuous paragons.91 Further, the character of Sophonisba has no thematic parallel to that of Tuccia, who was renowned solely for miraculously verifying her own sexual integrity.

**Figure 4.9** **Andrea Mantegna, _A Woman Drinking_ , ca. 14957–1506, tempera on poplar, 71.2 × 19.8 cm, National Gailery of Art, London.**

Sophonisba was not, however, the only woman famous in history and legend for what she chose to imbibe. Artemisia, Queen of Caria (LVII), was so devoted to her husband Mausolus that, according to Boccaccio,

After he [Mausolus] had been cremated and his ashes had been carefully collected, she did not allow them to be placed in a golden urn to be preserved. She thought that any receptacle would be unsuitable for such a beloved husband except that breast within which the flame of her old love burned more than usually after his death. For this reason... she gathered his ashes, mixed them in a drink, and slowly drank it.92[ _FW_ 233]

Artemisia is representative of Boccaccio's widowed queens who successfully fuse perpetual conjugal fidelity with the virile spirit necessary to assume the role of vicar for their absent husbands. Establishing first that Artemisia was a paragon of chastity, Boccaccio introduces her as a "lasting example of chaste widowhood" who loved her husband, Mausolus, "so much when he was alive that after his death she could never forget him so long as she lived" [ _FW_ 233]. To better ensure that no one else would forget him either, she had one of the seven wonders of the ancient world constructed as a funerary monument: "Thus the conjugal love of Artemisia gained renown, and even more so her perseverance in widowhood and mourning" [ _FW_ 237]. Mausolus's true sepulcher, however, was Artemisia herself, and her life after his death was "devoted to constant mourning" [ _FW_ 233].

In the years following her bereavement, Artemisia put aside her grieving only when she was called upon to serve as her husband's vicar to defend his kingdom and fulfill its obligations. Unlike Cleopatra, whose lust for power drove her to acquire territories as a numismatist collects rare coins, Artemisia was not an aggressor but proved herself to be "a woman exceptionally capable of masculine vigor, daring, and military prowess" when she was attacked or called to the aid of an allied power [ _FW_ 237]. The second half of her biography is a catalogue of military strategy and accomplishment in which the source of Artemisia's excellence is rhetorically reconstructed in terms of masculine virtues and characteristics. At one point she is seen "urging on her men and fighting bitterly; it was almost as if she had changed sex with Xerxes," who chose to observe the battle from a safe distance [ _FW_ 241]. Ultimately, Boccaccio concludes "As we admire the deeds of Artemisia, what can we think except that the workings of nature erred in bestowing female sex on a body which God had endowed with a virile and lofty spirit?" [ _FW_ 243]. This mistake was partially rectified, of course, by Artemisia's incorporation of Mausolus' remains into her own body. While Artemisia grieved, Mausolus was able to resume his command in a new form. As a faithful widow acting on behalf of her husband to protect his country and connections, Artemisia is a paragon of the ruling consort. As such, she is a more likely candidate for representation in Isabella's court than Sophonisba would have been.

### _Dido: A Heroine Restored_

The second set of _donne illustri_ created by Mantegna in the _bronzi finti_ style depict Dido and Judith.93 In contrast with Tuccia and Artemisia, the literary tradition regarding Dido, the legendary founding queen of Carthage, is complicated and fraught with polemics. In the first century BCE, Virgil borrowed from legend the name and a handful of biographical details in order to create a tragic figure who was consumed by love and devastated by betrayal.94 In the _Aeneid_ , the gods enchained the queen, who had previously sworn lifelong fidelity to her deceased husband Sychaeus, to a love akin to madness for the Trojan warrior who washed up on her shores. After living for a time as husband and wife, Aeneas realized his destiny did not lie in Carthage, and Dido, "driven to distraction and burning with passion... raged and raved round the whole city like a Bacchant" (IV,300–02).95 Unable to dissuade him from leaving her and lamenting the violation of her vow of chastity to the memory of her husband, Dido stabbed herself with the sword Aeneas left behind.

The appropriation of Virgil's Dido by the artistic community began with his Roman contemporaries, most notably the poet Ovid. Ovid's most lengthy treatment of Dido's story is in the _Heroides_ , a work largely devoted to the first-person laments of women abandoned by their lovers. Here, he emphasizes the weak and dependent aspects of Dido's character to the neglect of the tragic nature of her situation; she begs and wheedles, grasping desperately at every argument which might move Aeneas to remain with her. Ovid maintains Virgil's image of a woman burning with a passion that is beyond her control as well as emphasizing Dido's failure to keep faith with the memory of her dead husband. Scattered among her imprecations for Aeneas's infidelities are laments which indicate that underlying her agony is remorse for betraying Sychaeus:

Virtue lost, you may exact the penalty which I owe to Sychaeus, I go in shame and misery to seek forgiveness... He calls me to his bed because I am his. I am late because I have confessed my awful crime, I come in shame, forgive me. (7.97–105).96

Medieval writers made frequent use of Ovid's _Heroides_ to produce catalogs of betrayed women.97 In the _Roman de la Rose_ , La Vieille evokes Dido as one whose fatal mistake was to place too much trust in her lover (13144–84), while Chaucer includes Dido in a list of forsaken women in his _Book of the Duchess_ (31–34).

Four hundred years after the _Aeneid_ was written, St. Augustine confessed to having wept over Dido's suicide in response to the loss of Aeneas.98 His compassionate reaction to Virgil's tragic heroine helped to ensure that this version of her story would become and remain the canonical account throughout the Middle Ages; Dido did, however, undergo numerous transformations in the hands of medieval poets and commentators. From the tradition of courtly romance was born an extensive body of medieval vernacular adaptations of the _Aeneid_ which showed little allegiance to Virgil and introduced characters molded to reflect popular ideas of love and morality.99 Distinct from the courtly romance genre was the development of an allegorical/commentary tradition of the _Aeneid_ based on textual studies in the schools.100 This rich body of Latin commentary, which largely took the form of allegorical interpretation, provided the primary link between Virgil and Renaissance patrons. The discovery that Virgil's works, which had been used as grammatical texts since the time of his death, lent themselves to interpretation according to Christian doctrine, led medieval scholars to scrutinize his writings for philosophical truths. The tradition of interpreting Homer's epics through Neoplatonic allegory was considered a suitable approach to unveiling Virgil, and in the late fifth century Fulgentius applied philosophical allegory to the whole of the _Aeneid_ in order to warn against deadly sins. For Fulgentius, Dido personified Passion, from which Aeneas was rescued by Intelligence.101 A twelfth-century writer, Bernardus Silvestris, concurred that Dido represented the libido which dominated Aeneas at the stage of life identified as "youth with its foolish fantasies."102

Eminent thinkers such as Coluccio Salutati and Cristoforo Landino helped sustain an interest in allegorical readings of Dido's life through the fifteenth century. Salutati interpreted Aeneas's entanglement with Dido as illustrative of the consequences of allowing the will to rebel against reason and succumb to licentiousness, while Landino, the most influential critic of Virgil in the second half of the Quattrocento, associated Dido not only with sexual indiscretion but with inferior reason, both of which he considered obstacles on the pathway to an understanding of the divine.103 Maffeo Vegio, who wrote a supplementary chapter to the _Aeneid_ which became so popular that it was actually included in many printed editions of Virgil's work, presented Virgil's Dido as a model of virtue (before she met Aeneas) and a model of vice (after she had "gone mad with love for a newly-arrived guest").104

In the fourteenth century, while most literary production focused upon Dido in terms of her involvement with Aeneas, there arose a new interest in the legendary Dido whom Virgil had appropriated and transformed for his own ends. During the span of time in which humanist thinkers wielded a strong influence over the artists and poets of Italy, this pre-Virgilian version of Dido's life and death, resurrected from the writings of early Roman historians, came to be widely acknowledged. According to this legend, in which Aeneas played no part, Dido was a widowed queen who chose to commit suicide rather than remarry following the death of her husband Sychaeus. Was Mantegna's painting of Dido meant to represent a heroine who died upholding her principles or a pathetic victim who took her life in bitter regret for having compromised them?

Although the overarching significance of Virgil for Boccaccio's fictional oeuvre cannot be overstated, and although Virgil's creation was greatly admired by both Boccaccio and Petrarch, the proto-humanists reevaluated Dido's life in the light of what they considered to be historical evidence proving that she had died a martyr to widowed fidelity.105 Their source was probably Justin's second century _Epitome_ of the _Historiae philippicarum_ written a century earlier by Pompeius Trogus.106 Justin's brief account, the single most important vehicle for the preservation of the extra-Virgilian legend in antiquity, was elaborated by Boccaccio in _Famous Women_ as well as in his _Fates of Illustrious Men_. In both works Boccaccio concurs with Virgil's introduction of Dido (XLII) as a young Tyrian princess whose treacherous brother, King Pygmalion, murdered her husband Sychaeus for his wealth.107 In the face of this bereavement "Womanly weakness was cast aside and her spirit hardened to manly strength; for this she later earned the name of Dido, the Phoenician equivalent of the Latin _virago"_ [ _FW_ 169].

Having allied herself with neighboring princes, Dido seized a fleet of ships and absconded to Africa with her dead husband's treasure. There she built the great city of Carthage and became famous far and wide for her "exceptional virtue and purity" [ _FW_ 173]. At this point Boccaccio diverges markedly from Virgil's account of Dido's fate, excluding Aeneas altogether. In _Famous Women_ Dido's glorious reputation sparks the interest of a neighboring barbarian king who threatens the elders of Carthage with the destruction of the city unless their queen consents to marry him. Determined not to betray her oath of fidelity to Sychaeus, Dido orders a large pyre to be erected and informs her people that she will join her husband. To their horror she "... took out the knife... placing it against her chaste breast, and calling out to Sychaeus... she threw herself headlong onto the knife" [ _FW_ 175].

Petrarch also supports the story of a chaste Dido in his _Trionfi_ where, although he does not provide the iconographical details necessary for a recognizable portrait of the heroine, he helps to ensure a widespread awareness of the alternative to Virgil's rendering of her story. In the _Trionfo della Pudicizia_ he twice, pointedly and emphatically, denies her involvement with Aeneas:

...and I see a bond between Juno and Dido/whose pure love for her husband led to her death/rather than the love of Aeneas, as people say...

...and then I saw, amongst the pilgrim women,/the one who wanted to put an end to her life/for her dear and faithful husband,/not for Aeneas (keep quite, ignorant people);/1 mean Dido, whose practice of honesty led to her death, rather than the futile love of which people speak. 108

There can be no doubt but that the version of Dido's story with which most Italians, schooled if not scholarly, were familiar was that of Virgil. Accordingly, other than in the context of the _Aeneid_ , Dido was rarely made the subject of artistic rendition in the Renaissance. Art historians have been largely blind to Boccaccio's "venerable and eternal model of unsullied widowhood" [ _FW_ 175] who, nonetheless, provided Renaissance artists and patrons with a vivid alternative to Virgil's heroine. The common assumption that all representations of Dido refer to the queen who was consumed as much by her immoderate passion as by the flames of her funeral pyre must be challenged to permit interpretations which accurately depict the intellectual environment in which these images were conceived.

Mantegna would not, in fact, have been unique in portraying the non-Virgilian Dido in Renaissance art. The initiation of the redeemed Dido into the visual arts may have been a marble relief that was never realized except in the imagination of a late Trecento poet. In a poem written by Antonio Loschi to Maddalena Scrovegni in 1389, he constructs a "Temple of Chastity" in which, being herself the personification of the virtue, Maddalena may reside. The temple is decorated with incised images of women and men who are celebrated for their chastity, and included among those heroines renowned for the suffering they endured in the interest of marital fidelity were Lucretia, Penelope, and... Dido.109

In the second quarter of the fifteenth century an extensive _uomini famosi/donne illustri_ cycle was painted by Masolino in the palace of Cardinal Giordano Orsini at Monte Giordano in Rome.110 Although the frescoes were apparently destroyed late in the Quattrocento, a few descriptions of this monumental series, which included over 250 figures, remain.111 Following the model of the medieval chronicle, the cycle was divided into six ages, identified with Adam, Noah, Abraham, David, Cambises, and the birth of Christ. A comparison of two contemporary descriptions and the two most complete sets of painted miniatures from this cycle show an essentially complete agreement as to the names and chronology of the figures represented. In all four contemporary documents, Dido is listed in the Fourth Age, in the company of, among others, David, Solomon and Sheba. Aeneas, along with Agamemnon, Hector, Ulysses, and many other heroes of the Trojan War, appear in the Third Age.

The inclusion of Dido in the Fourth Age of the Monte Giordano cycle is in agreement with the evaluation of Eusebius regarding the founding dates of Rome and Carthage. In his _Chronica_ , translated by Jerome and thereafter the standard authority in the Christian West, Eusebius suggest three possible dates for the founding of Carthage, which range from 142 to 331 years after his date for the founding of Rome in 1181 BCE.112 Petrarch supports this discrepancy in the lifetimes of Dido and Aeneas in his _Seniles_ :

Aeneas and Dido were not contemporaries, nor could they have seen each other since she was born 300 years or thereabouts after his death. All those who have any acquaintance with chronology or with Greek or Punic history know this, not only those who have read commentaries on Virgil, but those who have read the books of the _Saturnalia_. (Sen. IV.5)

In his extensive study of the Monte Giordano cycle, Robert Mode suggests that Dido's positioning next to Solomon and Sheba is intended as a foil, representing a woman whose "manly ambitions ruined her love and led to her tragic demise."113 This hypothesis is based on the assumption that Cardinal Orsini (a highly esteemed scholar in his own right) and those humanists who helped him create this carefully planned and researched program elected to misrepresent the temporal and narrative contexts of Aeneas's paramour in order to ironically display her next to the most revered Biblical kings. More parsimonious and better in keeping with the overall project design is the conclusion that the Dido represented here is the honorable queen who legitimately takes her place among other historical figures celebrated for their wise rule. Her segregation from all other figures associated with the Trojan conflict cements this.

An early Cinquecento engraving of Virgil's Dido by Marcantonio Raimondi (Figure 4.10) provides a good basis for comparison with Mantegna's roughly contemporaneous painting (Figure 4.11).114 Dido is captured just moments before she plunges a sword into her breast, and her countenance and gestures reflect the frenzied, destructive state of mind of the woman whose reaction to her beloved's abandonment bordered on insanity. In Virgil's words:

Her heart was broken and she found no relief in sleep. Her eyes and mind would not accept the night, but her torment redoubled and her raging love came again and again in great surging tides of anger... Her cheeks trembling and flecked with red, her bloodshot eyes rolling, she was pale with the pallor of approaching death. Rushing through the door into the inner courtyard, she climbed the high pyre in a frenzy and unsheathed the Trojan sword for which she had asked...115

In Marcantonio's engraving, Dido's face is contorted into a desperate grimace, which, in conjunction with her disheveled hair and awkwardly balanced stance, leaves the queen devoid of both beauty and regality. This image inspired a host of contemporary imitators, including sculptor Il Riccio, who produced a number of bronze plaques which modern scholars have, predictably, identified as depicting Virgil's abandoned lover.116 For at least two of these plaques, this assumption is clearly accurate; in prominently positioning Aeneas's shield in the foreground, the sculptor has introduced a clearly recognizable iconographic element. In these works Il Riccio transformed Marcantonio's prototype into a figure whose attributes combine to produce an effect of resigned vulnerability; Dido's pathetically rolling eyes stare upward from a lolling head and she holds a dagger limply in her right hand.

**Figure 4.10** **Marcantonio Raimondi, _Death of Dido_ , ca. 1510, engraving, 11.5 × 14.5 cm, Albertina Museum, Vienna.**

**Figure 4.11** **Andrea Mantegna, _Dido_ , ca. 1500, tempera on linen, 65.3 × 31.4 cm, John W. Tempest Fund, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal. (Photo: Montreal Museum of Fine Arts).**

The characterization in these two plaques differs markedly from the Dido represented on a third, which, although also derived from Marcantonio's original, reveals a very different perception of a queen who is about to take her own life (Figure 4.12).117 This figure radiates both physical and psychological strength. Every muscle is taut, every nerve alive as she resolutely faces the destiny of her choosing. A feature by feature comparison attests to the way in which the sculptor recast Virgil's Dido into the historical figure championed by the early humanists: her head is thrust forward on a firmly supporting neck; her shoulders also rotate forward in order that she may firmly grasp her dagger in her right hand while tensing her left in a palm downward position. Most striking of all is the look of determination on the beautiful face that is framed by an elegantly styled coiffure. Another significant alteration has been made: Aeneas's shield is nowhere to be seen.

**Figure 4.12** **Il Riccio, _Death of Dido_ , 16 × 16 cm, first quarter sixteenthcentury, bronze, current whereabouts unknown (author's photograph).**

An observation made in the catalogue of an exhibition featuring these medals makes mention of the inexplicably "profound difference of expression" between the Didos of Il Riccio's medals, and the poem attached to the back of the distinctly different Dido is dismissed as an "absurd moral inscription":

Here is the true result of chastity:/Since she didn't want King larbas for a husband,/The faithful Dido happily stabbed herself and/Turned her heart towards the shade of Sychaeus,/Leaving to the Carthaginians the Empire/Put together after an endless journey by sea./Women and you who value women/Mirror yourselves in this woman with such a distinguished sou1.118

These eight lines encapsulate Boccaccio's conception of a woman who valued her identity as a faithful wife more than she did earthly achievement. In this plaque, literary and visual didacticism unite to indisputably present the non-Virgilian Dido as a guide to moral behavior.

Mantegna's _Dido_ cannot be the woman who "was on fire with love and wandered all over the city in her misery and madness like a wounded deer" ( _Aen_. IV, 68–69). Rather, she is the heroine described in _Famous Women_ as "firm in her resolve... [who] suddenly adopted a plan that seemed compatible with her sense of virtue" [ _FW_ 175].119 The urn which she gently presses to her body contains the ashes of Sychaeus, bearing further witness to her identity and her intentions; by extension it also represents her own inviolate chastity. She faces her ordeal dry-eyed and clearheaded. This Dido does not hold her sword poised to do violence, but lightly balances it between two fingers; this is not a weapon used to "most quickly put an end to the life she hated" ( _Aen_. IV, 630–31), but rather a carefully chosen accomplice to the preservation of her virtue. The large funeral pyre is as yet unlit and no flickering flames threaten the complete control that Dido wields over the situation. She is portrayed here not as the victim of her destiny but as the master of it, calmly mustering both physical and psychological strength in preparation for the course which she has chosen to follow.120

The Dido who chose death over disloyalty was a heroine who embodied a central humanist precept: human dignity as defined by human choice. The impotence of Virgil's Dido in the face of an overriding destiny was antithetical to the view which a fifteenth-century intellectual held regarding man's role as God's most perfect creation. Far from being under puppetlike subjugation to the whims of the gods, Renaissance man had been endowed by his creator with unequivocal free will.121 Unlike the Dido of Virgil, who had subjugated her reason to passion and was thereafter unable to regain control over her thoughts and actions, Mantegna's painting is a celebration of the human will as seen through a paragon of humanity.

A silent testimonial to the true identity of Mantegna's _Dido_ is the companion piece which was painted to be displayed alongside her. The heroine here is Judith (Figure 4.13), hailed in the Old Testament as a savior of the Israelites, placing the severed head of Holofemes into a tasseled bag held open by her maidservant. Judith's demeanor is calm and reflective as she gently grasps the hair of the former general; she appears neither vindictive nor triumphant, but is portrayed as a woman who has done what she had to do. As in the _Dido_ , the tangible manifestations of violence are minimized, encouraging the viewer to contemplate the virtuous resolve of the heroine rather than the act of killing which this virtue necessitated. Judith is readily identifiable through traditional iconographic imagery; however, the circumstances surrounding her heroism, and particularly the personal virtues which were required for the fulfillment of her self-appointed task, are less familiar than her deadly deed itself.122 Introduced in the Book of Judith as a widow in sackcloth who for more than three years had been mourning the death of her husband, Judith decided to thwart Nebuchadnezzar's plan to destroy the Israelites. She journeyed to the enemy camp after praying, "0 God, 0 my God, hear me also a widow."123 Her widowed constancy is further emphasized when she asks God for power to change the course of political events, which she understands would generally be considered inappropriate for a woman to assume.124

**Figure 4.13** **Andrea Mantegna, _Judith_ , ca. 1500, Tempera on Linen, 65.3 × 31.4 cm, John W. Tempest Fund, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal. (Photo: Montreal Museum of Fine Arts).**

Even as Boccaccio follows the imperative of establishing a woman's chastity before he approves of actions which make her an active participant _in pubblico_ , the extreme devotion of Judith to her dead husband is overdetermined in the scripture bearing her name. When she returned to her people with her grisly prize, Judith proclaimed that her honor remained unblemished because even though "my countenance hath deceived him to his destruction... yet hath he not committed sin with me, to defile and shame me."125 She is praised by the high priest not only for being the savior of Jerusalem, but for her love of chastity, and although she lived to be 105 years old and had many suitors "none knew her all the days of her life, after that Manasses her husband was dead."126 That her refusal to remarry remained integral to the perception of her heroism in the Renaissance is suggested by Agostino Strozzi, who, in his _Defensio mulierum_ , classifies her under the title "In viduit onestissima," and devotes a paragraph to her widowed continence, noting that due to her "honest and faithful constancy and conjugal devotion, it is reasonable to believe that God granted her victory over Holofernes."127

An image of Virgil's Dido would be a startlingly incongruous choice as a pendant to Judith. The two women's lives offer no Plutarchian parallels; Judith's unwavering widowed constancy provided the foundation which enabled her to perform unconventional acts of bravery, while the rupture of Dido's oath to Sychaeus precipitated her downfall. The heroism of Boccaccio's Dido, however, was manifested in much the same manner as Judith's: both women acted resolutely for the sake of delivering their countrymen from danger rather than for personal aggrandizement; both remained firmly in control of both their actions and their emotions throughout the course of their respective ordeals; and both stories end with a reaffirmation of their widowed fidelity. Each heroine was prepared to sacrifice her life, but not her honor, to rescue her people from a threatening tyrant. And, in the end, it was a sword which delivered them both from the threat of violation—Judith turned it against Holofernes and Dido against herself. These deaths were the result of carefully deliberated planning in the face of an overwhelming challenge and were realized with an unflinching purposefulness by women whose strength of character overcame a natural aversion to the inherent horror of the solution.128

The woman who looked to Dido and Artemisia as paragons sought the example of women whose achievements in the sphere of public leadership were balanced by her profound devotion to marital fidelity.129 The stories of these queens propagate _the_ sociopolitical themes which underlay the choice of exemplars for the Ferrarese series painted a decade earlier; it would have been consistent with her desire to share in the ruling of Mantua that Isabella, like Eleonora, would choose as exemplars conjugally chaste heroines who were shown to put the interests of their state above their own lives. That which is known about the differences in character between mother and daughter supports the difference in selection between the Mantuan and the Ferrarese _donne illustri_. Eleonora, whose authority was promoted by her husband and who does not appear to have been dissatisfied with the extent of her involvement in governing Ferrara, chose _wives_ as exemplars. As a ruling wife, it was important to emphasize not only her devotion to good leadership, but also to her husband. As Isabella's ambitions to rule extended further than her husband would allow, any hopes for substantive political power would have lain in widowhood. Associating her image with that of Dido and Artemisia would suggest that Isabella was a woman who would not only maintain dynastic interests by observing the decorum and chastity which was expected of female rulers, but that her allegiance to her husband would extend naturally and to in the best interests of his people.

Dido and Artemisia would have been at home among the heroines in Castagno's Villa Carducci cycle; like Tomyris, they were widows who observed strict conjugal fidelity while functioning as shrewd and daring leaders. While, like Castagno's women, Mantegna's assume decorous, non-threatening stances, the significant difference is that there is no reason to suspect that Dido and Artemisia were intended to function in any way as role models for men.130 The pair do not form part of a larger cycle dominated by or even including men, nor are there _titu/i_ emphasizing their masculine accomplishments over their feminine. The primary significance of Mantegna's _Dido_ and _Artemisia_ lies in the fact that, for the first time in Renaissance Italy, a female ruler of antiquity was envisioned as a prototypical model for female behavior. This is an eventuality that Boccaccio, in his careful conceptualization and segregation of the domains of male and female virtue set down almost a century and a half earlier, could hardly have foreseen. Yet, when circumstances created a role whereby a small number of women would best serve the interests of their husbands not only through conventional sexual expectations but by filling their political shoes, _Famous Women_ , already well-known and admired, was available to serve as a guide.

________________

1 In repositioning themselves as true principalities, the Italian regimes took as their cultural role models the medieval Northern European monarchies where women had, for dynastic reasons, tended to play prominent roles. For the relative independence and influence of women born into ruling families see Merry E. Weisner, _Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe_ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 68–75; Margaret L. King, _Women of the Renaissance_ (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1991), 160–64; Bonnie S. Anderson and Judith P. Zinsser, _A History of Their Own: Women in Europe from Prehistory to the Present_ , vol. 2 (New York: Harper and Row, 1988), 26–61; and David Herlihy, "Did Women Have a Renaissance? A Reconsideration," _Medievalia et Humanistica_ , n.s. 13 (1985): 6–7.

2 For an overview of the princely courts of Quattrocento Italy see Sergio Bertelli, Franco Cardini, and Elvira Garbero Zorzi, _Le Corti italiane del Rinascimento_ (Milan: Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, 1985, reprinted as _The Courts of the Italian Renaissance_ , trans. Mary Fitton and Geoffrey Culverwell, New York: Facts on File Publications, 1986); Bram Kempers, _Painting, Power and Patronage_ , trans. Beverley Jackson (London: Penguin Books, 1993), 219–41; and Lauro Martines, _Power and Imagination_ (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988), 218–40.

3 For several documented examples see Cecil H. Clough, "Wives and Daughters of the Montefeltro: Outstanding Bluestockings of the Quattrocento," _Renaissance Studies_ 10, no. 1 (March, 1966): 39–44.

4 See Bruni, "On the Study of Literature (1405) to Lady Battista Malatesta of Montefeltro," in _The Humanism of Leonardo Bruni, Selected Texts_ , trans. and intro. Gordon Griffiths, James Hankins, and David Thompson (Binghamton: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1987), 240–51.

5 For Battista da Montefeltro see Gino Franceschini, 'Battista Montefeltro Malatesta, Signora di Pesaro', in his _Figure del rinascimento urbinate_ (Urbino: Stabilamento Tipografico, 1959), 159–93. It is believed that she herself undertook the education of Elisabetta, who ultimately became the wife of Piergentile of the ruling dynasty of Camerino. It is likely that Battista also ensured that her granddaughter, raised in Pesaro following her family's exile from Camerino, followed Bruni's curriculum for the well-educated humanist; Costanza Varano (1426–1447), the eldest of Elisabetta's daughters and future wife of Alessandro Sforza, used her Ciceronian education to deliver an oration in Latin to Bianca Maria Sforza. Even as her grandmother had pled on behalf of familial suzerainty, the subject of the sixteen-year old Costanza's address was the restoration of Camerino to the Varano family; see B. Feliciangeli, 'Notizie nulla vita e sugli scritti di Costanza Varano-Sforza, 1426–1447," in _Giornale storico della letteratura italiana_ , 23 (1894): 1–75.

6 Scholars arguing for a later date point to evidence within Battista's portrait that it was executed posthumously; for example, the inscription on the reverse of her portrait reads _tenuit_ , thereby referring to her in the past tense. These panels each measure 47 x 33 cm. For these portraits see Ronald Lightbown, _Piero della Francesca_ (New York: Abbeville Press, 1992), 230–1; and Martin Warnke, "Individuality as Argument: Piero della Francesca's Portrait of the Duke and Duchess of Urbino," in _The Image of the Individual; Portraits in the Renaissance_ , ed. Nicholas Mann and Luke Syson (London: British Museum Press, 1998), 81–90.

7 Lightbown, _Piero_ , 230–1.

8 Although the triumphal chariot motif was often encountered in Tuscan art in association with historical heroes and in allusion to Petrarch's _Trionfi_ , it was not, because of its association with imperial ambition, adapted for use in the visual representation of republican contemporaries. This imagery was frequently employed in court pageantry, however, sharing the literary conception of the triumph as a model for the allegorical portrayal of virtue.

9 _Que modum rebus tenuit secundis coniugis magni decorata rerum laude gestarum volitat per ora cuncta virorum;_ trans. Warnke, "Individuality," 87. The inscription beneath Federigo's chariot complements his accompanying virtues of Justice, Prudence, Temperance and Fortitude: "It is said of Federico that he is famed and travels in a splendid triumphal chariot; he, who wields the scepter in such a proper way, is celebrated by the lasting renown of his deeds, which make him equal to the greatest princes" _(clarus insigni vehitur triumpho quem parem summis ducibus perhennis fama virtutum celebrat decenter sceptra tenentem);_ trans. Warnke, 87.

10 For Eleonora's dowry and particulars of the marriage celebrations see Luigi Olivi, "Delle nozze di Ercole I con Eleonora d'Aragona," _Memorie della R. Accademia di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti di Modena_ ser. 2, 5 (Modena, 1887), 34 ff

11 See George Francis Hill, _A Corpus of Italian Medals of the Renaissance before Cellini_ (London: British Museum, 1930), 93. Cecil H. Clough, _The Duchy of Urbino in the Renaissance_ (London: Varorium Reprints, 1981), 4–5 notes that this medal, designed to celebrate the union of two ruling houses, implies an intriguing association of the reigning couple with Roman emperors and their wives, who were similarly portrayed on classical coins.

12 For Eleonora see Luciano Chiappini, _Eleonora d'Aragona, prima Duchessa di Ferrara_ (Rovigo: S.T.E.R., 1956); see also Werner L. Gundersheimer, "Women, Learning, and Power: Eleonora of Aragon and the Court of Ferrara," in _Beyond their Sex: Learned Women of the European Past_ , ed. Patricia H. Labalme (New York: New York University Press, 1980), 43–65.

13 Elena Corradini, "Medallic Portraits of the Este: _effigies ad vivum expressae,"_ in _The Image of the Individual_ , ed. Nicholas Mann and Luke Syson (London: British Museum Press, 1998), 30.

14 _De regis et boni principis officio_ , which remained in her library (MS Est. lat. 679; Alpha T9, 16), was translated into Latin as a wedding gift by Baptista Guarino. Perhaps Carafa's awareness that Eleonora did not read Latin led him to compose the original in the vernacular. See Bruce L. Edelstein, "Nobildonne napoletane e committenza," _Quaderni storici_ 104, no. 2 (August, 2000): 300–302; Gundersheimer, "Women, Learning, and Power," 44, n. 5.; and the entry on Caraffa by F. Petrucci in _Dizionario biografico degli Italiani_ , 19 (Rome: Instituto della Enciclopedia italiana, 1976), 524–30.

15 See Stephen John Campbell, _Cosme Tura of Ferrara: Style, Politics and the Renaissance City, 1450–1495_ (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997): 24–26; Annalisa Musso, _"Del modo di regere e di regnare_ di Antonio Cornazzano: Per it testo e la datazione," _Bollettino storico piacentino_ 92 (1997): 73–87; D. Zancani, _Antonio Cornazzano: la tradizione testuale_ (Firenze: L.S. Olschki, 1992), 16 and 123–30; and Joseph Manca, "A Note on Cosine Tura as Portraitist," _Antichita viva_ 30 (1991): 17–20.

16 See Gundersheimer, "Women, Learning, and Power," 52.

17 For details see Marco Cattini and Marzio A. Romani, "Le corti parallele: per una tipologia delle corti padane dal XIII al XVI secolo," in _Le corte e lo spazio: Ferrara estense_ , ed. Giuseppe Papagno and Amedeo Quondam (Rome: Bulzoni, 1982), 47–78.

18 See Edmund G. Gardner, _Dukes and Poets in Ferrara_ (New York: Haskell House, 1968), 165–211 for the War of Ferrara and the role Eleonora assumed in saving the Duchy.

19 Benson, _Renaissance Woman_ , 33–64.

20 For Goggio and _De laudibus mulierum_ see Benson, _Renaissance Woman_ , 45–64; see also Werner L. Gundersheimer, "Bartolommeo Goggio: A Feminist in Renaissance Ferrara," _Renaissance Quarterly_ 33 (Summer, 1980): 175–200; and Conor Fahy, "Three Early Renaissance Treatises on Women," _Italian Studies 11_ (1956): 32–36.

21 _De laudibus mulierum_ is listed in an inventory of the duchess's library; see Giulio Bertoni, _La Biblioteca Estense e la coltura ferrarese ai tempi del duca Ercole primo, 1471– 1505_ (Turin: E. Loescher, 1903), 232. The only known extant copy of _De laudibus mulierum_ is now in the British Library, Additional MS 17,415; Werner Gundersheimer, _Goggio_ , 179, believes this manuscript to be the presentation copy and possibly the only copy ever made.

22 This treatise, _De nobilitate humani animi opus_ , is also listed in Bertoni, _La Biblioteca Estense_ , 163–64.

23 Gundersheimer, _Goggio_ , 180.

24 Benson, _Renaissance Woman_ , 62.

25 Ibid., 63.

26 An Italian version is now in La Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Florence, Cod. Pal. 726; a Latin version is in La Biblioteca Nazionale, Milan, Cod. A,D,IX,27. A second Italian version (upon which the Latin appears to have been based) is known only from a printed edition published by Francesco Zambrini as _La defensione delle donne d'autore anonimo: scrittura inedita del sec. xv_ , Scelta delle curiosity letterarie 148 (Bologna: 1876). Fahy, "Three Treatises," 43–44, argues that the original manuscript was written in Latin.

27 Folio 23v.

28 Strozzi, ed. Zambrini, 33–40.

29 Benson, _Renaissance Woman_ , 52–53.

30 Strozzi, ed. Zambrini, 38.

31 Fahy, "Three Treatises," 36–40, suggests that the treatise, which now exists in only two identified manuscripts, was written ca.1500 while Equicola was temporarily in residence at the Gonzaga court in Mantua. The manuscripts are now located in the Nazionale in Naples and the Biblioteca Angelica in Rome. For references on Equicola, see Ronald Lightbown's _Mantegna_ (Oxford: Phaidon, 1986), 264, n. 35 and 36.

32 The other two contemporary women included in _De mulieribus_ are the dedicatee, Margherita Cantelma, and one of her relatives, Cornelia Cantelma. Equicola actually transferred the dedication of another of his treatises, the _Libro di natura d'amore_ (ca. 1485), from Sigismondo Cantelma to Isabella d'Este when he came to be permanently in her employ; see Lightbown, _Mantegna_ , 192.

33 See Kolsky, "Marriage," 230.

34 The _De triumphis religionis_ , for example, was a treatise on the ten religious virtues, all of which were embodied by Ercole I d'Este.

35 The title of Sabadino's work is a pun on Gynevra's name and the word _gynevera_ , meaning juniper'.

36 The copy which may have been presented to Gynevra is in the Archivo di Stato in Bologna (Codici Miniati n. 46); a copy which may have been owned by her daughter Violante is in the Biblioteca Palatina in Parma (MS Parmense 1295). For the occasion on which these manuscripts were presented to their recipients see S. Bernard Chandler, "La De civica salute di Sabadino degli Arienti," _Bibliofilia_ 69 (1987): 143–45. A third manuscript, known to have been sent to Isabella d'Este, is lost. For her reply to Sabadino see Alessandro Luzio and Rodolfo Renier, "La coltura e le relazioni letterarie di Isabella d'Este Gonzaga, 5. Gruppo emiliano," _Giornale storico della letteratura italiana_ 38 (1901): 51. The _Gynevera_ was not published until 1888; see Sabadino degli Arienti, _Gynevera de la clare donne di Joanne Sabadino de li Arienti_ , ed. Corrado Ricci and Alberto Bacchi della Lega, Scelta di curiosity letterarie 223 (Bologna: Romagnoli, 1888). See also Carolyn James, _Giovanni Sabadino degli Arienti: A Literary Career_ (Florence: Olschki, 1996), 73–85; Stephen Kolsky, "Men framing women: Sabadino degli Arienti's _Gynevera de le clare donne_ reexamined," in _Visions and Revisions: Women in Italian Culture_ , ed. Mirna Cicioni and Nicole Prunster (Providence and Oxford: BERG, 1993); Benson, _Renaissance Woman_ , 40–44; and Simon Bernard Chandler, "La _Gynevera de le clare donne_ di Sabadino degli Arienti," _Giornale storico della letterature italiana_ 158 (1981): 222–34.

37 Sabadino anticipates a sixteenth-century solution, forwarded, among others, by Tasso, of asserting a formal distinction between the virtues and capacities of 'normal' women and those of the ruling elite.

38 For several paragraph by paragraph examples of Sabadino's direct borrowings from Boccaccio, see Vittorio Zaccaria, "La fortuna del _De mulieribus claris_ del Boccaccio nel secolo XV: Giovanni Sabadino degli Arienti, Iacopo Filippo Foresti e le loro biografie femminili (1490–1497)," in _ll Boccaccio nelle culture letterature nazionali_ , ed. Francesco Mazzoni (Florence: L.S. Olschki, 1978), 533–34.

39 Sabadino, _Gynevera_ , 199.

40 Ibid., 260–61.

41 Kolsky, "Marriage," 235.

42 _Fu clemente, devota et caritevole; sempre cum grandissima modestia, temperantia et pudicitia se mantenne ne la gratia del magnifico marito_. Sabadino, _Gynevera_ , 166.

43 In fact, Boccaccio's influence over Foresti was also accomplished secondhand, as the Augustinian turned to Sabadino degli Arienti's _Gynevera_ for information regarding contemporary women to augment his section on heroines of antiquity. Vittorio Zaccaria suggests that Foresti may have seen a copy of Sabadino's manuscript while visiting Ferrara and taken the opportunity to augment his own work by appropriating eighteen of Sabadino's modern paragons; see Zaccaria, "La Fortuna," 535–45. Zaccaria also provides paragraph by paragraph examples of Foresti's direct borrowings from Boccaccio (522–32) and a bibliography of references to Foresti's work (519–20, n. 2). For Foresti as plagiarist see also Laura Torretta, "II _Liber de claris mulieribus_ di Giovanni Boccaccio, Parte IV: I plagiari, gli imitators, I continuatori del _Liber de claris mulieribus," Giornale storico della letteratura Italiana_ 40 (1902): 50–65.

44 The only known copy of _De mulieribus admirandis_ is in the Biblioteca Estense in Modena (Cod. Ital., J,6.21); see Conor Fahy, "The _De mulieribus admirandis_ of Antonio Cornazzano," _Bibliofilia_ 62 (1960): 144–67. Comazzano also wrote a collection of biographies of famous men, _De excellentium virorum principibus_ , dedicated to Borso d'Este.

45 Fahy, "Three Treatises," 47–54, has compiled a list of forty-one "treatises on the equality or superiority of women written or published in Italy during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries"; with the exception of Goggio, Equicola, and Strozzi, they were all written after 1525.

46 Baldasar Castiglione, _The Book of the Courtier_ , trans. George Anthony Bull (London: Penguin, 1976), 32.

47 See Peter Burke, _The Fortunes of the 'Courtier'_ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 48–9.

48 See Harry Berger, Jr., _The Absence of Grace_ (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000), 63–115; Knox, "Civility, courtesy and women," 2–17; Kolsky, "Marriage," 237–41; Benson, _Renaissance Woman_ , 73–90; Dain A. Trafton, "Politics and the Praise of Women: Political Doctrine in the Courtier's Third Book," in _Castiglione. The Ideal and the Real in Renaissance Culture_ , ed. Robert W. Hanning and David Rosand (New Haven: Yale _University_ Press, 1983), 29–44; Giuseppa Saccaro Battisti, "La donna, le donne nel Cortegiano," in _La corte e it Cortegiano_ , vol. 1: _La scena del testo_ , ed. Carlo Ossola (Rome: Bulzoni, 1980), 219–50; Adriano Chemello, "Donna di palazzo, moglie, cortigiana: ruoli e funzioni sociali della donna in alcuni trattati del Cinquecento," vol. 2: _Un modello Europeo_ , ed. Carlo Ossola (Rome: Bulzoni, 1980), 113–32; and Marina Zancan, "La donna nel Cortegiano di B. Castiglione. Le funzioni del femminile nell'immagine di corte," in _Nel cerchio della luna. Figure di donna in alcuni testi del XVI secolo_ , ed. Marina Zancan (Venice: Marsilio, 1983), 13–56.

49 Castiglione, _Courtier_ , 211–12.

50 Ibid., 216.

51 Ibid., 218–19 and 225.

52 For this series see Franklin, "A Woman's Place," 189–205; the catalogue entry by Luke Syson in _Ercole de 'Roberti. The Renaissance in Ferrara_ , exhibition catalogue, J. Paul Getty Museum, 27 April-11 July 1999 (London: Burlington Magazine Publications, 1999): 32–5; also published as a supplement to _The Burlington Magazine_ , 141 (April, 1999): xxxii–xxxv; Ruth Wilkins Sullivan, "Three Ferrarese Panels on the Theme of 'Death rather than Dishonour' and the Neapolitan Connection," _Zeitschrift fur Kunstgeschichte_ 57 (1994): 601–25; Joseph Manca, _The Art of Ercole de' Roberti_ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992): 133–9; and _"Costantia et Forteza:_ Eleonora d'Aragona's Famous Matrons," _Source: Notes in the History of Art_ 19 (Winter, 2000): 13–20. Manca includes these three paintings in his 'Catalogue of Accepted Works' in _The Art of Ercole de' Roberti_ and provides a provenance and bibliography for each. He also reproduces several documents pertaining to Ercole de' Roberti's work for Eleonora; see 192–236 (esp. docs. 7, 18, 28, 42, 44, 47, 49, 50, 51, and 60). Manca provides support for the assertion that this famous women series was executed for display by the Este family by citing a 1624 inventory in which one panel is documented as being in the collection of Cardinal Alessandro d'Este; see 135. Manca attributes the design of the Lucretia panel to Ercole, but the execution to an unknown artist; Syson and Sullivan believe it to be autograph. For earlier attributions see Manca, 1323–26.

53 See Syson, xxxiii. The _Portia_ measures 48.7 x 34.3 cm; the _Lucretia_ , 48.7 x 35.5 cm; and the _Wife of Hasdrubal_ , 47.1 x 30.6 cm.

54 For the Florentine manuscript see Adriano Cappelli, "La biblioteca estense nella prima meta del secolo XV," _Giornale storico della letterature Italiana_ , 14 (1889): 1–23; for the Bodleian (MS Canon. Ital. 86) see Pacht and Alexander, no. 380; and Pacht, _Italian Illuminated Manuscripts_ , Bodleian Library Exhibition Catalogue (Oxford, 1948), no. 36.

55 See Cappelli, "La biblioteca estense," 1–23.

56 Manca, " _Costantia et Forteza_ ," 13–20.

57 Sabadino degli Arienti's _Gynevera de le clare donne_ , written for Gynevera Sforza di Bentivoglio of Bologna, mentions Portia only in connection with the sorrow of the consort of Count Brunoro da Gambara, who similarly lost the will to live after the death of her husband. Agostino Strozzi gave Portia but a single sentence entry among women who showed "admirable signs of love for their husbands," and relates only the details of the unique manner she used to end her life. Jacopo da Foresti's account of 1497 was published in Ferrara several years after this painting was executed, and, as with most of the biographies he plagiarized from Boccaccio, closely follows the original.

58 See Bishop Giovio's 1559 compilation of _imprese_ in _Dialogo dell'imprese militari et amorose di Monsignor Giovio, Vescovo di Nocera_ , trans. S. Daniel (Delmar, NY: Scholars' Facsimiles and Reprints, 1976), 30–31.

59 Valerius Maximus relates the story of Portia's wound under the heading "Of Bravery" (III.2) and her suicide under "Of Conjugal Love" (IV.6). Sullivan dismisses Boccaccio as a source because one of the women, the Wife of Hasdrubal, does not appear in _Famous Women_. There is no compelling reason, however, to assume that those responsible for choosing the individuals for inclusion in a cycle of exemplars would have restricted themselves to a single source.

60 Plutarch, _Lives_ , 1193.

61 Livy, 98–101. For Livy and Lucretia see David Kostan, "Narrative and Ideology in Livy: Book I," _Classical Antiquity_ 5 (1986): 198–215; and S. N. Philippides, "Narrative Strategies and Ideology in Livy's 'Rape of Lucretia'," _Helios 10_ (1983): 113–19.

62 Valerius Maximus _, Religion, Laws, Customs_ , 3.

63 See Jerzy Miziolek, "The Story of Lucretia on an Early Renaissance _Cassone_ at the National Museum in Warsaw," _Bulletin du Musee National de Varsovie_ 35 (1994): 31–52; and _Soggetti classici sui cassoni fiorentini alla vigilia del Rinascimento_ (Warsaw: Instytut Sztuki Polkeij Akademii Nauk, 1996).

64 See also Stephanie H. Jed, _Chaste Thinking: The Rape of Lucretia and the Birth of Humanism_ (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989); and "Salutati's Declamatio Lucretiae: The Rape of Lucretia and the Birth of Humanism," _Genre_ 20 (1987): 209–26.

65 See Miziolek's extensive bibliographies.

66 See, for example, Barriault, _Spalliera Paintings_ , 124–28 and 154; and Ronald Lightbown, _Sandro Botticelli: Life and Works_ , vol. 2 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1978), 101–106.

67 In her analyses of _cassone_ and _spalliera_ representations of Lucretia, Cristelle Baskins, _Cassone Painting_ , 128–59, discusses the depiction of Lucretia's body first as erotic object in the rape scene and then as spectacle when laid out for public display. See also Baskins, "Corporeal Authority in the Speaking Picture: The Representation of Lucretia in Tuscan Domestic Painting," in Richard C. Trexler, ed., _Gender Rhetorics: Postures of Dominance and Submission in History_ (Binghamton, NY: MRTS, 1994), 187–206.

68 Once again the theme "death rather than dishonor" is called into question; while it may be a component of the virtue for which these women are remembered, in point of fact, iconographical innovations were introduced in this cycle to minimize the emphasis on death, of which Lucretia's dead body and Portia's ingestion of coals would have been more eloquent reminders.

69 See Manca, _Ercole_ , 135–36.

70 Valerius Maximus, _Religion, Laws, Customs_ , 269.

71 Ibid.

72 Having achieved preeminence in the oligarchic commune of late medieval Mantua, the Gonzaga family's rise to seignioral rule ultimately resulted in Mantua's being made a marquisate in 1433. For the Gonzaga family through the fifteenth century see David S. Chambers, _A Renaissance Cardinal and His Worldly Goods: the Will and Inventory of Francesco Gonzaga (1444–83)_ (London: The Warburg Institute, 1992); Jane Martineau and David Chambers, _Splendours of the Gonzaga_ (New York: Faber & Faber, 1984); and Giuseppe Coniglio, _I Gonzaga_ (Milan: Dall'Oglio, 1967).

73 For a view of Isabella as a would-be prince frustrated by the limitations of her sex, see Stephen Kolsky, "Images of Isabella d'Este," _Italian Studies_ 39 (1984): 47–62. For Isabella's life and character see also Maria Antonietta Stecchi de Bellis, _Il Sogno di Isabella: Un itinerario della memoria tra le donne del Rinascimento_ (Fasano: Schena Editore, 1991); George Richard Marek, _The Bed and the Throne: The Life of Isabella d'Este_ (New York: Harper and Row, 1976); Alessandro Luzio, _Isabella d'Este e I Borgia_ (Milan: Cogliati, 1915); Julia Cartwright, _Isabella d'Este, Marchioness of Mantua_ , 2 vols. (New York: E.P. Dutton and Company, 1923); and Jan Lauts, _Isabella d'Este, Furstin der Renaissance_ (Hamburg: M. von Schr6der, 1952). For Isabella's relationships with literary advisors see Alessandro Luzio and Rodolfo Renier, "La coltura e le relazioni letterarie di Isabella d'Este Gonzaga, Appendice Prima," _Giornale storico della letteratura Italiana_ 42 (1903): 75–111.

74 Egon Verheyen, _The Paintings in the Studiolo of Isabella d'Este at Mantua_ (New York: New York University Press for the College Art Association of America, 1971), 64.

75 For Eleonora's library, see Bertoni, _La Biblioteca Estense_ , 229–33. For Isabella as patron and collector see Mauda Bregoli-Russo, _Teatro dei Gonzaga al Tempo di Isabella d'Este_ , Studies in Italian Culture: Literature in History 21 (New York: Peter Lang, 1997); _La Corte di Mantova nell'eta di Andrea Mantegna, 1450–1550_ , ed. C. Mozzarelli, R. Oresko, L. Ventura (Rome: Bulzoni, 1992); Egon Verheyen, _Studiolo of Isabella d'Este;_ Ronald Lightbown, _Mantegna_ , 186–209; C. M. Brown, " insaciabile desiderio nostro de cose antique': New Documents on Isabella d'Este's Collections of Antiquities," in _Cultural Aspects of the Italian Renaissance_ , ed. by Cecil H. Clough (NewYork: A.F. Zambelli, 1976), 324–53. David Wilkins, "Woman as Artist and Patron in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance," in _The Roles and Images of Women in the Middle Ages and Renaissance_. ed. by Douglas Radcliff-Umstead (Pittsburgh: University Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 1975), 108–30.

76 Kolsky, _Images_ , 51.

77 On Renaissance _studioli_ see Luciano Cheles, _The Studiolo of Urbino: An Iconographic Investigation_ (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1986); and C. Elam, _"Studioli_ and Renaissance Court Patronage," MA thesis, London University, 1970.

78 See lain Fenlon, "The Gonzaga and Music," in Martineau and Chambers, _Splendours of the Gonzaga_ , 87–94. Cartwright, _Isabella_ , vol. 2, 136–38, relates the wonder expressed by Venetian envoys who received a guided tour through Isabella's _studiolo_ and _grotta_.

79 While previously considered to be the product of Mantegna's workshop, these pieces are now widely accepted as autograph; for a review of their attribution history see Lightbown, _Mantegna_ , 450–51.

80 For Mantegna's technique in creating these _bronzi finti_ see Keith Christiansen, "Grisailles," in _Andrea Mantegna_ , ed. Jane Martineau (London: Royal Academy 1992), 411.

81 See Alessandro Luzio, "Isabella D'Este e it Sacco di Roma," _Archivio storico lombardo_ , ser. 4, 10 (1908): 84–86, 316–18. Lightbown, _Mantegna_ , 450, provides further evidence suggesting a Mantuan provenance for these works; Sylvia Ferino-Pagden, ed., _"La Prima Donna del Mondo": Isabella de'Este Fiirsten and Mazenatin der Renaissance_ (Vienna: Kunsthistorisches Museum, 1994), 246, supports the suggestion that Isabella herself was the patron for Mantegna's _donne illustri_.

82 Alessandro Luzio, "L'inventorio della grotta d'Isabella d'Este," _Archivio storico lombardo_ , ser. 4, 10 (1908): 423.

83 In addition to _bronzi finti_ , the monochromatic works include simulated marble reliefs such as _The Introduction of the Cult of Cybele_ in Rome, commissioned through Francesco Gonzaga for Cardinal Marco Cornaro in 1505. This is the only monochromatic work known to have left the Gonzaga residences.

84 Christiansen, "Grisailles," 411.

85 Benson, _Renaissance Woman_ , 41.

86 Foresti's _De claris selectisque mulieribus_ is listed in an inventory taken after her death in 1539; see Luzio and Renier, 80. For Isabella in Equicola's _De mulieribus_ of 1501 see Stephen Kolsky, _Mario Equicola: The Real Courtier_ (Geneva: Librairie Droz, 1991), 74.

87 Petrarch writes in the _Trionfo della pudicizia: "Fra l'altre la vestal vergine pia/ the baldanzosamente corse al Tibro/ e per purgarsi d'ogni fama ria/ pone ,del flume al tempio acqua col cribro_. See Francesco Petrarch, _Trionfi_ , intro. Guido Bezzolo (Milan: Rizzoli, 1984), 148–51.

88 as _The Vestal Virgin Tuccia with a Sieve_ is in the National Gallery, London (NG 1125.1). It is tempera on poplar and measures 72.5 x 23 cm, though it has apparently been cut down at the sides and top. See _The National Gallery Complete Illustrated Catalogue_ , compiled by Christopher Baker and Tom Henry (London, National Gallery Publications, 1995), 407 (NG 1125.1); and Lightbown, _Mantegna_ , 450.

89 Christiansen, "Grisailles," 399, and Lightbown, _Mantegna_ , 450, both refer to the painting as _Sophonisba_. See also _The National Gallery Catalogue_ , 407 (NG 1125.2). This painting originally measured 72.5 x 23 cm; however, due to the concealment of repainted areas, it now appears smaller (71.2 x 19.8 cm).

90 Petrarch was interested in Sophonisba, however; see "Petrarch's Sophonisba: Seduction, Sacrifice, and Patriarchal Politics," in _Sex and Gender in Medieval and Renaissance Texts. The Latin Tradition_ , ed. Barbara K. Gold, Paul Allen Miller, and Charles Platter (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997), 111–38.

91 In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries a number of heroines who were not celebrated in the Renaissance came to enjoy a level of approval not previously experienced. The name Sofonisba, for example, was not unknown among sixteenth-century women (e.g. the Cremonese artist Sofonisba Anguissola, born ca.1535).

92 Boccaccio's rendering of Artemisia's life is a much-elaborated version of the basic details provided by Valerius Maximus (IV.6); many Quattrocento encomiasts (Goggio, Strozzi, Foresti, and Sabadino degli Arienti) also include Artemisia in their treatises.

93 For the following argument see also Margaret Franklin, "Mantegna's Dido: Faithful Widow or Abandoned Lover?" _Artibus et Historiae_ 21 (2000): 111–22.

94 For an excellent study of the reception and revision of Dido's story from ancient through medieval texts see Marilynn Desmond, _Reading Dido: Gender, Textuality, and the Medieval Aeneid_ , Medieval Cultures Series, vol. 8 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994). For an introduction to the critical history of the Aeneid see, for example, Robert Deryck Williams and T. S. Pattie, _Virgil: His Poetry through the Ages_ (London: British Library, 1982); and Gilbert Highet, _The Classical Tradition: Greek and Roman Influences on Western Literature_ (New York: Oxford University Press, 1949).

95 Quotes from the _Aeneid_ are taken from the translation by David West (London: Penguin Books, 1990).

96 Ovid, _Heroides_ , trans. and intro. Harold Isbell (London: Penguin Group, 1990). Ovid also includes Virgil's Dido in two other works. In the _Artis Amatoriae_ she is among those women who were deserted because they lacked skill in lovemaking; see Ovid, _The Art of Love and Other Poems_ , trans. John Henry Mozley, ed. G. P. Goold (Cambridge, MA: Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, 1985), 39–42. In the _Metamorphoses_ she is a brief interlude on Aeneas's path to glory: "The wind bore them back to the coast of Libya. There Sidonian Dido received Aeneas into her home, and took him to her heart. But she was not destined to bear the parting well, when her Phrygian husband left her. On the pretext of making sacrifice, she built a pyre, and there fell on a sword, deceiving all in her intention, as she had been herself deceived" (XIV, 77–81). See Ovid, _Metamorphoses_ , trans. Mary M.Innes (London: Viking Press, 1955), 313.

97 See Glenda McLeod, _Virtue and Venom: Catalogs of Women from Antiquity to the Renaissance_ (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1991), 11–57.

98 Augustine, _Confessions_ , 13.20–21.

99 For an overview of the characterization of twelfth-century perceptions of Dido see Peter Dronke, "Intellectuals and Poets in Medieval Europe," in _Storia e Letteratura_ 183 (Rome, 1992), 431–56. An interesting example of the extent to which Dido diverged from Virgil's characterization is her portrayal in the _Roman d'Eneas_ , an anonymous, widely-circulated twelfth-century romance in which Dido's passion is diagnosed as an illness-lovesickness—and is presented less as a metaphorical description of her mental state than as a medical condition. On the relationship between the _Aeneid_ and the _Eneas_ see Jerome Singerman, _Under Clouds of Poesy: Poetry and Truth in French and English Reworkings of the "Aeneid," 1160–1513_ (New York: Garland Publishing, 1986), 26–98.

100 See Desmond, _Reading Dido_ , 74–98; also Alain Michel, "Didon du Moyen-Age a la Renaissance: Le lamento et l'allegorie," in _Enée et Didon: Naissance, fonctionnement et survie d'un mythe_ , ed. Rene Martin (Paris: Editions du Centre national de la recherché scientifique, 1990), 71–77; Craig Kallendorf, _In Praise of Aeneas: Virgil and Epideictic Rhetoric in the Early Italian Renaissance_ (Hanover, New Hampshire: University Press of New England, 1989); and Julian W. Jones, Jr., "The Allegorical Traditions of the _Aeneid,"_ in John D. Bernard, _Vergil at 2000_ (New York: AMS, 1986).

101 See Leslie George Whitbread, _Fulgentius the Mythographer_ (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1971), 127. See also Desmond, _Reading Dido_ , 80–86; Don Cameron Allen, _Mysteriously Meant: The Rediscovery of Pagan Symbolism and Allegorical Interpretation in the Renaissance_ (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1970), 137–39; H. C. Coffin, "Allegorical Interpretation of Vergil with Special Reference to Fulgentius," _Classical Weekly_ 15 (1921): 33–35; and Domenico Pietro Antonio Comparetti, _Virgilio nel medio evo_ (Florence, 1896), 107–16.

102 See _The Commentary on the First Six Books of the "Aeneid" Commonly Attributed to Bernardus Silvestris_ , ed. Julian Ward and Elizabeth Frances Jones (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1977); see also Desmond, _Reading Dido_ , 80–94; Giorgio Padoan "Tradizione e fortuna del commento all 'Eneide' di Bernardo Silvestre," _Italia medioevale e umanistica_ 3 (1960): 234–6; and J. Reginald O'Donnell, "The Sources and Meaning of Bernard Silvester's Commentary on the Aeneid," _Mediaeval Studies_ 24 (1962): 233–49.

103 See Coluccio Salutati, _Epistolario_ 1.103–6 and _De laboribus Herculis_ , 1.86. For Landino see _Disputationes Camaldulenses_ , ed. Peter Lohe (Florence: Sansoni, 1980); also Kallendorf, _In Praise of Aeneas_ , 129–65; and Allen, _Mysteriously Meant_ , 142–54.

104 Maffeo Vegio's analysis of Dido was written in a treatise entitled _De educatione liberorum et eorum claris moribus_ , ed. Maria W. Fanning and Anne S. Sullivan (Washington: The Catholic University of America, 1933–6), 87–88; see translation by Kallendorf, _In Praise of Aeneas_ , 102–103. For Maffeo and the _Aeneid_ see Craig Kallendorf, "Maffeo Vegio's Book XIII and the _Aeneid_ of Early Italian Humanism," in _Altro Polo: The Classical Continuum in Italian Thought and Letters_ , ed. Anne Reynolds (Sydney: University of Sydney Press, 1984), 47–56; also Anna Cox Brinton, _Maphaeus Vegius and His Thirteenth Book of the "Aeneid": A Chapter on Vergil in the Renaissance_ (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1930).

105 Boccaccio refers to Aeneas's long-suffering lover in many of his vernacular writings (e.g. _L'Ameto, Amorosa visione, II Filocolo, L'Elegia di Madonna Fiammetta_ , and in the _Rime)_. He presents both versions of Dido's story in Book Two of the _Geneologia deorum gentilium_ (722–23). Here he defends the liberties Virgil took with Dido's reputation as the prerogative of poets to conceal deeper truths within the "poetic veil." For Boccaccio and Dido see Anna Cerbo, "Didone in Boccaccio," _Annali dell'Istituto Universitario Orientale di Napoli, Sezione Romanza_ 21 (1979): 177–219. On the non-Virgilian position which Boccaccio presents in his Latin writings see also Craig Kallendorf, "Boccaccio's Dido and the Rhetorical Criticism of Virgil's _Aeneid," Studies in Philology_ 82, no. 4 (1985): 401–15. Boccaccio's interest in reevaluating Dido may have been fueled by his correspondence with Petrarch who, in a letter to Federigo Aretino, expressed bewilderment by Virgil's decision to cast aspersions on the memory of a woman whom "honor led to death": "Why... should he choose this one woman, worthy of eternal praise, who he knew had laid down her life to preserve her chastity and widowhood? Yet he made her out to be obedient to lustful love" (Sen.IV.5). In spite of his strong disapproval of Virgil's rewriting of Dido's biography, he proceeds to gives an allegorical interpretation of _Aeneid_ IV, saying "I deem a moral consideration of his work very useful..." (Sen.IV.5). See Francesco Petrarch, _Letters of Old Age (Rerum senilium)_ , trans. Aldo S. Bernardo, Saul Levin, and Reta A. Bernardo, vol. 1 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992). See also Desmond, _Reading Dido_ , esp. 58–73.

106 Justin, _Historiarum philippicarum et totius mundi originum_ , ed. Jacobi Bongarsii, 8 vols. (London, 1721); see also the translation by T. Brown, _History of the World_ , 12 vols., (London, 1712). Merle M. Odgers, "Some Appearances of the Dido Story," _Classical Weekly_ 18 (1925): 145–48, suggests that Trogus's account either antedates or is contemporaneous with the _Aeneid_. Other antique writers who supported Justin's account included St. Jerome, who, writing in the early fifth century, praised Dido for her chaste widowhood _(Adversus Jovinianum_ , Book 1). Macrobius (ca. 400 CE) was another champion of the historical Dido: "Indeed, the beauty of Virgil's narrative has so far prevailed that, although all are aware of the chastity of the Phoenician queen and know that she laid hands on herself to save her good name, still they... suppress in their minds the evidence of the truth, and choose rather to regard as true that tale which the charm of a poet's imagination has implanted in the hearts of mankind" _(Saturnalia_ , 17.5,6). See Macrobius, _Saturnalia_ , trans. Percival Vaughan Davies (New York, 1969), 359. For a survey of the non-Virgilian Dido see Desmond, _Reading Dido_ , 23–73; and Mary Louise Lord, "Dido as an example of chastity: The Influence of Example Literature," _Harvard Library Bulletin_ 17 (1969): 22–24 and 216–39.

107 Boccaccio refers to Sychaeus as Acerbas, noting that he is also called Sychaeus and Sicarbas.

108... e veggio ad un lacciuol Giunone e Dido,/ch'amor pio del suo sposo a morte spinse,/non quell d'Enea com'è 'l publico grido... (10–12);... poi vidi, fra le donne pellegrine,/quella the per lo suo diletto e fido/spose, non per Enea, voles ire al fine/(taccia '1 vulgo ignorante); io dico Dido,/ cui studio d'onestate a morte spinse,/non vano amor com'è 'I publico grido (154–159). Petrarch also puts this story on the lips of a bard in Book Three of _L'Africa_ , his epic history of Scipio Africanus; see _Petrarch's 'Africa'_ , trans. and annot. Thomas G. Bergin and Alice S. Wilson (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977), 11.418–24.

109 For Loschi's poem see Margaret L. King, "Goddess and Captive: Antonio Loschi's Poetic Tribute to Maddalena Scrovegni (1389), Study and Text," _Medievalia et Humanistica_ , n.s. 10 (1980): 103–27.

110 Although it is not known with whom Cardinal Orsini collaborated in planning this cycle, he counted among his friends and acquaintances such distinguished humanists as Poggio Bracciolini, Niccolo Niccoli, Leonardo Bruni and Guarino da Verona. The paintings are referred to by Giambattista Gelli in his _Venti vite d'artisti_ , ed. G. Mancini (Florence, 1896), 45, who refers to Masolino's having painted the "sala degl'anni" with figures representing the six ages of man. Based on the appearance of surviving drawings of the cycle, Perri Lee Roberts, _Masolino da Panicale_ (Oxford, 1993) argues that Masolino designed the entire scheme, although he employed assistants to aid in the execution of the large cycle.

111 For a discussion of fifteenth-century documents and illustrations which appear to identify these figures see Robert L. Mode, "The Monte Giordano Famous Men Cycle of Cardinal Giordano Orsini and the Uomini Famosi Tradition in Fifteenth Century Italian Art," PhD diss., University of Michigan, 1970, 44–47. The most complete _cronaca_ is in the Crespi collection in Milan _(Iconografla e Cronaca Universale miniata, da Adamo, a Bonifacio VIII)_ and was painted by Leonardo da Besozzo, a Milanese artist known to have been working in Naples in the second quarter of the fifteenth century. A second _cronaca_ , in the Biblioteca Reale in Turin, was painted by an unknown artist and is missing approximately fifty figures. Nine parchment sheets with colored brush drawings that may also represent the famous men and women from Cardinal Orsini's frescoes were painted in Florence in the mid-fifteenth century, probably by B. Van Eyck. These drawings are now known collectively as _Cockerell's Sketchbook;_ see Ilaria Toesca "Gli Uomini Famosi della Biblioteca Cockerell," _Paragone_ 3 (Jan. 1952): 16–20. For Cardinal Orsini and the lost frescoes see W. A. Simpson, "Cardinal Giordano Orsini (d. 1438) as a Prince of the Church and a Patron of the Arts," _Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes_ 39 (1966): 135–59; R. W. Scheller, "Uomini Famosi," _Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum_ 10 (1962): 56–67; and Erich König, Kardinal Giordano Orsini (d. 1438), _Ein Lebensbild aus der Zeit der Grossen Konzillien and des Humanismus_ (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1906).

112 The suggested dates for the founding of Carthage are 1039 BCE, 1014 BCE, and 850 BCE. See _Eusebii Chronici Canones, Latine vertit, adauxit, ad sua tempora produxit S. Eusebius Hieronymus_ , ed. John Knight Fotheringham (London: Humphredum Milford, 1923): 115, 119, 139. For a listing of ancient authorities and the conflicting dates which they ascribe to the foundings of Carthage and Rome see A. S. Pease, _P. Vergili Maronis Aeneidos liber quartus_ (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1935), 58–59

113 Mode, "Monte Giordano Cycle," 113.

114 There is little doubt but that Dido's posture derives either from an extant Raphael drawing of Lucretia, which in turn was based on antique models, or on lost _modelli_ of the same figure. See David H. Thomas, "A Note on Marcantonio's _Death of Dido," Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes_ 32 (1969): 394–96; Paul O. Kristeller, "Marcantons Beziehungen zu Raffael," _Jahrbuch des Koniglich Preussischen Kunstsammlungen_ 28 (1907): 214; and A. Bartsch, _Le peintre-graveur_ , vol. 14 (Leipzig, 1867), 153. For a dissenting opinion see Alfredo Petrucci, "II mondo di Marcantonio," _Bollettino d'arte_ 31 (1937–8): 31–43.

115 _Aeneid_ IV .5307–32; IV.642–47.

116 See Virgilio nell'arte e nella cultura Europea, Exhibition Catalogue from the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Rome (1981), 240–41; L. Planiscig, _La Collezione Auriti_ , Museo di Pala77o Venezia (Christmas, 1931), n. 57; and A. Santangelo, _La Collezione Auriti_ , Museo di Palazzo Venezia, Rome (1964), 34.

117 This bronze plaque was shown in the 1981exhibition _Virgilio nell'arte e nella cultura Europea_ in the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale in Rome. It is depicted and discussed in the exhibition catalogue on page 240, where it is identified as belonging to the British Museum. The British Museum, however, denies any knowledge of the plaque.

118 Ecco di Castita l'Effetto Vero/Se per marito Iarba Re non volse/Dido costante punto it Cor Severo/A se l'Ombra a Sicheo lieta rivolse./Lasciando a quei di Cartago l'impero/Ch'iui per lungo mar seco raccolse./Specchiatevi in costei d'animo egregio/Donne, E uoi, the le Donne avete in pregio. See _Virgilio nell'arte_ , 240.

119 The Quattrocento humanists who include Dido in their encomiums to women briefly present her as being a strong and resourceful ruler, omitting any reference to her state of chastity. Although Mantegna's vision of Dido would have relied on more biographical information than that contained in the works of the Northern Italian writers, it was only in a milieu where their ideas flourished that she was able to find expression as a full-portrait painting among other virtuous women.

120 It is interesting to note that Dido's suicide in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century manuscript illuminations of _Famous Women_ are markedly more dignified and less melodramatic than miniatures portraying the death of Virgil's Dido in, for example, the _Aeneid_ and the _Roman de la Rose_. Dido, the abandoned lover, dies a bloody death using a formidable weapon; she is frequently shown slumped over a sword, having been impaled through the abdomen. These images communicate not only a wish to die, but also a desire for self-punishment. In contrast, the non-Virgilian Dido generally stands erect as she inserts a small knife into her breast.

121 Virgil, remaining true to the convention of the implacability of fate given expression by Greek epic poetry, fashioned his Dido as a tragic figure in the Homerian sense. He considered her to be "infelix," best translated as ill-starred; see Kenneth Quinn, _Virgil's "Aeneid": A Critical Description_ (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1968), 78. The Renaissance view of free will was perhaps most powerfully elaborated in the manifesto delivered in Rome by Giovanni Pico della Mirandola in 1486 and first published in 1496. The _Oration on the Dignity of Man_ , as it has come to be known, celebrates the "wondrous and unsurpassable felicity of man, to whom it is granted to have what he chooses, to be what he wills to be." See Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, _Oration on the Dignity of Man_ , trans. A. Robert Caponigri (Washington DC: Regnery Gateway, 1956), 8.

122 The artistic and literary tradition surrounding Judith is extensive; Renaissance writers promulgated medieval traditions in which she was conceived as a type prefiguring the Virgin Mary, while in fifteenth-century Florence she was embraced for political reasons. For Judith as a Marian type see, for example, Marina Warner, _Alone of All Her Sex: The Myth and the Cult of the Virgin Mary_ (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1976), 55; and _Monuments and Maidens: The Allegory of the Female Form_ (New York, Atheneum, 1985), 164. For Judith in the art of republican communes see Geraldine A. Johnson, "Idol or Ideal? The Power and Potency of Female Public Sculpture," in _Picturing Women in Renaissance and Baroque Italy_ , ed. Geraldine A. Johnson and Sara F. Matthews Grieco (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 222–45; and Elena Ciletti, "Patriarchal Ideology in the Renaissance Iconography of Judith," in _Refiguring Woman: Perspectives on Gender and the Italian Renaissance_ , ed. Marilyn Migiel and Juliana Schiesari (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991), 42–63.

123 Book of Judith, 9:4 (AV).

124 Ibid., 9:9.

125 Ibid., 13:20.

126 Ibid., 16:26

127 Strozzi, ed. Zambrini, 135.

128 Heroines such as Dido and Judith would have found favor in a milieu where the marquesa commissioned Perugino, Mantegna, Correggio and Costa to paint elaborate allegorical scenes centering on the triumph of chastity over carnal love. Laced with personal significance and following complicated literary programs that Isabella had carefully delineated in the artists' contracts, these works, painted for her _studiolo_ , included Mantegna's _Minerva Chases the Vices from the Garden of Virtue_ and _Mars and Venus_ , as well as Corregio's _Allegory of Virtue_ and _Allegory of Vice_. Although these paintings have long _been_ the topic of scholarly debate, at the most fundamental level they represent the struggle between virtue and sensuality and suggest that the triumph of virtue is ultimately dependent upon the rational resolve of the individual. See, for example, Keith Christiansen, "The Studiolo of Isabella d'Este and Late Themes," in _Andrea Mantegna_ , ed. Jane Martineau (London: Royal Academy, 1992), 418–68; E. H. Gombrich, "An Interpretation of Mantegna's _Parnassus,"_ in _Gombrich on the Renaissance_ , vol. 2 (London: Phaidon, 1972), 82–84; Verheyen, _Studiolo_ , 38–44; and Lightbown, _Mantegna_ , 192–93. Isabella also commissioned a work from Perugino which was to represent, in her words, "a battle of Chastity against Lasciviousness, that is to say, Pallas and Diana fighting vigorously against Venus and Cupid." See David S. Chambers, _Patrons and Artists in the Italian Renaissance_ (Columbia: Ohio State University Press, 1971), 135–38.

129 Rose Marie San Juan, "The Court Lady's Dilemma: Isabella d'Este and Art Collecting in the Renaissance," _The Oxford Art Journal_ 14 (1991): 67–78, argues that Isabella's pattern of patronage is best interpreted as representing her solution to the demands made on the consort of a Renaissance prince and her own self-imposed expectation to outshine all others in her position. Desiring to maintain both public visibility and the reputation for private chastity, Isabella strove to create, in the spaces of her _studiolo_ and _grotta_ , an environment in which her erudition could be safely displayed to members of the discerning public.

130 Tuscan visual representations of Dido are restricted to _cassone_ narratives where she is but one, albeit significant, diversion on Aeneas's journey from Troy to Rome. In the Florentine workshop of Apollonio di Giovanni, scenes from the _Aeneid_ appear to have been extremely popular, and inevitably include his fateful stopover in Carthage. Jennifer Klein Morrison, "Apollonio di Giovanni's _"Aeneid" Cassoni_ and the Virgil Commentators," _Yale University Art Gallery Bulletin_ (1992): 26–47, analyzes these panels according to the moral philosophical approach to the _Aeneid_ favored by medieval philosophers and some Quattrocento humanists. She suggests that the Dido-related episodes illustrate "Aeneas the Adolescent" succumbing to temptation at a tender stage in his development from which he will free himself as he steadily progresses towards manhood. Baskins, _Cassone_ , 72, argues that scenes drawn from the _Aeneid_ (and all classical narratives), should be read "in terms of psychic defense, as screens of mastery enabling the formation of identities." See also Ernest Gombrich, "Apollonio di Giovanni. A Florentine Cassone Workshop Seen through the Eyes of a Humanist Poet," in Gombrich on the Renaissance, vol. 1 : Norm and Form (London: Phaidon, 1966), 11–28.

# Conclusion

Following centuries of medieval hagiography in which female virtue was represented almost exclusively in terms of self-denial and a disdain for this life in expectation of the next, the emergence from classical authors of a catalog of powerful, worldly, valiant women stood in stark contrast to established notions of the feminine role. Boccaccio's decision to compose a text replete with diatribes against the corrupting influence of female authority may have been motivated in part by his own experience with a domineering stepmother whose avarice and essential emasculation of his father usurped Giovanni's own prospects. An understanding of his motivation is not required, however, to appreciate that, in writing _Famous Women_ , Boccaccio made a significant contribution to humanist thought by co-opting into the service of conventional standards of feminine conduct the very figures from classical antiquity whose model of extraordinary behavior and achievement might otherwise have posed a challenge to those standards. At the vanguard of a scholarly movement whose focus upon the grandeur and wisdom of the ancients would exercise a formative influence upon fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Italian society, Boccaccio was in a position to construct the lives of legendary women in a manner that would inform the Renaissance reevaluation of humankind. Clearly, this humanist knew his readership, for _Famous Women_ speaks pointedly to two themes to which men of the Renaissance, as much as any who came before them, were acutely sensitive: their social prerogatives and the chastity of their women.

Modern scholarship in women's and gender studies is frequently condemnatory of medieval and Renaissance authors and artists whose focus on women fails to articulate a program of gender equality. Boccaccio has been harshly criticized for addressing the 'woman issue' in traditionally chauvinistic terms that are the more appalling for their being applied to the finest females antiquity had to offer. Recently, the perceived ambiguities in _Famous Women_ have been read as suggesting that the author had nascent feminist sensitivities. Paradigms which are employed in the attempt to classify Boccaccio's work as either that of a hard-core misogynist or a budding feminist have clouded the significance of gender both in his text and in its reception. A close reading of Boccaccio's text as a document intended to promulgate a cohesive ideology rather than as a collection of disparate impressions presents a clear warning that chaste deference to male dominion is the only proper, indeed the only safe, positioning of women in society, and that the relinquishing of power to women must be confined to situations in which their commitment to traditionally feminine values assures that they will act as loyal deputies of legitimate authority rather than in pursuit of their own ambitions. The realization that Boccaccio intended his admirable heroines to function as role models and/or goads to male behavior further elucidates his treatment and appraisal of heroic women.

Renaissance writers and painters assimilated Boccaccio's renditions of classical heroines differentially depending on the prevailing conditions of patronage. Artists working in the Tuscan republics largely represented a clientele whose assumptions concerning social roles and values largely reflected Boccaccio's own, and _Famous Women_ could easily be employed as a source of female imagery which would advance conventional social mores. The _donne illustri_ literary tradition also mediated the Renaissance reception of female paragons in the principalities of Italy, where a new breed of powerful women, who could claim few contemporary counterparts, recognized in Boccaccio's heroines exemplars of _virtu_ with whom they could aspire to identify.

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# Index

Abaco, Paolo dell'

Abraham

Acciaiuoli, Andrea –, , , , , –

Acciaiuoli, Niccolo , ,

Adam , , , ,

Aegisthus –

Aeneas –,

Agamemnon –, ,

Agrippina –,

Ahab –

Ahasuerus ,

Ahaziah

Albanzani, Donato ,

Alberti, Caterina degli –

Alberti, Giannozzo ,

Alberti, Leon Battista , , , , –, –,

Alcibiades ,

Alexander the Great ,

Alfonso of Naples

Amalthea

Anguissola, Sofonisba

Antico

Antigone

Antiope

Antonia

Antonio, Francesco '

Apollo

Appian

Aquinas –

Aragona, Beatrice d'

Aretino, Federigo

Arezzo, Domenico Bandini d'

Argia

Ariente, Sabadino degli –, , , ,

Aristotle , , ,

Artemis

Artemisia , –, –

Athaliah –

Atreus –

Augustine , ,

Aulus Vitellius

Aurelian, –

Barbaro, Francesco , –

Barbo, Niccolò

Bardi, Alessandra de' –

Bardi, Contessina de'

Bartolo, Taddeo di –

Bartolomeo II

Beccafumi, Dominico –

Bend, Ginevra de'

Bentivoglio, Andrea ,

Bentivoglio, Sante

Bernardus Silvestris

Besozzo, Leonardo da

Bettini, Bartolomeo

Bisticci, Vespasiano da , , –, –,

Boccaccio, Margharita

Botticelli, Sandro –

Bracciolini, Poggio , ,

Britannicus

Bronzino

Bruni, Leonardo , –,

Brutus , , –, , –, –

Brutus, Marcus Junius –,

Caesar, Julius , , , ,

Cambises

Camilla

Camillus ,

Camiola –

Cantelma, Margherita , ,

Cantelma, Sigismondo ,

Capponi family

Carafa, Diomede

Carducci family, –, –,

Cassandra

Castagno, Andrea –, –,

Castiglione, Baldasar , –

Catiline, Lucius

Cato

Cato Uticensis

Ceres –

Cereta, Laura

Chaucer, Geoffrey ,

Christ , ,

Cicero –, ,

Cimbrians, Wives of

Cinico, Giovan Marco ,

Circe ,

Claudius

Cleopatra , ,

Cloelia –, –

Clytemnestra –

Collatinus , –

Constantine

Coriolanus ,

Cornaro, Marco (Cardinal)

Cornaszano, Antonio –, –,

Cornelius Nepos

Cornificia –

Correggio

Costa, Lorenzo

Cozzarelli, Guidoccio di Giovanni , –,

Cumaean Sibyl , , –

Cupid

Curia

Curius Dentatus

Cyrus ,

Dabuson, Pietro

Dante , , , , , –

Delli, Dello

Demosthenes

Diana , ,

Dido –, –, –

Drusus

Dryden, John

Elisha

Epicharis , ,

Equicola, Mario , , , –,

Erythraea

Este family , 22,

Este, Alberto d'

Este, Alessandro d' (Cardinal)

Este, Borso d' ,

Este, Eleonora d'Aragona d' –, , , –, –,

Este, Ercole d' , –,

Este Gonzaga, Isabella d' 22, , , –, –, –, , –

Este, Niccolo d' III –

Esther , –, ,

Eteocles

Eurydice

Eurytus

Eusebius ,

Eve , , , –, , ,

Faustina Augusta

Fedele, Cassandra ,

Ferrante I ,

Firenzuola, Agnolo

Flora

Foresti, Jacopo , –, , , –, ,

Francesca, Piero della

Fulgentius

Furius Camillus

Garbo, Tommaso del

Gelli, Giambattista

Germanicus

Ghirlandaio

Ginori family

Giotto

Giovanni, Apollonio di , , , –

Giovanni, Matteo di

Giovio (Bishop)

Goggio, Bartolommeo –, , –, , ,

Gonzaga, Cecilia

Gonzaga family

Gonzaga, Francesco , , –, –,

Griselda , –

Gualdrada –

Guarini, Guarino ,

Guarino, Baptista

Guicciardini, Francesco

Haman

Hasdrubal, Wife of , –, , –,

Hector

Hegesippus

Helen

Hercules , , , ,

Herod

Hipparchus,

Hippo,

Holofernes ,

Homer , , ,

Horatius Cocles

Hortensia ,

Hortensius, Quintus

Hypsicratea

Iarbas

Il Riccio (Andrea Briosco) , –

Iole , ,

Iphigenia

Irene

Isidore

Jason

Jehoram

Jehu

Joan (Pope) –,

Joanna, Queen of Naples –, –

Joash

Josephus

Judith , –, , –

Julia

Julius II (Pope)

Juno

Jupiter

Justin –, –,

Justinus

Lactantius

Lampedo –

Landino, Cristoforo

Latona

La Vieille

Leana , –

Leonardo da Vinci

Leontium –

Lepidus

Livy , –, , ,

Loschi, Antonio

Lotto, Lorenzo

Lucan

Lucretia , , , , –, , ,

Lucretius, Quintus

Macrobius ,

Malatesta, Battista da Montefeltro ,

Malatesta, Elisabetta –,

Malatesta, Galeazzo

Malatesta, Paola nei

Malatesta, Parisina

Manetti, Giannozzo

Mantegna, Andrea , –, , , , , , –, –

Marcia

Mark Antony

Marpesia –

Mars

Martin V(Pope)

Masinissa

Masolino

Mausolus –

Medea

Medici family

Medici, Cosimo de'

Medici, Giuliano de' –

Medici, Lorenzo de' , , –,

Medici, Piero de' –

Michelangelo

Minerva –,

Minyan Wives ,

Mirandola, Giovanni Pico della

Mithridates

Montefeltro, Battista Sforza da –

Montefeltro, Federigo da –, ,

Montefeltro, Guidobaldo da

Morcone, Biagio da

Morelli, Giovanni –,

Mucius Scaevola

Nebuchadnezzar

Nero –, , ,

Nestor

Niccoli, Niccolò ,

Niccolo III

Ninyas –

Niobe , ,

Noah

Nogarola, Agnola da

Nogarola, Ginevra

Nogarola, Isotta –

Octavia

Octavian

Odaenathus

Olympias –

Onesti, Nastagio degli

Orestes

Orithya

Orosius

Orsini, (Cardinal) –

Orsini, Clarice

Orsini, Giordano

Otho

Otho IV

Ovid , , , ,

Pallas

Pallavicino, Gaspare

Palmieri, Matteo

Pandolfini, Giovanna Valori nei

Paulina

Penelope

Penthesilea

Perugino ,

Petrarch , , , , –, , –, , –, –,

Petrucci, Pandolfo –

Philip of Macedonia

Pierozzi, Antonino

Pinturicchio –

Pitti, Buonaccorse

Pizan, Christine de

Plato

Pliny the Elder ,

Plutarch , , –, –,

Polenton, Sicco

Poliziano, Agnolo

Polynices

Pompeia Paulina

Pompeius Trogus

Pompey ,

Pomponius Mela

Pordenone

Porsenna –, , , –

Portia , –, –,

Proba ,

Publicola, –, , , ,

Publius Decius

Pudicitia Plebeia

Pythagoras

Quirini, Lauro

Racine, Jean

Raimondi, Marcantonio –,

Raphael ,

Robert d'Anjou , ,

Roberti, Ercole de' , –, , , –

Roland

Roselli, Bernardo di

Rucellai family

St. Augustine

St. Bernardino of Siena

St. Jerome

St. Nicholas of Bari

Sabina Poppaea ,

Salutati, Coluccio , , , ,

Samson

Sberghieri family ,

Scipio Aemilianus

Scipio Africanus ,

Scipio Nasica

Scrovegni, Maddalena

Semiramis –, –, , , ,

Sempronia , –

Seneca

Servius

Sextus Superbus

Sextus Tarquinius

Sforza family

Sforza, Bianca Maria Visconti

Sforza, Costanza Varano

Sforza, Gynevra

Sheba

Sigismund (Emperor)

Solinus

Solomon , ,

Sophonisba , –

Spano, Pippo ,

Statius

Strozzi family , , , , –

Strozzi, Alessandra Macinghi ,

Strozzi, Agostino –, ,

Strozzi, Palla

Suetonius , –

Sulpicia, , –,

Susanna

Sychaeus –, , , ,

Syphax ,

Tacitus , –

Tamaris

Tamyris , –,

Tarquinius Priscus

Telemachus

Tertia Aemilia

Theophrastus

Theseus

Thyestes –

Tiberius

Tornabuoni, Lucrezia –

Toscani, Giovanni

Triaria

Truscellio ,

Tuccia , –, –

Tura, Cosmè

Uberti, Farinata degli –,

Ulysses

Valerius Maximus , , , , –, –, –, , , ,

Vasari, , ,

Vegio, Maffeo

Venus –, ,

Venus Verticordia

Verona, Guarino da

Vespasian

Vesta

Veturia , ,

Villani, Filippo

Virgil , , –, –, , , –

Virginia

Visconti family

Visconti, Giangaleazzo

Visconti, Ursina

Vitellius, Lucius

Volterra, Niccolò da

Volusius Proculus

Voragine, Jacobus de

Xerxes

Zainer, Johann ,

Zenobia , –,

Zephyrus

# Boccaccio's Heroines

## Table of Contents

  1. Cover
  2. Half Title
  3. Title Page
  4. Copyright Page
  5. Table of Contents
  6. List of Figures
  7. Acknowledgements
  8. Introduction
    1. The Text and its Critics
    2. Lauds and Libraries
    3. The Art of Virtue
  9. 1 Authorial Intent
    1. Dedication: The Nature of Virtue
    2. Preface: A Book for Men about Women
  10. 2 A Bad Example
    1. Overstepping the Boundaries
    2. Action/Reaction
    3. Dangerous Minds and Bodies
    4. Calculated Anomalies
  11. 3 Famous Women in Renaissance Tuscany
    1. Boccaccio's Heroines
    2. A Woman's Place
    3. Daring but Decorous: Donne Illustri in the Art of the Tuscan Republics
  12. 4 Famous Women and Famous Women: Boccaccio and the Court Consorts
    1. Eleonora d'Aragona d'Este
    2. Isabella d'Este and Mantegna
  13. Conclusion
  14. Select Bibliography
  15. Index

## Pagelist

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