Abstract
Giovanni Sabadino degli Arienti’s Gynevera de le clare donne, a manuscript
collection of 31 female biographies, completed in early 1492, aimed to
defend, and even to normalize, the exercise of political authority by elite
women. Based loosely on Giovanni Boccaccio’s De mulieribus claris,
but written in Italian, not Latin, it departed radically from its model by
excluding women who had acquired notoriety through wickedness or been
undone by the supposedly innate failings of their sex. Instead, it focused
on those who had achieved worldly renown through remarkable, but
always virtuous, conduct. This essay analyzes the cultural and political
context of this text and why it found favor with women such as the young
Isabella d’Este, marchioness of Mantua.
Publisher
Amsterdam University Press