Return to the index of "Other Women's Voices."
Updated 02-11-08
Lucrezia Marinella Vacca /Marinelli
(1571-1653)
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"IF WOMEN... WAKE THEMSELVES FROM THE LONG SLEEP THAT OPPRESSES
THEM...."
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We know more about the publishing history of Lucrezia Marinella's works than we do about her life. When other women were publishing anonymously or under a pseudonym, Marinella's name was on most of her books and she was known by all Venice as the author of the rest. She apparently used the feminine form of her last name; some editors have used the family form, "Marinelli."
Lucrezia was the daughter of a Venetian physician who wrote works on medicine (two on women's health) and on philosophy. We know nothing of her mother nor of when her father died (we do know that he was dead by 1600). Someone saw to it that Lucrezia was given an education that included philosophy and classical as well as vernacular literature. At some point she married a physician, Girolamo Vacca, and had at least two children, a son and daughter.
When Marinella was 24 years old, her first work was published, La colomba sacra, poema eroico (The holy dove, a heroic poem), a biographical epic in ottava rima on an early Christian martyr. Her next publication was the Nobilta et l'eccellenza delle donne, co' difetti et mancamenti degli uomoni (The nobility and excellences of women, and the defects and vices of men), printed in 1600 and enlarged in 1601. Between 1603 and 1606 six more works were published (although some appear to have been written earlier): a heroic poem and a prose work on Mary; poems on Francis of Assisi and on Justina (another early Christian martyr); a collection of Marinella's sonnets and madrigals, and a pastoral verse novel, Arcadia felice.
After 1606 there is a gap of 12 years before her next publications --- an allegory based on the story of Cupid and Psyche, and a poetic biography of Catherine of Siena --- and then another 11 years before she published in 1635 what historians of Italian literature consider her masterpiece, L'Enrico overo Bisantio conquistato (Henry or Byzantium gained). We don't know the connection between these gaps and her life as a wife and mother.
By the 1590s, the Roman influence that we call "Baroque" had come to Venice. It grew, in part, out of the Catholic Church's need to reach out to people, to instruct and to arouse them more directly than it had done before. For literature, the result was an emphasis on vernacular writing with a strong emotional appeal. All of Marinella's writing reflects the Baroque, but in different ways and from a feminine perspective. She usually wrote in the heroic verse form, but sometimes in a combination of verse and the "poetic prose" that she saw as capable of the same elevation as poetry.
Many of Marinella's books were lives of religious figures, but almost always about women and then always with the emphasis on their heroism rather than on more passive virtues. She wrote of the heroic resistance of the women Columba and Justina; her book on Catherine of Siena was on the "heroic deeds and marvelous life"; her life of Mary (apparently the most successful during her lifetime) was on Mary as "empress of the universe"; in a later edition of an early poem on Francis, Clare of Assisi's "glorious passion" receives equal billing.
Her secular writing also fused the extravagance of the popular chivalric tales and heroic epics with a Christian, but feminine, view of morality. One satirically allegorizes the myth of Cupid and Psyche as a conflict between body and soul; another is a pastoral verse drama that makes fun of human love. L'Enrico overo Bisantio conquistato is an epic in the style of Torquato Tasso's La Gerusalemme liberata, but with stronger, more self-reliant women.
To date, the only work of Marinella's that has been translated into English is part of her Nobilta et l'eccellenza delle donne. It differs from her other writings in being a polemical treatise, a genre in which extravagant statement and personal attack were acceptable. Forty-five years later, Marinella would write Essortationi alle donne et a gli altri (Exhortations to women and others), in which she would qualify some of the more extreme views expressed in Nobilta.
But in 1600, Marinella would say whatever she needed to say in order to refute the misogynist statements of earlier writers, particularly the treatise of Giuseppe Passi, who had published Dei donneschi defetti (The defects of women) in 1599. Although it differs in purpose from her other works, Nobilta shares with them Marinella's Baroque qualities of intensity, extravagant rhetoric, and emotional appeal; it also shares their confidence in women's ability.
On this page you'll find:
Links to helpful sites online.
Excerpts from a translation in print.
Information about secondary sources.
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1. In English:
(a) Use your browser's search function to go to "Marinella" for two passages from Part 1 of Nobilta et l'eccellenza delle donne, co' difetti et mancamenti degli uomoni, on women's superiority to men; the first passage is translated by Patricia H. Labalme, the second by Anne Dunhill.
(b) After excerpts from Letizia Panizza's introduction to Dunhill's 1999 translation, The Nobility and Excellence of Women, and the Defects and Vices of Men, two brief quotations from the work.
2. In Italian:
(a) At this alphabetical list from the University of Chicago's "Italian Women Writers" site, go to Marinella and click on "Texts Available" for links to the original editions of two of Marinella's works: (1) the four cantos of the 1595 La Colomba sacra, poema heroico, on Columba, a martyr of the 200s; (2) the 27 cantos of the 1635 L'Enrico, overo Bisantio acquistato, poema eroico, considered to be Marinella's masterpiece. For each, you can link to the whole or to individual parts.
(b) Some of the 1601 prose work Nobilta et l'eccellenza; included are the complete opening section, "Divisione di tutto il discorso" (you can see part of it in English below, under "In print"), and excerpts of Chapters 3 and 5 of Part 1 (not all omissions are noted).
3. Essays (for information on the print versions of the articles, see "Secondaty sources):
(a) "Moderata Fonte, Lucrezia Marinella, Giuseppe Passi: An Early Seventeenth-century Feminist Controversy" (2001), by Stephen Kolsky, which discusses the controversy that led to the publication of Nobilta (and the purpose of the later Essortationi alle donne et a gli altri).
(b) "The Single Self: Feminist Thought and the Marriage Market in Early Modern Venice" (1995), by Virginia Cox, which shows how the realities of women's lives are revealed in the work of Marinella and Moderata Fonte; quoted passages are given in Cox' translation.
4 . Reviews (for excerpts from the translation, see under "In print"; for information on the other books' treatment of Marinella, see "Secondary sources"):
(a) In a review of several works from the series, "The other voice in early modern Europe, "Constance Jordan on Dunhill's translation of Nobilta et l'eccellenza.
(b) Sally Parkin on Satya Brata Datta's 2003 study, Women and Men in Early Modern Venice: Reassessing History.
(c) Beth L. Glixon on Wendy Beth Heller's 2003 study, Emblems of Eloquence: Opera and Women's Voices in Seventeenth-century Venice.
(d) Fiora A. Bassanese on the 2000 essay collection, A History of Women's Writing in Italy
(e) Elissa B.Weaver on the 2000 collection, Women in Italian Renaissance Culture and Society.
6. At an Italian site, a 2006 bibliography of studies on Marinella and editions of her writing.
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[Anne Dunhill's translation is an abridged version of the 1601 edition of Nobilta et l'eccellenza delle donne, co' difetti et mancamenti degli uomoni. From the first part, on women, four chapters are complete, two are incomplete; from the second part, on men, seven of 35 chapters are given, wholly or in part. Unfortunately, omissions aren't always indicated, nor missing parts summarized in the notes. Letizia Panizza's introduction is good on Marinella's other works and analyzes the book's first part, but says little about the second part. The bibliography and index are helpful. (See the table of contents online, with Marinella's own chapter titles.):]
The nobility and excellence of women, and the defects and
vices of men / Lucrezia Marinella; edited and translated by Anne
Dunhill; introduction by Letizia Panizza (The other voice in
early modern Europe). Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999.
(xxvii, 200 p.)
LC#: HQ1148 .M2713 1999; ISBN: 0226505456, 0226505464
Includes bibliographical references (p. 185-190) and index
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"...full of amazing rhetorical display."
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[Panizza's introduction quotes from a later letter written by Marinella to fellow writer Cristofero Bronzino. The letter was printed in his 1624 treatise which, like hers, defended women. Speaking of a draft of his book that she had read, Marinella described the qualities she admired throughout her writing life:]
...the height and charm of your style, its method full of amazing rhetorical display in its composition.... I say that it is a most complete work in every aspect, enjoyable, full of information and learning, and of many authorities. [p.24]
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"I am not moved by hate or scorn, still less by envy."
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[The opening of the book's first section, "Division of the Entire Composition"; you can see the original online:]
It is the custom for those who write on any subject or topic to be driven or motivated by a specific goal. Many authors desire that the truths they write about should be known by everybody, and so labor..., employing every effort not only in composing their material but also in rendering it is an elegant fashion so that it is clear and accessible to diligent readers.
Others, scorning philosophical truths and driven only by vivacity and readiness of wit, attempt to convince the world in all seriousness that the true is false, that good is bad, and that the ugly is beautiful and lovable. Using specious reasoning, they often obtain the end they so desire.
Several others can be found who, moved by envy, seek with biting pen to obscure and annihilate another's noble action....Finally, there is no lack of writers who, stimulated by hate or proud disdain, proceed to detract from others' fame and honor with copious lies.
The first are worthy of praise on their own account. The second should not be wholly condemned, since they are gifted with such noble wits. But all those whose are motivated by envy or some particular hatred are indeed deserving of blame by everyone
As for myself, I wish to follow the first group in my discourse. My desire is to make this truth shine forth to everybody, that the female sex is nobler and more excellent than the male. I hope to demonstrate this with arguments and examples, so that every man, no matter how stubborn, will be compelled to confirm it with his own mouth....
I am not moved by hate or scorn, still less by envy. On the contrary, these are very far from my mind, because I have never wanted nor do I want nor will I ever want to be a man.... [pp.39-40]
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" It is necessary therefore to conclude...."
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[Marinella is not above using a bit of "specious reasoning" herself --- in a good cause, of course. When she quotes Aristotle (in Latin) the learned will recognize the fallacy of conflating the two separate concepts, being honored and being worthy of honor, but at the same time they will see her "readiness of wit." She is explaining why men bow and lift their hats to women:]
Nobody honors another person unless they know that the person has some gift or quality that is superior to his own, as Aristotle writes in book IV of the Ethics: "Everything that excels in some way is more honorable."
Honor is nothing more that the reward or benefit of the virtue that shines forth from somebody as he states in the Ethics, book VIII, chapter 16: honor "is the prize appointed for the noblest deeds."
It is necessary therefore to conclude that women are nobler than men because they are honored by men. [pp.69-70]
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"For my part, I do not agree with this opinion."
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[Twenty years earlier, in a chivalric romance, Moderata Fonte had argued for equality of men and women; Marinella will go further --- women are not equal, but better:]
...[I]f we speak as philosophers, we will say that man's soul is equally noble to woman's because both are of the same species and therefore of the same nature and substance. Knowing this, Moderata Fonte, to demonstrate that women are as noble as men, wrote in Floridora: "And why if their nature is shared, if their substances do not differ?..." and subsequently goes on to show that they are part of the same species.
For my part, I do not agree with this opinion. I say that it is not impossible that within the same species there should be souls that are from birth nobler and more excellent than others... Given this fact, I would say that women's souls were created nobler and more excellent than men's, as can be seen from the effect they have and from the beauty of their bodies. [p.55]
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"Everybody will be convinced of these matters one day."
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[As, according to Plato, humans are naturally drawn by the beautiful to the divine, so men react inevitably to women:]
But I wish to... show that men are obliged and forced to love women, and that women are not obliged to love them back, except merely from courtesy. I also wish to demonstrate that the beauty of women is the way by which men, who are moderate creatures, are able to raise themselves to the knowledge and contemplation of the divine essence.
Everybody will be convinced of these matters one day, and the obstinate oppressors of women who trample on their dignity with greater insolence each day will be overcome. [p.62]
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"What marvelous feats we should see."
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[After quoting Plato on women's ability to ride and do gymnastics, Marinella goes further (and foreshadows the heroic fighting women of L'Enrico, her epic poem):]
Would to God that in our times it were permitted for women to be skilled at arms and letters! What marvelous feats we should see, the like of which were never heard, in maintaining and expanding kingdoms. And who but women, with their intrepid spirits, would be the first to take arms in defense of their country? And with what readiness and ardor they would shed their blood and their lives in defense of males.
I have proved that women are nobler that men in their dealings. If they do not show their skills, it is because men do not allow them to practice them, since they are driven by obstinate ignorance, which persuades them that women are not capable of learning the things they do.
I would like these men to try the experiment of training a good-natured boy and girl of about the same age and intelligence in letters and arms. They would see how much sooner the boy would become expert than the boy and how she would surpass him completely. [p.80]
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"...too great a burden for his shoulders."
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[In a chapter she titles "A Reply to the Flippant and Vain Reasoning Adopted by Men in Their Own Favor," Marinella turns to invective, verbal assault on her opponents:]
Now it remains for me to reply to the false objections of our slanderers....
...[V]arious reasons drove certain wise and learned men to reprove and vituperate women. They included anger, self-love, envy, and insufficient intelligence. It can be stated therefore that when Aristotle or some other man reproved women, the reason for it was either anger, envy, or too much self-love. [p.119]
[After considering "anger, self-love, envy," as possible reasons for Aristotle's unacceptable views on women, Marinella turns to the possibility of "insufficient intelligence" (and adds, "Pardon me, you Aristotelians who are reading this"):]
It could also be thoughtlessness that caused him to deceive himself about the nature and essence of women. Perhaps a mature consideration of their nobility and excellence would have proved too great a burden for his shoulders. As we know, there are still many people who believe that the earth moves and the sky remains still, others that there are infinite worlds, still others that there is only one, and some that the fly is nobler than the heavens. [p.121]
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"And may he be forgiven...."
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[And on the motive of Giuseppe Passi, to whose treatise Marinella's is a response. (In fact, Passi did try to "amend his fault" when in 1603 he published a book on the vices of men):]
...[I]n his first chapter, he generalizes by saying "There is not a single good woman," and thus gives them all a bad name. It is most reprehensible of him to jump from the particular to the universal, and therefore the inscription to the book would have been more appropriate if it had read: "the defects of wicked women." But the motive behind this is his anger against the lady he loves rather than against women in general....
Do we not know exactly what kind of anger toward a particular woman motivated him? Yes. Undoubtedly. And may he be forgiven because he will amend his fault and recognize the nobility of women. [p.127]
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"How meek and humble will those proud and ungrateful men
become."
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[Against the common argument that men's physical strength proves their superiority, Marinella first responds and then looks to the future:]
There is no lack of others, Aristotle among them, who say that men are stronger and more robust, and therefore better at bearing weights and burdens than women are. Note what a great advantage!... Is is not true that kings, princes, and great men do not work as hard as porters? Nor do I believe that Aristotle... was as strong as a male peasant, or indeed as many female ones. Was he therefore less noble than these rough men and women? If so, blacksmiths would be nobler than kings and learned men of science, which cannot reasonably be true.
If it were true, one could say that the Roman soldiers, who many times forced the prudent senators to elect emperors according to their wishes, were nobler and more excellent than the senators, which is patently false. This occurred because the army possessed strength, not right or reason....
This is why the female sex, which is more delicate than the male one and less strong, being less accustomed to heavy work, is tyrannized and trampled upon by insolent and unfair men. But if women, as I hope, wake themselves from the long sleep that oppresses them, how meek and humble will those proud and ungrateful men become. [pp.131-32]
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"If they aspire... it is because they are born not as servants."
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[From Marinella's rebuttal to the criticisms of Giovanni Boccaccio; he had said --- among many other things --- that women's servile station was God-given, that they devoured men's substance, and that they talked in church:]
Women are not aware that they are born servants, because he who is born a natural servant does not aspire to dominion but lives in the servitude to which he is born. Thus one can say that if they aspire, as he says they do, to dominion, it is because they are born not as servants but as mistresses....
I do not see that discreet, benign women usurp their husbands' patrimonies. When they embark on their mission of perfecting men they bring large dowries with them....
Boccaccio intends to criticize women by saying that if they go to a mass they are able to talk on infinite matters relating to anything from state government to the subtleties of science. I truly believe this to be a proof of their subtlety of intellect and excellent memory. [pp.142-44]
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"...the impossibility of finding a man who does not swagger."
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[In Part 2 of her treatise, on the defects of men, Marinella matches each of the 35 chapters Pazzi had dedicated to his invective on women's defects. In a chapter titled "Of Men Who Are Ornate, Polished, Painted and Bleached," she defends women's care for appearance before moving on to attack men's:]
Since beauty is woman's special gift from the Supreme Hand, should she not seek to guard it with all diligence? And when she is endowed with but a small amount of that excellent quality, should she not seek to embellish it by every means possible, provided it is not ignoble? I certainly believe that it is so.
When man has some special gift such as physical strength, which enables him to perform as a gladiator or swagger around, as is the common usage, does he not seek to conserve it? If he was born courageous, would he not seek to augment his courage with the art of defense? But if he were born with little courage, would he not practice the martial arts and cover himself with plate and mail and constantly seek out duels and fights in order to demonstrate his courage rather than reveal his true timidity and cowardice? I have used this example because of the impossibility of finding a man who does not swagger and play the daredevil....
But what should we say of men who are not born beautiful and who yet make great efforts to appear handsome and appealing, not only by putting on clothes make of silk and cloth of gold as many do, spending all their money on an item of clothing, but by wearing intricately worked neckbands?... They go around with their hair waved, greased and perfumed so that many of them smell like walking perfumeries.
How many are there who go to the barbers every four days in order to appear close-shaven, rosy-cheeked, and like young men even when they are old? How many dye their beards when the dread arrival of old age causes them to turn white? How many use lead combs to tint their white hairs? How many pluck out their white hairs in order to make it appear that they are in the flower of youth? [pp.166-68]
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Secondary sources
[Stephen Kolsky's article (also available online) discusses
the controversy that led to the publication of Nobilta.
Of special interest is a brief section (pp.982-84) which describes
Marinella's 1645 as-yet-untranslated Essortationi alle donne
et a gli altri. Kolsky points out that Essortationi is
not a total repudiation of Nobilta but a modification
of some of the views expressed in the work written 45 years earlier.
Passages quoted are not translated but are usually made clear
in the discussion. (See
the issue's table of contents online.):]
Kolsky, Stephen. Moderata Fonte, Lucrezia Marinella,
Giuseppe Passi: An early seventeenth-century feminist controversy.
Modern Language Review, 96 ( 2001), 973-989.
LC#: PB1 .M682; ISSN: 0026-7937
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[Adriana Chemello's essay, "The Rhetoric of Eulogy in Lucrezia Marinella's La nobilta et l'eccellenza delle donne," analyzes the work's structure and choice of examples, and shows Marinella assuming the role of re-interpreter and judge of Aristotle and other male writers. Chemello gives her translation of passages quoted (some not in Dunhill's abridged version above) and gives the original in the notes. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
Women in Italian Renaissance culture and society / edited
by Letizia Panizza (Legenda). Oxford: European Humanities Research
Centre, 2000. (xxi, 523 p: ill, facsims, ports)
LC#: HQ1149.I8 W66 2000; ISBN:1900755092
Includes bibliographical references
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[Two essays in this history deal with Marinella's writing: Virginia Cox's on the as-yet-untranslated chivalric romance, L'Enrico overo Bisantio conquistato and Lettzia Panizza's on Nobilta. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
A history of women's writing in Italy
/ edited by Letizia Panizza and Sharon Wood. Cambridge [England]
; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2000. (xvi, 361 p.)
LC#: PQ4055.W6 H57 2000; ISBN: 0521570883, 0521578132
Includes bibliographical references (p. 282-350) and index
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[An earlier article by Cox (also available online) compares Nobilta to Moderata Fonte's Il merito delle donne, and to two works by Arcangela Tarabotti; Cox's goal is to see what the works reveal of the situation of women living in Venice during the period. She gives the Italian originals of all translated excerpts. (See the issue's table of contents online.):]
Cox, Virginia. The single self: Feminist thought and the marriage
market in early modern Venice. Renaissance Quarterly,
48 (1995), 513-81.
LC#: CB361 .R45; ISSN:0034-4338
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[One chapter in Satya Brata Datta's study is "Visible Women: The Feminist Experiences of Three Venetian Writers," in which she looks at the polemical works of Marinella, Fonte and Tarabotti. Datta discusses why the three writers came to the fore when they did and where they did, as well as what their limitations were. Passages from Nobilta are given in the author's own translation. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
Datta, Satya Brata. Women and men in early modern Venice:
reassessing history. Aldershot, Hampshire, England; Burlington,
VT.: Ashgate, c2003. (xv, 256 p.: ill.)
LC#: DG678 .D37 2003; ISBN: 0754633470
Includes bibliographical references (p. 227-248) and index
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[Paola Malpezzi-Price's nine-page entry on Marinella in this
reference work gives a useful overview of the works and the history
of their critical reception. (See
the book's table of contents online.):]
Italian women writers: a bio-bibliographical sourcebook /
edited by Rinaldina Russell. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press,
1994. (xxxi, 476 p.)
LC#: PQ4063 .I88 1994: ISBN: 0313283478
Includes bibliographical references (p. [447]-452) and index
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[One chapter in Wendy Beth Heller's study, "The Emblematic
Woman," discusses Marinella's Nobilta only briefly
(pp.35-37), but the whole chapter provides a useful explanation
of the attitudes toward women that led to the polemical writing
of Marinella and others. (See
the book's table of contents online.):]
Heller, Wendy Beth. Emblems of eloquence: opera and women's
voices in seventeenth-century Venice. Berkeley: University of
California Press, c2003. (xix, 386 p.: ill., music )
LC#: ML2100 .H45 2003; ISBN: 0520209338
Includes bibliographical references (p. 353-369) and index
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Updated 02-11-08