Return to the index of "Other Women's Voices."
Updated 11-20-08
Isabella Canali Andreini (1562-1604)
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"OH, WHAT CAN'T A WOMAN DO?"
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In 1578 the 16-year-old Isabella Canali, from Padua, married 30-year-old Francisco Andreini and joined the Compagnia dei Comici Gelosi, a group of professional actors. The Gelosi was a traveling troupe that performed both fully-scripted plays and the combination of written speeches and improvisation that would later come to be called commedia dell'arte. The troupe, directed by a nobleman, Flaminio Scala, was already well-respected; in 1573 it had staged Torquato Tasso's pastoral drama, Aminta, for the Duke of Ferrara; and when the Andreinis married in 1578, the troupe had just returned from France, where it had performed for Henry III.
The Andreinis would remain members of the company until Isabella's death: Francisco playing the role first of a leading man and later the comic role of a braggart captain; Isabella always playing a woman in love, the "Innamorata." When she was able to improvise on a written scenario, Isabella created a new kind of "Innamorata," one not only beautiful but learned and eloquent. We don't know what kind of education Isabella had as a child, but now she read and studied and wrote; at the same time, she was traveling, acting and raising her seven children. The eldest son would join the Gelosi; through the patronage of the Gonzagas, rulers of Mantua, the other six children would be established: one son in the military, the other son and four daughters in monasteries near Mantua.
By 1587 Andreini's sonnets were being printed in Italian anthologies, and this recognition seems to have given her the courage to publish other work. In 1588 she published Mirtilla, a pastoral drama in which, unlike Tasso's Aminta, the women determine their own fate. She continued to write poetry and to correspond, especially with scholars, with whom she could discuss the classical learning she loved.
With all of this, she also continued to travel and act with the Gelosi; in 1589 Francisco became director of the group. In that same year, at the marriage in Florence of a Medici to a French princess, Andreini acted one of the few improvisational roles of which we have a contemporary description, La pazzia d'Isabella (The madness of Isabella). The description reveals how she tailored the role to highlight her skill and her interests: when mad, the character spoke several languages well, sang in French to the French bride, and imitated the dialects of the others characters in the play; when made sane again, "Isabella" spoke of love and its snares "with elegant and learned style."
In the fall of 1601 Andreini published her Rime, a collection of 359 poems. Earlier in the same year she had been made a member of the Accademia degli Intenti, a group centered at Pavia. This was not the token gesture that it often appears to have been when other academies elected a woman member; Andreini was already a correspondent of several of the members, and apparently attended some of the group's meetings. Her family rated the honor highly: when her other writing was published posthumously, the author was identified not only as "comica gelosi" but also as "academica Intenta."
Even before the publication of Rime, Andreini had begun to put together her Lettere, a collection not of her own correspondence but of 148 fictional epistles, by both male and female personae, which presented Andreini's views on life and art. At least part of it was in circulation in manuscript by the end of 1601, when it was set aside because of Andreini's theatrical duties. For the next year the troupe was traveling in northern Italy; in early 1603, the group went to Paris. They had been there in 1599, playing before Henry IV and his new Italian wife, Maria de Medici; now they returned to act again for the court and the public. While they were there, a French translation of Rime was published and praised. On their return trip in 1604, Andreini died at Lyon during the miscarriage of her eighth child.
After Andreini's death, Francisco disbanded the Gelosi. His eldest son, Giovan Battista, had established his own group in 1601, and many of the Gelosi went to join that company. Francisco himself retired, to publish his wife's remaining works. Rime..., Parte seconda came out in 1605; it included Andreini's post-1600 poetry and poems written about her by others, and at the end, some eclogues, pastoral monologues and dialogues that appear to have been used in her improvised comedies. The Lettere was published two years later.
Of greatest interest to theater historians is Fragmenti de alcune scritture, prepared by Francisco and published in 1617: thirty-one dialogues between the "Innamorati" of the improvised plays. With the dramatic sections of Rime..., Parte seconda, this provides one of the fullest available collections of material used in the early commedia dell'arte.
To date, only Mirtilla has been translated in full, but excerpts from Andreini's other writing can be seen in selections and studies.
On this page you'll find:
Links to helpful sites online
Excerpts from translations in print:
Mirtilla
Rime
Rime..., Parte seconda
Lettere
Private correspondenceInformation about secondary sources
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1. About half-way down the page, "See how dewy morning glows," a translation by Laura Anna Stortoni and Mary Prentice Lillie of a scherzo from the 1601 Rime, "Ecco I'alba rugiadosa," accompanied by commentary by Sharon Greany.
2. At this alphabetical list from the University of Chicago's
"Italian Women Writers" site, go to Andreini and click
on "Texts Available" for a link to the originals of
the 31 dialogues that make up the 1617 Fragmenti
de alcune scritture; the dialogues, some quite detailed,
deal with love, of course, but also with the various literary
forms and the relative value of arms and letters. You can also
link to Francisco Andreini's address to the reader, "A'
benigni lettori." At the same site, a
bibliography of the earliest editions of Andreini's works
(note, though, that it does not include the 1605 Rime...,
Parte seconda); from here you can download PDF files of a
1602 edition of Mirtilla ("nuovamente corretta &
ristampata"), and of the 1607 Lettere.
3. A link to the text of
The Commedia dell'arte: A Study in Italian Popular Comedy
(1912), by Winifred Smith; there see pp. 112-115 for
a detailed description of the 1589 scenario, La pazzia d'Isabella;
you can also download the work as a PDF file.
4. Essays, etc.:
(a) A translation of an illustrated 2005 essay by Marino Palleschi, "The Commedia dell'Arte: Its Origins, Development & Influence on the Ballet"; the entire essay is of interest, but for information on Isabella and her family, use your browser's search function to go to "Gelosi." There you will also see a painting of the Gelosi troupe in France (the woman shown may be Isabella), followed by a portrait of Isabella with her eldest son.
(b) In a brief 2007 article, "A Renaissance Superstar," Laura Granfortuna interviews Anne MacNeil about her research on Andreini (for excerpts from a 2003 translation by MacNeil, see below, under "In print").
(c) A 2003 conference report of on-going research by Erith Jaffe on the significance of Andreini's bodily presentation at the 1589 La pazzia d'Isabella performance. And a response to Jaffe's report by a colleague, Elizabeth Reitz Mullenix.
(d) "Publish or Perish: An Early-Seventeenth-century Paradox," (1998), by Maria Galli Stampino, discusses the reasons for and the consequences of the Andreinis' (and a few others') having their scenarios printed.
(e) "La Castita Conquistata: The Function of the Satyr in Pastoral Drama" (1997), by Meredith Kennedy Ray, discusses five Italian plays of the 1500s, including Tasso's Aminta and Andreini's Mirtilla. (At another site, a 1997 translation of Tasso's Aminta by Malcolm Hayward; it is interesting to compare the two playwrights' treatments of their women characters.)
(f) An abstract of a 1998 paper by Rosalind Kerr, "Borderline Crossings: Dissecting Isabella Andreini's Queer Bod(ies)," more detailed than most abstracts.
5. Reviews (for excerpts from the first two books, see 'In print": for information on the other books' treatment of Andreini, see "Secondary sources").
(a) Patrizia Bettella on James Wyatt Cook's 2005 translation, Selected Poems of Isabella Andreini.
(b) Kelley Harness on MacNeil's 2003 study /translation, Music and Women of the Commedia dell'arte in the Late Sixteenth Century.
(c) Patricia Phillippy on Julie D. Campbell's 2006 study, Literary Circles and Gender in Early Modern Europe: A Cross-cultural Approach.
(d) Fiora A. Bassanese on the 2000 essay collection, A History of Women's Writing in Italy; elsewhere, another review, this by Laura A. Salsini.
(e) Elissa B.Weaver on the 2000 collection, Women in Italian Renaissance Culture and Society.
6. Contemporary portraits, etc:
(a) From the frontispiece engraving of the 1588 Mirtilla.
(b) The frontispiece of the 1601 Rime.
(c) An etching from the 1607 Lettere. Also from the 1607 Lettere: the title page identifying Isabella as "Comica Gelosi, & Academica Intenta"; and the emblem of her membership in the Accademia.
(d) The two sides of the medal struck in Lyon at Isabella's death in 1604.
7. For historical background:
(a) A chronology of women's participation in early commedia dell'arte; and at the same site, links to other commedia timelines (note those to "Music" and "Related History").
(b) A 2002 essay by Michael A. Zampelli, "Trent Revisited:A Reappraisal of Early Modern Catholicism's Relationship with the Commedia Italiana," describes the effect of the Council of Trent (which ended in 1563) on the professional theater in the later 1500s and the early 1600s. The Gelosi troupe and Andreini's son are mentioned in the notes, but the whole article illustrates why Andreini had to stress to her readers and hearers her learning and virtue.
(c) Another 2002 essay gives a specific example of the above. Eugene J. Johnson's "The Short, Lascivious Lives of Two Venetian Theaters, 1580-85" includes a description of the Gelosi's 1584 attempt to get permission to stage "pastorals, tragedies and most wholesome comedies" at one of Venice's comedy theatres.
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[Julie D. Campbell has translated Andreini's verse drama Mirtilla. Campbell's introduction discusses the play's use of classical and contemporary pastoral; the notes to the introduction include references to critical studies not found in the book's bibliography. The notes explain classical allusions:]
Andreini, Isabella. La Mirtilla: a pastoral / translated with
an introduction and notes by Julie D. Campbell (Medieval &
Renaissance texts and studies; v. 242). Tempe, Ariz.: Arizona
Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2002. (xxvii, 105
p.: ill.)
LC#: PQ4562.A72 M5713 2002; ISBN: 0866982841
Includes bibliographical references (p. [103]-105)
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"...like those who are born and reared in... sterile fields."
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[In the opening of the dedicatory letter to the Marchesa of Vasto, Andreini acknowledges the oddity of someone of her background attempting the "high and noble" exercise of poetry, but asserts her right to do so:]
I began almost as a joke... to apply myself to the study of poetry, and I found it such a delight that I have never since been able to give up such entertainments. And, although heaven denied me the genius suitable for so high and noble an exercise, I was not therefore dismayed; on the contrary, I strove to be like those who are born and reared in the snowy Alps or sterile fields, who nevertheless struggle with all their might to cultivate the land and produce something as fruitful as possible. [p.1]
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"Everyone will admire...."
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[After the first act introduces five characters, each of whom love someone who doesn't reciprocate that love, Act 2 begins with Ardelia, a nymph dedicated to the virgin goddess Diana, who will soon fall in love with her own reflection, but who seems rather well pleased with herself already:]
Ardelia: Now that the hills and valleys are adorned
with jewels
of white, vermilion, blue, and yellow flowers,
I will sit by this clear spring
that, with its sweet and pleasing murmur,
invites me to rest my weary limbs,
and weave a pretty garland for my hair,
so that everyone will admire Ardelia's flowers.
And, with invariable thought, they will observe
my modesty so very dear
to the chaste goddess....
...Oh, what beautiful flowers!
I may well compose a garland so
beautiful that my friends will envy it. [p.27]
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"Listen to me."
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[Later in Act 2, a double conversation of "stichomythia" (brief alternating speeches). Mirtilla loves Uranio who loves Ardelia who loves no one; Uranio has to woo Ardelia while resisting Mirtilla. The passage begins:]
Mirtilla: Look, Uranio, listen to me, for I love you
as much as
the silent fish loves the seaweed and the waves!
Uranio: Look, Ardelia, listen to me, for I love you
as much as
the ingenious bees love beautiful flowers!
Ardelia: Shepherd, leave me be, for I hate you as much
as
the bleating sheep hate the wolf!
Uranio: Nymph [Mirtilla], leave me be, for I hate you
as much as
the birds hate the sticky traps!...
[And later continues:]
Mirtilla: The greyhound follows the wolf; I alas, follow
you, who flee me and with your fleeing, kill me!
Uranio: The wolf follows the sheep; I, alas, follow
the blessed and dear tracks of your feet!
Ardelia: The doves flee the birds of prey,
and I flee your sight!
Uranio: The fearful hares flee the dogs,
yet much more I flee and hate Mirtilla! [pp.35-36]
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"Neither... will help her."
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[Act 3 opens with Satiro, a satyr --- half-man and half-goat (and so seen with horns and "hairy coat") --- alone on stage, describing his attraction to the nymph Filli. At the end of his soliloquy:]
Satiro: Filli, do not scorn me! Come, for a gift
you will have the head and the branched horns
of an old stag! Come, my divine sun!
But you do not care for my gifts, nor do you care
that I am (alas) for you some fog in the wind.
But if love avails nothing, I will try deceit!
I will stand behind that bush,
and if she, as is her custom,
will walk through this meadow,
with my arms I will make a chain,
and, if she won't surrender to my will,
I'll do her a thousand outrages!
Neither her beauty nor her loud cries
or her request for mercy will help her. [p.43]
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"...a joke, a tale, and a game."
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[Satiro does capture Filli, but she neither cries out nor begs for mercy; instead, she uses her wit. By flattering Satiro, she gets him to release her and to let her tie him to a tree (as he had planned to do to her); then she mocks him and runs away. Now it is Satiro who cries out after her:]
Satiro: Filli, Filli, where are you going? Stop, listen,
at least untie me so that I do not become
a joke, a tale, and a game
for other pitiless nymphs like you!
Oh, what can't a woman do
when she is resolved to deceive? [p.50]
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"Abandon loving one who does not love you!"
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[Later in Act 3, Filli and Mirtilla, who have been quarreling because they both love Uranio, have gone to a wise old shepherd, Opico, and asked him to settle their quarrel; he arranges a singing contest in which each will defend her love. His judgment when they finish: both are worthy of being loved:]
Opico: There is no contest between you, where there
is such a great
likeness in valor!...
However, I must say that you toil in vain,
...he loves only Ardelia and cares only for Ardelia.
So put away the discord between you, O daughters,
and abandon loving one who does not love you!
[Each agrees to end the quarrel and, as importantly, accepts the possibility of loving someone else:]
Filli: ...And I pray that heaven will allow me (if
I
am deemed worthy of it) to possess the heart
of Uranio. If heaven still denies me this,
the love of Igilio move and transform my heart,
so that Igilio may enter where first there was Uranio.
Mirtilla: ...I also pray
that the stars either grant me my beloved
(if I am deemed worthy of it) or at least not deny me
the pleasure of my former freedom. [pp.59-60]
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"There's nothing that hides from our intellects."
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[In Act 4, the hunter Tirsi gives a lengthy speech explaining why he, at least, can never be taken in by something as foolish as love. (The reader knows immediately what will soon happen to him.) The play's one character who is happily in love throughout, Coridone, tries to convince Tirsi that love is better than riches and knowledge; his final example of knowledge reminds us of the period's newly intense interest in "the deep secrets of nature and heaven":]
Coridone: ...Oh, tell me, Tirsi, is is not a great
satisfaction
to understand fully the course of the stars,
the power of the planets...;
why the moon changes;
why the earth often
intervenes between the sun and his sister;
why the days are short and why they are long,
according to when the sun stays away or draws near;...
And finally, is it not a great satisfaction
to know how to investigate the deep secrets
of nature and heaven? And that there's nothing
that hides from our intellects?...
Oh, Tirsi, even though riches and wisdom
are considered gifts of great value, they are nothing like
the delights of love,
which have no equal. [pp.70-71]
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"Now I free myself from falsehood."
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[In Act 5 (by the end of which both Filli and Mirtilla will save their lovers from death by taking pity on them and accepting them), Ardelia, the nymph who had fallen in love with her own reflection in a pool of water, has been given by Uranio an unflattering description of a lonely old age. She, like Filli and Mirtilla, decides to choose a lover with whom a future is possible:]
Ardelia: Your wise counsel
is so powerful that I am ready
to change my will before I change my face!
Now I free myself from falsehood, and I give myself to truth:
I desire to love a body and no more a shadow.
Uranio, I give and consecrate myself to you,
and I want to live and die yours! [p.91]
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"...among the many, many gifts...."
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[Uranio's response is a rather ambiguous comment on women's ability to change their minds quickly:]
Uranio: You certainly show just now that you are a
woman,
since you have persuaded yourself all of a sudden
to make me wholly yours! Surely
the beautiful feminine sex,
among the many, many gifts
that heaven and nature
have granted it, also possesses counsel
which is only the wiser for having been little pondered. [p.92]
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"...happy and fortunate ends."
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[The play ends with all of the characters (except Satiro) going to Venus' Arcadian temple:]
Coridone: We go praising Amore
and his beautiful mother,
since by their mercies so many sorrows
have had happy and fortunate ends.
May fate always be favorable to this place,
and may the nightingales in a contest
among these green branches
warble wanton little notes
and with new desire
sing always of love's highest delights. [p.102]
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Rime d'Isabella Andreini Padovana,
Comica Gelosa (1601)
Rime d'Isabella Andreini Padovana, Comica Gelosa &
Academica Intenta detta l'Accesa. Parte seconda (1605)
[James Wyatt Cook has translated 96 of the poems published in 1601 and 1605: 89 by Andreini, 7 addressed to her by others; the Italian originals are given on facing pages. Anne MacNeil, who chose the poems to be translated, has included all that were popular with Andreini's contemporaries, either set to music or included in other writers' anthologies. MacNeil's introduction covers what can be known of Andreini's career and discusses the style of the Italian originals (an index of first lines helps the reader follow this). Cook's notes explain classical allusions. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
Selected poems of Isabella Andreini / edited and with an introduction
by Anne MacNeil; translation with annotations by James Wyatt
Cook. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2005. (xii, 215 p.)
LC#: PQ4562.A72 A26 2005; ISBN: 0810854422
Includes bibliographical references (p. 22-28) and index.
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"Don't believe in their feigned ardors."
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[From the 1601 Rime, the opening sonnet, "S'alcun sia mai," reminds the reader that lyrics are dramatic fictions and not personal revelations:]
If ever there is anyone who reads
These my neglected poems, don't believe
In their feigned ardors; loves imagined in
Their scenes I've handled with emotions false:
The Muses' inspirations high I have
Set forth with lies---no less with weasel words---
When my false sorrows sometimes I bewail,
Or sometimes sing my spurious delights;
And, as in theaters, in varied style,
I now have played a woman, now a man,
As Nature would instruct and Art as well,
So in green April, following once more
My star of fleeting years, with varied style
I ruled lines for at least a thousand leaves. [p.31]
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"New snares Love still sets out."
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[To illustrate the above warning, a madrigal for a male voice, "Qualhor candida," in which a Petrarchan lover praises his lady, who wears the black headdress of a married woman, but is also open to the attractions of widows, whose headdresses are white:]
Whenever my lady bares
The hand that wounds my heart so sweetly, white
And lovely beyond the one that closes her
Dark mantle, then I boast about my woe
And say, "Ah never does there shine
So bright against its mantle of the night
The star of love in Heaven."
Meanwhile, insidious,
Among the widows' kerchefs,
New snares Love still sets out to capture me. [p.97]
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"I shall not ever tire of seeking fame."
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[At the end of a canonzetta, "Vago di posseder," addressed to Gabriello Chiabrera (1552-1638), a poet who had praised Andreini and whose neoclassical verse and views of morality she admired, she asserts her own ambition (Permessus is the valley above which Mt. Helicon rises):]
Happy those who'll pursue the honored paths
You show to us, and if they can't imprint
Permessus' peak with footprints glorious,
They do not humbly creep through valley low.
I shall not ever tire of seeking fame,
For jealous oblivion won't obscure my name---
Although I see, while sweating at my work,
My face grow pale and my hair turning white. [p.43]
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"...when varied, fine words make it elegant."
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[A number of the sonnets in the 1605 Rime..., Parte seconda are responses to ones addressed to Andreini. A fellow playwright and admirer of Mirtilla, Angelo Ingegneri (1550-1613), had described her poems as too "florid" and urged her to clothe them in "simple garb" and to "let your fine, gentle words /Be used with less art, or less evident" (p.189). Andreini replies in "Un bel semiante":]
A lovely figure in disheveled dress
Will lose its grace; and viewers will be pleased
With well-kept gardens more than with green meads.
One hates the sun who scorns sublime delight.
Just so, more worthy's an original idea
When varied, fine words make it elegant.
That, though, does not describe my censured verse---
That, perfect Angel, only shines in you.
I have no art to cover up my style
With an art that of all sweetness has been stripped,
An unbefitting praise for heavenly song.
Ah, wise you (if to praise me you aren't loath!)
To tell the truth, first give me what I'm due.
The parise won't be mistaken for the blame. [p.191]
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Lettere d'Isabella Andreini Padovana, comica gelosa, et academica intenta, nominata l'Accesa (1607)
[Included in this anthology of translations by Laura Anna Stortoni and Mary Prentice Lillie is one of the fictional letters from Lettere, as well as four poems from Rime and a scene from Mirtilla; the Italian originals are given on the facing pages. Stortoni's introduction and bibliography are useful. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
Women poets of the Italian Renaissance: courtly ladies and
courtesans / edited by Laura Anna Stortoni; translated by Laura
Anna Stortoni and Mary Prentice Lillie. New York: Italica Press,
1997. (xxxiii, 267 p.: map)
LC#: PQ4225.E8 S838 1997; ISBN: 0934977437
Includes bibliographical references (p. 255-264) and index
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"...happy to live under that subjection into which they
are born."
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[In one of the most well-known of the fictional letters published three years after Andreini's death, the writer urges a man not to grieve over the recent birth of a daughter instead of the son he had hoped for. The letter-writer has told him of all the problems sons can cause and now describes what the average man would see as the perfect daughter (he would certainly not have seen a traveling actress as one):]
The patient women are happy to live under that subjection into which they are born and to lead a regimented and modest life; they contentedly regard the limited confines of their houses as a sweet prison, enjoying the continuous servitude; it does not burden them to be subjected to the strict command of others; it does not displease them to live in constant fear; and when knowledge of the things of the world is allowed them with age, as women who from birth have carried a modest and reverent demeanor, they do not dare to cast a glance anywhere unless their guardians allow it.
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"How many... marry a man who deserved to die before being
born?"
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[Andreini then immediately moves from the irony of the above to a polemical anger:]
How many women are there who, to obey the will of their parents, lock themselves up forever within solitary walls without protest? And how many women are there who, having to submit their necks to the marital yoke in order not to displease others, without any contradictions, marry a man who deserved to die before being born? And with what great patience do they later bear the greatest part of the unbearable faults of their husbands? [p.229]
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"Celebrate the birth of this daughter of yours."
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[And after listing some of the troublesome sons and valuable daughters of history and mythology, the letter concludes:]
Therefore, console your self, celebrate the birth of this daughter of yours, who, I hope, will bring you infinite joy..... I kiss your hand and pray to God that through his kindness he will give us a long life, so that we can enjoy the many and marvelous actions of your daughter. [p.231]
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[Anne MacNeil's study is properly a secondary source, but an appendix includes the extant corresponce between Andreini and a friend, Erycius Puteanus. In addition, to illustrate the main part of her discussion, MacNeil gives the original and her prose translation of twelve poems from Rime, brief excerpts from three of the Lettere, and the singing contest from Mirtilla. She also discusses La pazzia d'Isabella and analyzes several of the many musical settings of Andreini's poems. The book provides a detailed chronology of the commedia dell'arte from 1544 to1624. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
MacNeil, Anne. Music and women of the commedia dell'arte in
the late sixteenth century (Oxford monographs on music). Oxford;
New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. (viii, 360 p.: ill.,
music)
LC#: PQ4155 .M33 2003; ISBN: 0198166893
Includes bibliographical references (p. [325]-341) and index
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"Such as I am, I will be able... to sing."
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[In 1601 and 1602 the newly inducted Andreini corresponded with one of her fellow members of the Accademia degli Intenti, Erycius Puteanus (1574-1646), a Belgian humanist and classical scholar teaching in Milan; a poem of his praising Andreini had been included in her 1601 Rime. In one of his letters Erycius pays Andreini the ultimate compliment of saying that she has risen above her sex: "You transform yourself... into a man." In November 1601, she replies from Padua, where the troupe hade been performing for a month. Andreini does not speak of being like a man; instead she first speaks of other women writers:]
Oh! Would that I were I that famous Theano, wife of Pythagoras, who knew so much, or that other Greek Teano who likewise wrote such worthy things, because, if I were such as these, as you say I am, then I would seek to write of you.
[She goes on to say that although she lacks the ability to write heroic verse, she will write a sonnet in Erycius' honor --- as soon as she finishes her Lettere:]
But, such as I am, I will be able, nevertheless, to sing of our great light---our radiant sun of virtue---not worrying that I shall be blinded by the brilliance of such dazzling light, were I not at the moment working on my Letters which, so different in style, do not permit me to call forth the Muses to your contemplation. But perhaps they too, frightened by such a high subject, would refuse to come. [p. 308]
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"You teach me, who wants so much to learn."
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[But Andreini valued correspondents like Erycius for the intellectual stimulation they gave her. A month later, on Christmas Eve, when Erycius feared that his letters might distract her from her own writing, she answers:]
There is every reason to persuade you to write, but particularly these two: that in writing you gild the paper with your infinite virtue and you teach me, who wants so much to learn.
I, then, have every reason not to write, and for this principally: that the more I write, the more I show my ignorance. What then shall I do? If I write, I show myself to be ignorant, if I don't write I show myself to be ill-bred; of the two evils, I choose the lesser---that is, to write, since it is better, in my mind, to show oneself ignorant by defect of education, rather than ill-bred because of base nature....
Now a messenger of the most Serene Duke of Mantua [Vincenzo Gonzaga] has arrived, who has come for us, and so I cannot write any longer. Your Lordship, excuse me: from Mantua, God willing, I will make up for what I cannot do now. [p.314]
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"...satiate my hunger for learning."
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[In February 1602, from Mantua, about Erycius' letters:]
...[T]hey never arrive that they do not bring me some new good thing...; I will be anxiously awaiting the new fruits of your most excellent wit to satiate my hunger for learning. [p.316]
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"There is need to serve here."
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[From Isabella's last extant letter to Erycius, from Turin, where the troupe had arrived in August 1602; early in the next year they would make their final trip to France:]
If one's pen could be as prompt as one's desire, I would have greeted Mr. Erycius upon my arrival; but because it is impossible, his goodness must excuse my tardiness, which is truly worthy of excuse, since I do not have time enough to breathe, let alone to visit my dearest friends and patrons with letters.
We are most of the time called by his most serene highness outside the city, and when we do not go away, there is need to serve here, such that we are always busy, and so only with great effort I have been able to compose these sonnets, which I send as a sign of love to you.... [p.322]
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Anne MacNeil's 2003 study Music and Women of the Commedia dell'arte in the Late Sixteenth Century (above) is the best place to start, but here a few other sources:
[Richard Andrews' essay in this collection, "Isabella Andreini and Others: Women on Stage in the Late Cinquecento," discusses Andreini's position in the theatrical and literary worlds and the relation of her works to stage presentation. Andrews gives his translation (and the originals) of the opening sonnet of Rime and one of the Lettere. (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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[In Julie D. Campbell's study, one chapter, "The Querelle
over Silvia: La Mirtilla and Aminta in Dialogue,"
compares (in greater detail than in the introduction to Campbell's
translation of Mirtilla, above) Tasso's heroine Silvia
and Andreini's Filii. Campbell sees in the assertive character
of Filii, Andreini's participation in the ongoing literary quarrel
about the nature of women. (See
the book's table of contents online.):]
Campbell, Julie D. Literary circles and gender in early modern
Europe: a cross-cultural approach (Women and gender in the early
modern world). Aldershot, England; Burlington, VT: Ashgate, c2006.
(vii, 221 p.)
LC#: PN731 .C36 2006; ISBN: 0754654672
Includes bibliographical references (p. [203]-216) and index
----------------------
[The main part of Louise George Clubb's study deals with private
drama, written by courtiers and academiciams; however, an epilogue
discusses the professional players of Italy. Much of it (pp.257-278)
is on the Andreini family, and most of that on Isabella. Clubb
gives the Italian and her translation of one lengthy passage
and several briefer excerpts from Fragmenti. She also
includes Giuseppe Pavoni's description of Andreini's 1589 performance
of La pazzia d'Isabella:]
Clubb, Louise George. Italian drama in Shakespeare's time.
New Haven: Yale University Press, c1989. (xi, 292 p.: ill.)
LC#: PQ4139 .C85 1989; ISBN: 0300037120
Includes bibliographical references and index
---------------------
[Two essays in this history deal with Andreini's writing: Maria Luisa Doglio's on her letters and Giovanni Rabitti's on her poetry. (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
----------------------
[Nancy Dersofi's 8-page entry on Andreini in this reference work discusses the themes found in Lettere and Fragmenti and gives brief translations of some passages. (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
----------------------
[Michael Zampelli's article discusses, not Andreini herself, but a 1625 treatise, La ferza (The scourge), written by her eldest son, Giovan Battista, when he was director of his own company. The treatise's purpose was to defend the professional theatrical groups (and especially their women members) against attacks on their morality. Giovan Battista speaks of his mother, holding her up as the ideal union of professional skill, learning and virtue. Zampelli gives his own translation of substantial passages of the work, which is as yet unavailable in English. (See the issue's table of contents online, with a link to the article's absract.):]
Zampelli, Michael. The 'most honest and most devoted of women':
An early modern defense of the professional actress. Theatre
Survey: The Journal of the American Society for Theatre Research,
42:1 (May 2001), 1-23.
LC#: PN2000 .T716; ISSN:0040-5574
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Updated 11-20-08