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Updated 05-13-12
Cassandra Fedele
(1465-1558)
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"I CAN RENDER MYSELF IMMORTAL AND HAPPY IN THIS LIFE."
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Cassandra Fedele was born to a professional Venetian family of some literary reputation. As a child she was taught Latin and Greek by her humanist father; when she was about 12, she began to study classical literature and rhetoric with a Servite monk who was a humanist teacher. She came to be viewed as a local prodigy; from the time she was 16, she was invited to appear and speak before learned men.
By 1487, Fedele's reputation had spread to the University of Padua, the center of learning for Venetian scholars. In that year she presented one of the public orations given at the university for a cousin who was graduating with honors in the Liberal Arts. This made her something of a sensation in humanist circles; her Latin oration was printed in the same year at Modena and in the next two years at Venice and at Nuremberg.
For the next ten years, Fedele engaged in a wide correspondence with fellow scholars throughout Italy and abroad, as well as with lay and religious leaders. Her correspondence, published (with her three orations) 80 years after her death, included 122 letters (99 by Fedele), but her editor said he had made his selection from a much larger number.
In 1488, Fedele was invited by Queen Isabella of Spain to join her court. Correspondence about a possible move continued to 1495, but the trip was never made, apparently due to Fedele's health, warfare in Italy, and perhaps Venice's reluctance to lose its prodigy. At some point, perhaps in the 1490s, Fedele gave another public oration, in praise of the study of literature, before the Doge and the senators of Venice.
In 1499 Fedele married Gian-Maria Mappelli, a physician. Little of her correspondence after her marriage is extant; of her published letters all but one were written before 1499. Nothing is known of her married life, except that in 1515 she and her husband went for five years to the island of Crete, where he practiced medicine.
On their return to Venice in 1520, most of their possessions were lost in a storm; her husband died in the same year. They had no children, but Fedele apparently assumed the care of her widowed mother and her nieces and nephews (her father, brother, and one sister had died while she was in Crete). The last letter in her published collection is to Pope Leo X, asking for financial help in supporting her family.
Of Fedele's later years, little is known. In 1547, Pope Paul III arranged with the Venetian Senate to give her the position of "lay prioress" of an orphanage in Venice. In 1556, she made her last public oration, in honor of the visiting Queen of Poland. At her death two years later, Fedele was given a state funeral.
On this page you'll find:
Links to helpful sites online.
Excerpts from translations in print.
Information on secondary sources.
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1. Links to the pages of the Latin original of Fedele's collected works, Epistolae & orationes, edited in 1636 by Jacopo Filippo Tomasini (the 122 letters of her correspondence are followed by the 3 orations). The etching is based on a portrait made when Fedele was a young girl (a larger version can be seen below in #2).
2. Essays, etc.:
(a) A biography of Fedele by Jennifer Haraguchi, followed by a 2003 bibliography of translations and critical studies. (At the same site, a 1497 woodcut portrait from Jacobus de Bergamo's De Claris Selectisque Mulieribus, printed in Ferrara when Fedele was 32 years old; given below it is an enlargement of the 1636 etching shown in #1 above.)
(b) At the bottom of the page, you can download a PDF file (519 KB) of Sarah Gwyneth Ross' 2007 essay, "Her Father's Daughter: Cassandra Fedele, Woman Humanist of the Venetian Republic," which discusses Fedele's presentation of herself in the role of a daughter to her male correspondents, a presentation that shielded her from the criticism that a learned woman might receive; quoted passages are in Ross' translation, with the original given in the notes.
3. A timeline of Fedele's life.
4. Reviews (for excerpts from the translation, see under "In print"; for information on the other books' treatment of Fedele, see "Secondary sources"):
(a ) In a review of several works from the series, "The other voice in early modern Europe," Constance Jordan on Diana Robin's 2000 translation of Fedele, Letters and Orations.
(b) Christine Meek on Ross' 2009 study, The Birth of Feminism: Woman as Intellect in Renaissance Italy and England; elsewhere, another review, this by Julie D. Campbell.
(c) Carole Collier Frick on the 1999 essay collection, Feminism and Renaissance Studies; and another review, by Anna Kelley.
(d) James M. Weiss on the 1995 collection, The Rhetorics of Life-writing in Early Modern Europe: Forms of Biography from Cassandra Fedele to Louis XIV.
5. For historical background:
(a) In this outline of the growth of humanism by Albert Rabil, Jr., see the section (half way down the page), "The Spread of Humanism Throughout Italy."
(b) After an introduction by the translator, Leonardo Bruni's letter to Baptista Malatesta of Montefeltro, written in the early 1400s and translated in1912 by William Harrison Woodward. Bruni illustrates the early humanist belief that classical studies are "worthy to be pursued by men and women alike."
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[Diana Robin has translated Epistolae & orationes, which contains Fedele's three orations and all but five of her known letters. Although Robin has arranged the letters by theme rather than chronologically, she gives the number of each letter, so you can find the original online at the link above. Robin's introductions and notes are helpful. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
Letters and orations / Cassandra Fedele; edited and translated
by Diana Robin. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000. (xxvii,
181 p.: port)
LC#:PA8520.F392 A27 2000; ISBN:0226239314, 0226239322
Includes bibliographical references and index.
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"So let the fear end here."
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[At 22, Fedele was invited to speak at the University of Padua to praise her cousin, Bertuccio Lamberti, who was graduating with honors. (For the original Latin, see "In Gymnasio Patavino pro Bertucio Lamberto," at p.193 ff. online.) Fedele begins her oration with an effective rhetorical touch: the way in which her hearers receive her will act as "proof" of their possession of all other virtues:]
Gracious fathers, officers of the academy, and gentlemen worthy of the highest honor, if it were fitting for me to be afraid..., I would stutter and stammer, and I would gradually lose my composure. But I know that my coming here is fitting, though it is by no means very brave. So let the fear end here.
I am well aware that many of you may think it outrageous that I, a young girl to whom higher learning is denied, would come before an assembly of men so learned and so luminous and not worry about my sex or talent for speaking, especially in this city where the liberal arts are flourishing now as they once did in Athens....
I have dared to come here to speak relying on your great gentility and leniency, which, I trust, will allow you to forgive me if I should speak inelegantly and unintelligently. Indeed, there is such power in this particular virtue of yours that I hold it as proof that you are endowed with all the other virtues. [p.155]
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"...you have brought glory to us both."
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[In her oration, Fedele praises her cousin for his devotion to his studies, his love of eloquence and of philosophy. At the end, she identifies herself with her cousin, so that the honor given to him accrues to her as well:]
...I wish to give uncommon thanks to you because you are here today in great numbers to honor my kinsman Bertuccio and me who came to praise him, and because by your distinguished presence you have brought glory to us both. On that account, may I pledge, as I would do on behalf of a brother, that as long as my kinsman and I are alive, neither one of us shall ever flag in our service to you or in our gratitude for your magnanimity, as is fitting in remembrance of your great gift. [p.159]
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"...listening, questioning, and entering into the disputes
themselves...."
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[From a letter to the rector of the Liberal Arts faculty at Padua, describing the aftermath of her oration. The letter suggests that in addition to giving an oration, Fedele also participated in debate at the university (see Epistle 99 online):]
After my departure, when I returned home, numerous men and women not only approached me to congratulate me but actually overwhelmed me. Besides, due to their pleasure at my appearance at the university of Padua, a city renowned for its flourishing studies, as many of my friends and family as could have participated in the meeting and its debates were there with me when I delivered my oration and argued my case --- listening, questioning, and entering into the disputes themselves.... [p.66]
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"This is permitted to each whether great or small."
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[From a letter to a fellow-scholar, on the difficulty of studying Aristotle, far more complex that the Greek and Latin rhetoricians with whom she was familiar (see Epistle 7 online):]
...[S]ometimes I am angry because Aristotle's beliefs don't want to be understood by me and like a brilliant ray of light they scorn me as if I were darkness itself. It is not clear to me whether I should adore him with honey-sweet compliments or regard him with disgust.
[She will choose the "honey-sweet":]
...I shall not cease to beg him by expression, gesture, and the sweetest words and the say, "O charming leader, I beg you to allow me, Cassandra, to understand you. even though you are considered the prince among philosophers, still you are known to be humane and kind to those who wish to be your pupils, and this is permitted to each whether great or small." [p.76]
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"All this I shall relinquish...."
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[An uncle of Fedele's was papal legate to Spain. Through him, Queen Isabella heard of Cassandra and, in 1488, invited her to join the Spanish court. Circumstances prevented this from happening, but one letter to Isabella shows Fedele's perception of the combined role of scholar and courtier (see Epistle 11 online):]
...I shall abandon my kin, friends, and my native city. All this I shall relinquish so that I may enjoy the happiness I have long desired, under the shade of your wings. I believe I can render myself immortal and happy in this life in two ways: one, through the dedication of my life to literature, a goal to which I have devoted myself from a tender age on; the other, through my complete commitment to you, mind and soul, to the end that I may admire and contemplate your fortitude and the rest of your magnificent virtues and in your very presence. And through the agency of my eulogy, may the gathering together of all the virtues continue to abide in in your incomparable breast.
All that remains for me to say is that it is yours to command in your prudence when and how the plans for the journey of my companions should be carried out. [pp.21-22]
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"...so are our natures cultivated, enhanced, and enlightened...."
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[Sometime before 1500 (probably before her marriage), Fedele gave a second public oration, this time before the Doge and the Venetian senators and patricians (see "De laudibus literarum oratio," at p.201 ff. online). Her opening:]
The great orator and philosopher Giorgio Valla, who has thought me worthy of his presence here, has urged and emboldened me... to ponder what the constant and debilitating immersion in scholarship might do for the weaker sex in general, since I myself intend to pursue immortality through such study. And so I decided to oblige him and to obey his repeated demands and finally his insistence that I deliver a public oration....
I shall speak very briefly of the study of the liberal arts, which for humans is useful and honorable, pleasurable and enlightening since everyone, not only philosophers but the most ignorant man, knows and admits that is is by reason that man is separated from the beasts. [pp.159-60]
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"...the lowly and execrable weapons of the little woman."
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[As Robin points out, this oration is apparently incomplete in its printed form. The extant part deals with the effect of learning on uneducated men, the "boorish rabble"; only the last sentence speaks specifically of women. For men, learning is useful, since it is men who serve the state; for women, learning is at least pleasurable. But for all:]
Just as places that lie unused and uncultivated become fertile and rich in in fruits and vegetables with men's labor and hard work and are always made beautiful, so are our natures cultivated, enhanced, and enlightened by the liberal arts. [p.161]
[And the last sentence:]
And when I meditate on the idea of marching forth in life with the lowly and execrable weapons of the little woman --- the needle and the distaff --- even if the study of literature offers women no rewards or honors, I believe women must nonetheless pursue and embrace such studies alone for the pleasure and enjoyment they contain.... [p.162]
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" I shall concentrate with such intellectual dedication...."
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[The last letter in the translation is written in 1521 to Pope Leo X, son of Lorenzo de' Medici, with whose courtiers Fedele had corresponded. She describes the death of her husband, mourns his loss, and then asks for help. Although she was childless, she was apparently caring for orphaned nieces and nephews. Perhaps of most interest is her plan to continue her intellectual work (see Epistle 122 online):]
I ask you to provide assistance to my family and me (for we are quite numerous) so that we can at least devote ourselves, if not to honor, then at least to the problem of making a living. But, most pious Father, should I accomplish with the help of your generosity what I hope for, then you will have helped many people. And, ignorant though I am, I shall concentrate with such intellectual dedication that I will be willing to be everlastingly in your debt and to owe everything to your magnanimity, holiest father. [p.106]
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"...my life too might be consigned to immortality."
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[In 1556, the Venetian Senate asked the 91-year-old Fedele to address the visiting queen of Poland. (For this last oration, see "Oratio pro adventu Serenissimae Sarmaticae Reginae," at p.207 ff. online.) After apologizing to the queen for not having written earlier about her great deeds, Fedele tells her:]
But to say something myself to celebrate the greatness of your fame, which has traveled to the ends of the earth while I have remained silent, I would gladly spend all the days of my life. Nor is there anything that could please me more or that I could hope for more than that, not because I think your name would be embellished by my work and industry, but so that in glorifying you I might hope that my life too might be consigned to immortality. [p.163]
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[The 1981 anthology of translations by Margaret L. King and Albert Rabil, Jr. includes the translation of the three orations and a letter, translated by King and Rabil. Also given is a summary of a letter Fedele wrote in 1514 to a Dominican theologian; this letter is not given in Robin's translation. In this 1992 edition the content is unchanged, the notes and bibliography updated. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
Her immaculate hand: selected works by and about the women
humanists of Quattrocento Italy / edited by Margaret L. King
and Albert Rabil, Jr. Asheville, NC: Pegasus Press, c1997. (x,
173 p.)
LC#: PA8163 .H47 1997; ISBN: 0866981241
Includes bibliographical references (p. [157]-166) and index.
[Reprint of revised 1992 edition.]
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[ Sarah Gwyneth Ross' study of educated women who came to be seen as significant writers on subjects usually thought of as the domain of men includes discussion of Fedele's letters (pp. 40-48, pp.156-59). Quoted passages are given in Ross' own translation. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
Ross, Sarah Gwyneth. The birth of feminism: woman as intellect
in Renaissance Italy and England. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Press, 2009. (405 p.)
LC#: HQ1641 .R68 2009; ISBN: 9780674034549
Includes bibliographical references and index.
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[In this 1995 collection, an essay by Diana Robin, "Cassandra Fedele's Epistolae (1488-1521): Biography as Ef-facement," gives more detail than does her 2000 translation about letters written to Fedele and about the arrangement of the 1636 edition of her work:]
The rhetorics of life-writing in early modern Europe: forms
of biography from Cassandra Fedele to Louis XIV / edited by Thomas
F. Mayer and D.R. Woolf (Studies in medieval and early modern
civilization). Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995.
(viii, 391 p.: ill.)
LC#: CT21 .R52 1995; ISBN: 0472105914
Includes bibliographical references and index
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[In their study's second chapter, "Women Humanists: Education for What?" Anthony Grafton and Lisa Jardine include a discussion of Fedele's correspondence with the humanist Politian (Angelo Poliziano). The focus is on letters written by Politian, which reveal how Fedele was perceived by her male humanist contemporaries. Grafton and Jardine give their own translations of quoted passages, with the original Latin in the notes:]
From humanism to the humanities: education and the liberal
arts in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Europe / Anthony Grafton
& Lisa Jardine. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,
1986. (xvi, 224 p.)
LC#: LA106 .G73 1986; ISBN: 0674324609
Includes bibliographical references and index
[The essay was re-printed in Feminism and Renaissance Studies,
ed. Lorna Hudson (1999); LC#: HQ1148 .F46 1999; ISBN:
0198782446, 0198782438 (See
the book's table of contents online.)]
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Updated 05-13-12