Category: Italian Women

Caterina Sforza – Daughter of Perdition

August 16, 2016

Raucous Royal Reblog: Raucous Royal of the Month, Caterina Sforza: Daughter of Perdition  From http://blog.raucousroyals.com/2010/05/raucous-royal-of-month-caterina-sforza.html “…more is always said then the real truth” – Caterina Sforza On August 1483, the 21 year old Caterina Sforza rode up to the Castel Sant’ Angelo as shouts of “Duca! Duca!” cut through the stifling heat. Clad in a green satin … More Caterina Sforza – Daughter of Perdition

Art of Isabella d’Este 

July 12, 2016

From https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/eascfa/dinner_party/place_settings/isabella_d_este Isabella d’Este (Gonzaga) was a powerful and well-educated political figure, humanitarian, patron of the arts, and mother of seven. Known as “The First Lady of the Renaissance,” she was related to nearly every ruler in Italy either by birth or marriage. D’Este was the oldest of six children born into the ruling family … More Art of Isabella d’Este 

Punto Antico – Drawn Thread Work

June 28, 2016

Various Sources for Renaissance Italian embroidery/ drawn thread work… I. Punto Antico From http://www.florin.ms/puntoantico.html Drawn-thread work has its origins in the distant past: it is carried out by counting threads and fashioning an infinity of stitches drawn from these basic ones: Square Stitch, right angled or oblique (which surrounds the meshwork and subdivides the work … More Punto Antico – Drawn Thread Work

Caterina Sforza – The Alchemist

June 21, 2016

“THE ALCHEMIST’S DESIRE”: RECIPES FOR HEALTH AND BEAUTY FROM CATERINA SFORZA 03/03/2015 By Meredith K. Ray  In this blog post, I’m presenting material from my forthcoming book Daughters of Alchemy: Women and Scientific Culture in Early Modern Italy (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2015). The material in this post is drawn from Chapter One, “Caterina Sforza’s Experiments with Alchemy,” and Chapter Three, … More Caterina Sforza – The Alchemist

Laura Cereta: Against Women Who Disparage Learned Women

June 7, 2016

Laura Cereta  (1469-1499)was a writer, a humanist, and a feminist literary figure during the Italian Renaissance. She was born into an upper-middle-class family in Brescia. Her father was an attorney and magistrate and her mother’s family descended from nobility. Most of what we know of Laura comes from the image she crafter for herself in … More Laura Cereta: Against Women Who Disparage Learned Women

Isabella d’Este

May 6, 2016

Isabella d’Este: A Renaissance Woman by Lorenzo Bonoldi (Author), Clark Anthony Lawrence (Translator) “Isabella d’Este (Ferrara 1474 – Mantua 1539) was already defined in her lifetime as “The first lady of the world”, and remains today one of the most brilliant characters of the Italian Renaissance. The first-born daughter of Duke Ercole of Ferrara and Eleonora of Aragon, at … More Isabella d’Este

Italian Letter Writing & Laura Cereta

May 3, 2016

Over the years I’ve gathered examples of letters written in period. Perhaps you will find this information helpful when composing a letter of recommendation, commendation, or other correspondence (especially in persona). Let’s start with a solid resource. In Principles of Letter Writing or Rationes Dictandi (Ars dictandi) translated by James Murphy it states: “There are, … More Italian Letter Writing & Laura Cereta

Fortress of Castrocaro

October 14, 2015

Fortress of Castrocaro (Terme e Terra del Sole, Via Fortezza, 2 –  Read More) In the heart of Emilia-Romagna, where the river flows slowly in the valley between the slopes of the foothills of the Apennines, there is bedrock on which, for over a thousand years, stands the Fortress of Castrocaro. This singular and accentuated … More Fortress of Castrocaro

Laura Cereta

October 5, 2015

Laura Cereta: Italian Humanist by Sharon Jensen By Sharon Jensen (Read original article here)   Laura Cereta’s “portrait,” from the 1640 edition of her work We know that the Italian humanist Laura Cereta was born in September of 1469 and that she died in 1499, just thirty years old. But I am using the date … More Laura Cereta