An early edition of Sienese humanist Alessandro Piccolomini’s (1508-79) contribution to the Renaissance 'querelle des femmes', an outrageous and scandalising dialogue between two women. The first edition was printed in 1539, by Curtio Navo, from whose presses another issued in 1540; all editions are rare. Of the present we have found just six copies institutionally.
The conversation here takes place between two Sienese neighbours, Margarita, young, and Raffaella, older. Prompted by Margarita’s beauty and youth, Raffaella quickly begins to reflect on her own youth, and her own regrets. Setting the tone for what follows, her regrets are not for previous bad behaviour, but rather, missed opportunities for such behaviour.
She explains to Margarita that she should ‘far qualche erroruzzo in gioventu, che riservarsi come ho fatto io’ (make errors in her youth, rather than be reserved and restrained as she, Raffaella, was; f.6r). Accordingly, she proceeds to encourage Margarita in enjoyably excessive and lascivious behaviour: she must go to parties and gatherings, dress beautifully, wear jewels, perfumes, keep up with fashions, be loved and admired -in short, ‘vivere allegramente’ (f.6r-v). Raffaella is utterly scandalised when she hears that Margarita’s husband has been away on business for two months – ‘Two months? You mean he’s left you here, alone, in the bloom of your youth, for two months?’ (7v). Above all, she instructs her in the importance of conducting extramarital affairs.
Raffaella’s advice ranges over a broad array of topics, and is both in-depth and deliciously catty and colloquial: wear colours, but not too many at once (f.11r); wear fine clothes, but make sure that they are ample and luxurious, for there is nothing worse than the tiny dresses favoured by some women in Sienna that don’t have six inches of cloth to them (f.9v; the colloquial ‘culo’ is colourfully used here); artfully apply colour to the cheeks and chest to show them to their best advantage (f.14v); pout while out and about; avoid youths in their early twenties, who have no idea how to conduct an affair longer than three days (f.27v).
This dialogue is Alessandro Piccolomini's contribution to the long-standing 'querelle des femmes' which 'raged' intellectually in the late medieval and early modern periods in the Italian peninsula and France. Concerned with the nature of women, and their relative inferiority or superiority to men, intellectual abilities, and scholarly capabilities, it was, for men like Piccolomini, principally an intellectual exercise - indeed, the pseudonym 'Stordito Intronato' refers to his membership of the provocative intellectual society, the Accademia degli Intronati (though some have suggested that the present work, with its strong message in favour of adultery, was an attempt to woo the married poet Laudomia Forteguerri). This satire inverts expectation - it is women here openly and materially discussing their needs and desires, rather than men. ‘Fortune helps those who help themselves’ (f.39v), Raffaella finally declares to a converted Margarita.
Minor browning to fore edge of title page, occasional browning otherwise a nice copy.
'Alessandro Piccolomini', McGill-hosted Querelle Project website [querelle.ca, open access]. BMSTC (Italian), p.648. Gamba, no.1572. Parenti, p.40. Censimento Edit 16 68464.
OCLC: UCLA, Yale, Notre Dame, Penn. UK: Manchester, Oxford.
