Liberty, Irreverence, and the Place of Women in Early Modern Italian Culture

This book brings together essays from a range of disciplines within Early Modern Italian Studies, which focus on research areas pioneered by the prestigious Italianist, Letizia Panizza. The essays cover numerous themes, mirroring Panizza's broad scholarly interests, and refusal of artificial disciplinary separations. Contributions come from the fields of women's history, cultural history, intellectual history, political philosophy, and art history. They span from Giordano Bruno and the Renaissance interest in the lives of classical philosophers to the poetry of women in the Italian academies, representations of women in Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, and the poetry of Piero de Medici. The volume ends with essays on religious parody, libertinism, and controversial political writings. This book presents original new work by leading scholars in the intellectual, cultural and literary history of early modern Italy and is aimed at scholars of intellectual history, history of philosophy, literary history, women's studies and Italian history.