Selected Letters
Winner of the Society for the Study of Early Modern Women's 2018 Scholarly Edition in Translation Award for a work published in 2017
Isabella d’Este (1474–1539), daughter of the Este dukes of Ferrara and wife of Marchese Francesco II Gonzaga of Mantua, co-regent of the Gonzaga state, art collector, musician, diplomat, dynastic mother, traveler, reader, gardener, fashion innovator, and consummate politician, was also, as this volume attests, a prolific letter writer with a highly developed epistolary network. Presented here for the first time in any language is a representative selection from over 16,000 letters sent by Isabella to addressees across a wide social spectrum. Together, they paint a nuanced and colorful portrait of a brilliant and influential female protagonist of early modern European society.
"Deanna Shemek’s translation of 830 letters of Isabella d’Este does not disappoint. She has selected letters that demonstrate the variety of Isabella’s interests and document a life that was both long and extraordinarily dramatic. We see the marchioness evolve intellectually, politically and culturally, against the backdrop of a volatile political climate and a rapidly changing diplomatic scene, to become a shrewd political actor and an ever more discerning patron of the arts. Shemek has produced an epistolary voice for her subject that is a welljudged amalgam of dignified formality and colloquial ease. The translation captures just how well the marchioness communicated with a very large cast of correspondents and for a huge range of purposes. This collection provides rare insight into the social, cultural, and political world of the Italian Renaissance — as seen through one powerful woman’s eyes."
-Carolyn James, Associate Professor of Italian Studies, Monash University
DEANNA SHEMEK is Professor of Literature at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where she currently holds the Gary Licker Memorial Chair in Cowell College. She is author of Ladies Errant: Wayward Women and Social Order in Early Modern Italy (1998) and numerous other works on the Italian Renaissance. She co-directs the online project IDEA: Isabella d’Este Archive.
REVIEWS
Annali d'italianistica 36 (2018): 561–563. Reviewed by Francesca Silva.
Early Modern Women 13.2 (2019): 145–147. Reviewed by Maria Galli Stampino.
Parergon 34.2 (2017): 252–253. Reviewed by Zita Eva Rohr.
Renaissance & Reformation 41.1 (2018): 194–196. Reviewed by Benedetta Lamanna.
Renaissance Quarterly 71.2 (2018): 791–793. Reviewed by Stephen D. Kolsky.
Winner of the Society for the Study of Early Modern Women's 2018 Scholarly Edition in Translation Award for a work published in 2017
Isabella d’Este (1474–1539), daughter of the Este dukes of Ferrara and wife of Marchese Francesco II Gonzaga of Mantua, co-regent of the Gonzaga state, art collector, musician, diplomat, dynastic mother, traveler, reader, gardener, fashion innovator, and consummate politician, was also, as this volume attests, a prolific letter writer with a highly developed epistolary network. Presented here for the first time in any language is a representative selecti...
book Details
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Page Count:
692 pages
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Publication Year:
2017
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Publisher:
Iter Press and the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies Series:
- The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe: The Toronto Series 54
- Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies 516