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Lucrezia Marinella (1571-1653)

Lucrezia Marinella (1571-1653) was an italian poet, author, and an advocate of women’s rights in Italy late middle ages. She is best known for her writing The Nobility and Excellence of Women and the Defects and Vices of Men.

Life
Lucrezia Marinella was the daughter of a celebrated Physician and natural philosopher, Giovanni Marinelli and next to nothing is known of her Mother,. He wrote novels, some of which on women’s well-being, hygiene and beauty. Although her father was not from Venice, Lucrezia and her family were “cittadinaza”. Her brother Curzo Marinella is also a physician and she married a physician Girolamo Vacca. None of her kids seem to have been born in Venice. Her father might have been the vital link between her private studies and the writing and the wider world of Venetian literary circles. Many women back in those days usually entered into convents or became courtesans like the famous Veronica Franco. Entering a convent meant that a woman did have to be married off and was able to pursue education, freedom from marriage, and family life, and they could strive for holiness and sainthood. But, at the same time the Roman Catholic Church maintained rigid theories of gender and expectations of women’s place and nature. Also, being a courtesan would have meant that she could pursue knowledge and not be restricted to living the traditional life of a woman in Italian late middle ages but, at a very great price. However, Lucrezia Marinella did not enter the convent and wasn't pressured into marriage. She came from a professional family that very much encouraged her studies, and her father was extremely supportive. Marinella had a lot of support, which was not the norm, a lot of women’s family were greatly involved in their lives, pressuring them to do what they felt would be best for a the family. Although Lucrezia’s writing brought her fame, she lived a life in seclusion. It is believed that her solitary life is what allowed her to write so much so soon. But, a life of seclusion is not unlike many other women in that time of her social rank. Many upper class women in that time normally stayed indoors and or at home so this was not strange. She did not travel, except to local shrines, there is no evidence she gathered with other authors for discussions, and no record of her even attending meetings held in academies outside.

Women in the Late Middle Ages
Women’s rights and the equality of women was a big part of Lucrezia’s life. In the late Middle Ages, in Italy, women were largely just home makers. Many women who wanted to pursue knowledge, either had to be of elite standing, enter convents, or become courtesans. Those were essentially the smart way women used to avoid the familial life. Women were normally not a part of political conversations and had to be extraordinary to be fully recognized in literature. Although Lucrezia was one of the most recognized female writers of the time, some of her contemporaries included Christine de Pizan, Moderata Fonte, Arcangela Tarabotti and Veronica Franco. Lucrezia Marinella’s works mostly dealt with Women’s Rights and she even asserted that women were more superior than men, which was a popular argument in that time for polemical and philosophical works.

Works
Marinella was a polished writer in many genres. Her work ranged from philosophical commentaries on poetry to religious works. In her lifetime, Marinella published 10 books, there were sometimes even 10 years of silence between her works. Marinella’s very first poem. Her first poem saw light in 1600 composed quickly in response to Giuseppe Passi’s diatribe about women’s defects “Dei donneschi difetti” Marinella took the first part of her own title from the italian translation of a supposedly anonymous French tract “Della nobilita et eccellenza delle donne” ,printed in Venice in 1549. The book was largely a long polemical tradition of attacks against women, and their defense. It also mounts an attack on men for exactly the same vices Passi had dared to accuse women of.

In Marinella’s work Enrico, she selected a topic that was both religious, political, and built on her previous works. She highlighted the fact that women were excluded from the political discussion in this time. In the work, she expresses a patriotic pride in Venice and singles out a Venetian version of the events of the Fourth Crusade of which no contemporary Venetian documents existed. This point in the history of Venice that reminds of Venice’s destiny and import. In Enrico, Marinella chose to write in one of the highest literary genre of her time, that was for cultural reasons out of favor in Venice. Marinella’s warrior women in Enrico wear masculine armor with grace and dignity; they were written as respectable in deed and thought but, chaste virgins (Querelle des femmes).

On another one of Lucrezia's notable works Amoro Innamorato et Impazzato: “In Exhortations, however, Marinella seems to recant completely, praising the complete domestication of women and suggesting in the strongest of terms that they avoid scholarly pursuits. According to her arguments, women ought to remain firmly in what I will anachronistically call the private sphere, leaving the world of politics and philosophy for men. Like many of her contemporaries, she uses the ideas of classic authors to make her arguments...She argues in favor of sequestration for women, places the greatest value on the skills women use while managing a home and raising children, and locates all female virtue in the domestic arts.”

List of Works:
---Marinella, L., 1595, La Colomba sacra, Poema eroico. Venice.

–––, 1597, ''Vita del serafico et glorioso San Francesco. Descritto in ottava rima. Ove si spiegano le attioni, le astinenze e i miracoli di esso,'' Venice.

–––, 1598, Amore innamorato ed impazzato, Venice.

–––, 1601a, ''La nobiltà et l'eccellenza delle donne co' diffetti et mancamenti de gli uomini. Discorso di Lucrezia Marinella in due parti diviso, G ,'' Venice.

–––, 1601b, The Nobility and Excellence of Women, and the Defects and Vices of Men, Dunhill, A. (ed. and trans.), Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1999.

–––, 1602, ''La vita di Maria vergine imperatrice dell'universo. Descritta in prosa e in ottava rima,'' Venice.

–––, 1603, Rime sacre, Venice.

–––, 1605, L'Arcadia felice, Venice.

–––, 1605a, L'Arcadia felice, F. Lavocat (ed.), Florence: Accademia toscana di scienze e lettere, ‘La Colombaria’ 162, 1998.

–––, 1605b, ''Vita del serafico, et glorioso San Francesco. Descritto in ottava rima,'' Venice.

–––, 1606, Vita di Santa Giustina in ottava rima, Florence.

–––, 1617, ''La imperatrice dell'universo. Poema heroico,'' Venice.

–––, 1617a, La vita di Maria Vergine imperatrice dell'universo, Venice.

–––, 1617b, Vite de' dodeci heroi di Christo, et de' Quatro Evangelisti, Venice.

–––, 1624, De' gesti heroici e della vita meravigliosa della serafica Santa Caterina da Siena, Venice.

–––, 1635, ''L'Enrico ovvero Bisanzio acquistato. Poema heroico,'' Venice.

–––, 1645a, Essortationi alle donne et a gli altri se a loro saranno a grado di Lucretia Marinella. Parte Prima, Venice.

–––, 1645b, Exhortations to Women and to Others if They Please, L. Benedetti (ed. and trans.), Toronto: Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, 2012.

Personal Life and Influence
Francesco Agostino della Chiesa described her as “ a woman of wondrous eloquence and learning” and asserted“it would be impossible to surpass her.” Cristofero Bronzino, pronounced her exceptional in writing prose and poetry, most accomplished in sacred compositions, and a supreme expert in moral and natural philosophy.” Arcangela Tarabotti was also said to be one of her biggest admirers, but towards the end of her life Lucrezia was said to have “attacked” her. Marinella dedicated The Nobility and Excellence of Women to another doctor and friend of her father Lucio Scarano who took a particular interest in her literary formation. At one point, he called her “The adornment of our century” and compared her to Greek poetess Corinna Marinella dedicated her poem Amoro Innamorato et Impazzato to a female reader: the dutchess of Mandua, Caterina Medici.

Death
Marinella died of quartan fever, a form of malaria, in the Campiello dei Squillini in Venice on October 9, 1653. She was buried in the nearby parish church of S. Pantaleone.

Bibliography/ References
Westwater, Lynn Lara. "The disquieting voice: Women's writing and antifeminism in seventeenth-century Venice (Italy, Lucrezia Marinella, Sara Copio Sullam, Arcangela Tarabotti)." Dissertation Abstracts International. Section A: Humanities And Social Sciences 64, no. 10 (2003): 3705. Women's Studies International, EBSCOhost

Putnam, Christie-Anne, and Anna Riehl. "Lucrezia Marinella and the "Querelle des Femmes" in Seventeenth-Century Italy." Sixteenth Century Journal 41, no. 4 (Winter 2010 20010): 1200-1201. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost

Byars, Jana. "Byars on Marinella." H-Net Reviews In The Humanities & Social Sciences (December 2012): 1-2. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost

Payne, Lynda Stephenson. "The Nobility and Excellence of Women and the Defects and Vices of Men (Book)." ISIS: Journal Of The History Of Science In Society 92, no. 4 (December 2001): 779.Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost

Marinella, Lucrezia, and Anne Dunhill. 1999. The nobility and excellence of women, and the defects and vices of men. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Lucrezia Marinella. ''De’ gesti eroici e della vita maravigliosa della Serafica S. Caterina da Siena De’ gesti eroici e della vita maravigliosa della Serafica S. Caterina da Siena'' by Lucrezia Marinella Review by: Stephen Kolsky

Deslauriers, Marguerite, "Lucrezia Marinella", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2012 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = .