DEFENCE from the Margin
Defence from the Margin is an online exhibiton designed to complement PARITY’s main aim: to valorize, visualise and promote female contribution to the culture during early modern period. As in most of the cases, the only material object connected with the female authority is a book or manuscript, this exhibition puts the early modern book to the fore and by supporting text vocaly, it tries to give the voice to the Renaissance women authors, to make the archival sources speak.
Three women authors selected for the first part of the exhibiton are connected by the ideas of defence of female rights expressed in the marginal parts of their book, but also by historical period – 16th/17th century, language – Italian, their contribution to natural philosophy and finally their references to the private sphere of their lives, which go beyond the rhetoric typical for the genre.
Camilla Herculiana (Erculiani)
c. 1584, Paduan natural philosopher, apothecary, and writer.
Her only book Letters on Natural Philosophy, was published in 1584. Five copies of the book have been identified, two in Biblioteca Civica in Padua, and the other three in Biblioteca Alessandrina in Rome, the Houghton Library, Cambridge, and Biblioteca PAN, Kórnik. Herculiana’s book was forgotten for centuries, and the first detailed analysis appeared only in 2013. In 2021 the book is translated in English.
See:
Bakić, Jelena (Camilla Herculiana (Erculiani): Private Practices of Knowledge Production. In: Klein Käfer, N., da Silva Perez, N. (eds) Women’s Private Practices of Knowledge Production in Early Modern Europe. Palgrave Macmillan, 2024 Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-44731-0_3
Carinci, Eleonora, “Una speziala padovana: Lettere di philosophia naturale di Camilla Erculiani (1584)”, The Society for Italian studies, Manchester, 2013.
Erculiani, Camilla, Letters on Natural Philosophy: The Scientific Correspondence of a Sixteenth-Century Pharmacist, with Related Texts. Camilla Erculiani. Edited by Eleonora Carinci. Translated by Hannah Marcus, with a foreword by Paula Findlen. The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe 77. Toronto: Iter, 2021.Â
Sarra Copia Sullam (Sara Copio)
(1592-1641, Venice), a Jewish poet and intellectual.
Of her writings survieved fourteen examples of her poetry and Manifesto, 1621. Sarra’s Copia Manifesto in self-defense is published in 1621 under the title Manifesto by Sarra Copia Sulam the Jewess, who Therein Refutes and Reproves Signor Baldassare Bonifaccio’s False Accusation That She Denies Immortality of the Soul. The book can be consulted in different libraries/archives in Italy.
See:
Copia Sulam, Sarra, Manifesto di Sarra Copia Sulam Hebrea. Nel quale è da lei riprovata, e detestata l’opinione negante l’Immortalità dell’Anima, falsamente attribuitale dal Sig. Baldassare Bonifacio. Venice: Antonio Pinelli, 1621; also Venice: Giovanni Alberti,1621
Sarra Copia Sullam, Sonetti editi e inediti raccolti e pubblicati insieme ad alquanti cenni biografici(per le nozze Todesco- Treves). Edited by Leonello Modona. Bologna: SocietĂ Tipografica, 1887.
Sarra Copia Sulam. Jewish Poet and Intellectual in Seventeenth-Century Venice: The Works of Sarra Copia Sulam in Verse and Prose, Along with Writings of Her Contemporaries in Her Praise, Condemnation, or Defense. The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe. Ed. and trans. Don Harrán. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009.
Cecilia de’ Zorzi
(c.1600, Venice), a daughter of Venetian writer Moderata Fonte (Modesta Pozzo de Zorzi) (1555-1592).
She published and dedicated her mother’s highly important book, The Worth of Women, 1600, to Livia Feltria della Rovere, a descendent of the dukes of Urbino. This dedication is followed by the encomiatic sonnet by Moderata’s Fonte son, Pietro de Zorzi, “On Madonna Moderata Fonte’s The Worth of Women, by her Son, Pietro de’Zorzi”.
On Moderata Fonte, see:
Moderata Fonte (Modesta Pozzo). The Worth of Women Wherein is Clearly Revealed Their Nobility and Their Superiority to Men. Translated and edited byVirginia Cox. Chicago, 1997.Â
Fonte, Moderata II merito delle donne. Edited by Adriana Chemello, Eidos, Venice, 1988
Fonte, Moderata, Tredici canti del Floridoro. Edited by Valeria Finucci. Mucchi, Bologna, 1995
DEFENCE from the Margin
Defence from the Margin is an online exhibiton designed to complement PARITY’s main aim: to valorize, visualise and promote female contribution to the culture during early modern period. As in most of the cases, the only material object connected with the female authority is a book or manuscript, this exhibition puts the early modern book to the fore and by supporting text vocaly, it tries to give the voice to the Renaissance women authors, to make the archival sources speak.
Three women authors selected for the first part of the exhibiton are connected by the ideas of defence of female rights expressed in the marginal parts of their book, but also by historical period – 16th/17th century, language – Italian, their contribution to natural philosophy and finally their references to the private sphere of their lives, which go beyond the rhetoric typical for the genre.
Camilla Herculiana (Erculiani)
c. 1584, Paduan natural philosopher, apothecary, and writer.
Her only book Letters on Natural Philosophy, was published in 1584. Five copies of the book have been identified, two in Biblioteca Civica in Padua, and the other three in Biblioteca Alessandrina in Rome, the Houghton Library, Cambridge, and Biblioteca PAN, Kórnik. Herculiana’s book was forgotten for centuries, and the first detailed analysis appeared only in 2013. In 2021 the book is translated in English.
See:
Bakić, Jelena (Camilla Herculiana (Erculiani): Private Practices of Knowledge Production. In: Klein Käfer, N., da Silva Perez, N. (eds) Women’s Private Practices of Knowledge Production in Early Modern Europe. Palgrave Macmillan, 2024 Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-44731-0_3
Carinci, Eleonora, “Una speziala padovana: Lettere di philosophia naturale di Camilla Erculiani (1584)”, The Society for Italian studies, Manchester, 2013.
Erculiani, Camilla, Letters on Natural Philosophy: The Scientific Correspondence of a Sixteenth-Century Pharmacist, with Related Texts. Camilla Erculiani. Edited by Eleonora Carinci. Translated by Hannah Marcus, with a foreword by Paula Findlen. The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe 77. Toronto: Iter, 2021.Â
Sarra Copia Sullam (Sara Copio)
(1592-1641, Venice), a Jewish poet and intellectual.
Of her writings survieved fourteen examples of her poetry and Manifesto, 1621. Sarra’s Copia Manifesto in self-defense is published in 1621 under the title Manifesto by Sarra Copia Sulam the Jewess, who Therein Refutes and Reproves Signor Baldassare Bonifaccio’s False Accusation That She Denies Immortality of the Soul. The book can be consulted in different libraries/archives in Italy.
See:
Copia Sulam, Sarra, Manifesto di Sarra Copia Sulam Hebrea. Nel quale è da lei riprovata, e detestata l’opinione negante l’Immortalità dell’Anima, falsamente attribuitale dal Sig. Baldassare Bonifacio. Venice: Antonio Pinelli, 1621; also Venice: Giovanni Alberti,1621
Sarra Copia Sullam, Sonetti editi e inediti raccolti e pubblicati insieme ad alquanti cenni biografici(per le nozze Todesco- Treves). Edited by Leonello Modona. Bologna: SocietĂ Tipografica, 1887.
Sarra Copia Sulam. Jewish Poet and Intellectual in Seventeenth-Century Venice: The Works of Sarra Copia Sulam in Verse and Prose, Along with Writings of Her Contemporaries in Her Praise, Condemnation, or Defense. The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe. Ed. and trans. Don Harrán. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009.
Cecilia de’ Zorzi
(c.1600, Venice), a daughter of Venetian writer Moderata Fonte (Modesta Pozzo de Zorzi) (1555-1592).
She published and dedicated her mother’s highly important book, The Worth of Women, 1600, to Livia Feltria della Rovere, a descendent of the dukes of Urbino. This dedication is followed by the encomiatic sonnet by Moderata’s Fonte son, Pietro de Zorzi, “On Madonna Moderata Fonte’s The Worth of Women, by her Son, Pietro de’Zorzi”.
On Moderata Fonte, see:
Moderata Fonte (Modesta Pozzo). The Worth of Women Wherein is Clearly Revealed Their Nobility and Their Superiority to Men. Translated and edited byVirginia Cox. Chicago, 1997.Â
Fonte, Moderata II merito delle donne. Edited by Adriana Chemello, Eidos, Venice, 1988
Fonte, Moderata, Tredici canti del Floridoro. Edited by Valeria Finucci. Mucchi, Bologna, 1995