Table Of ContentBOCCACCIO’S HEROINES
Women and Gender in the
Early Modem World
Series Editors: Ally son Poska and Abby Zanger
In the past decade, the study of women and gender has offered some of the most
vital and innovative challenges to scholarship on the early modem period.
Ashgate’s new series of interdisciplinary and comparanti ve studies, ‘Woman and
Gender in the Early Modem World’, takes up this challenge, reaching beyond
geographical limitations to explore the experiences of early modern women and the
nature of gender in Europe, the Americas, Asia, and Africa. Submissions of single
author studies and edited collections will be considered.
Titles in this series include:
Widowhood and Visual Culture in Early Modern Europe
Edited by Allison Levy
Architecture and the Politics of Gender in Early Modern Europe
Edited by Helen Hills
Envisioning Gender in Burgundian Devotional Art, 1350-1530
Experience, Authority, Resistance
Andrea Pearson
The Medici Women
Gender and Power in Renaissance Florence
Natalie R. Tomas
Women, Art and the Politics of Identity in Eighteenth-Century Europe
Edited by Melissa Hyde and Jennifer Milam
Boccaccio’s Heroines
Power and Virtue in Renaissance Society
MARGARET FRANKLIN
Wayne State University, USA
First published 2006 by Ashgate Publishing
Published 2017 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon 0X14 4RN
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
Copyright© Margaret Franklin 2006
The author has asserted her moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to
be identified as author of this work.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any
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including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system,
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Franklin, Margaret
Boccaccio’s heroines : power and virtue in Renaissance society. - (Women and gender
in the early modem world)
1. Boccaccio, Giovanni, 1313-1375. De mulierbus claris
2. Women - Biography 3. Women in literature 4. Women - History - Renaissance,
1450-1600
I. Title
851.1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Franklin, Margaret.
Boccaccio’s heroines : power and virtue in Renaissance society / Margaret Franklin.
p. cm. — (Women and gender in the early modem world)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-7546-5364-1 (hardback : alk. paper)
1. Boccaccio, Giovanni, 1313-1375. De mulieribus claris. 2. Women—Biography. 3.
Women in literature. 4. Women—History—Renaissance, 1450-1600. I. Title. II. Series.
PQ4274.D6F73 2006
851M—dc22
2005011772
ISBN 13: 978(cid:65)0(cid:65)7546(cid:65)5364(cid:65)6 (hbk)
Contents
List of Figures vii
Acknowledgements ix
Introduction 1
The Text and its Critics 4
Lauds and Libraries 9
The Art of Virtue 13
1 Authorial Intent 23
Dedication: The Nature of Virtue 23
Preface: A Book for Men about Women 27
2 A Bad Example 31
Overstepping the Boundaries 31
Action/Reaction 41
Dangerous Minds and Bodies 44
Calculated Anomalies 54
3 Famous Women in Renaissance Tuscany 57
Boccaccio’s Heroines 57
A Woman’s Place 67
Daring but Decorous: Donne Illustri in the Art of the
Tuscan Republics 85
4 Famous Women and Famous Women: Boccaccio and the
Court Consorts 115
Eleonora d’Aragona d’Este 118
Isabella d’Este and Mantegna 148
Conclusion 175
Select Bibliography 177
Index 201
List of Figures
3.1 Andrea del Castagno, Farinata degli Uberti 87
3.2 Andrea del Castagno, Tamyris 88
3.3 Cloelia, anonymous woodcut from De mulieribus claris 101
3.4 School of Pinturicchio, Flight of Cloelia 103
3.5 Guidoccio Cozzarelli, The Legend of Cloelia 108
4.1 Ercole de’Roberti, Portia and Brutus 134
4.2 Portia, anonymous woodcut from De mulieribus claris 137
4.3 Sandro Botticelli, The Tragedy of Lucretia 140
4.4 Ercole de’Roberti, Lucretia, Brutus, and Collatinus 141
4.5 Lucretia, anonymous woodcut from De mulieribus claris 142
4.6 Lucretia, anonymous woodcut from De plurimis selectisque
mulieribus 144
4.7 Ercole de’Roberti, The Wife of Hasdrubal and Her Children 146
4.8 Eleonora d’Aragona d’Este, anonymous woodcut from
De plurimis selectisque mulieribus 148
4.9 Andrea Mantegna, A Woman Drinking 154
4.10 Marcantonio Raimondi, Death of Dido 165
4.11 Andrea Mantegna, Dido 166
4.12 II Riccio, Death of Dido 167
4.13 Andrea Mantegna, Judith 170
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to the Wayne State University Humanities Center, the Wayne State
University Research Grant Program, and the Dean’s Creative/Research Grant
Program of the Wayne State University College of Fine, Performing and
Communication Arts for their generous support of this project.
I thank Virginia Cox, whose gentle and uniquely informed guidance while I
was writing my dissertation at The University of Cambridge helped to lay the
groundwork for this book. Pamela Benson was generous with encouragement and
constructive criticism; Christiane Joost(cid:65)Gaugier has provided me with years of
intellectual and emotional nourishment; and Dane Wittrup and Jean Rhodes
contributed their multifaceted talents when they were most needed. I am most
thankful for the family that provided the daily context of love, respect, and joy that
made the long years of work fun and meaningful: my shining children, Aaron,
Charlotte, Noel, and Julia, and my husband, Jamie, whose brilliance and tireless
devotion are reflected in every page.
