Laura Battiferra and Her Literary Circle: An Anthology (The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe)

527 Pages·2006·15.29 MB·English

by  Laura Battiferra degli Ammannati

LAURA BATTIFERRA AND HER LITERARY CIRCLE
THE
OTHER VOICE
IN
EARLY MODERN
EUROPE
A Series Edited by Margaret L. King and Albert Rabil Jr.
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Edited and Translated by Mary B. McKinley Edited and Translated by Donna Kuizenga
Laura Battiferra degli Ammannati
L AU R A B AT T I F E R R A A N D
H E R L I T E R A RY C I RC L E :
A N A N T H O L O G Y
(cid:2)
Edited and Translated
by Victoria Kirkham
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS
Chicago & London
Laura Battiferra degli Ammannati, 1523–89
Victoria Kirkhamis professor of Romance languages at the University of Pennsylvania.
She is the author of three books, most recently of Fabulous Vernacular: Boccaccio’s Filocolo and
the Art of Medieval Fiction,winner of the Scaglione Prize for a manuscript in Italian studies
of the Modern Language Association.
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
© 2006 by The University of Chicago
All rights reserved. Published 2006
Printed in the United States of America
15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 1 2 3 4 5
ISBN: 0-226-03922-6 (cloth)
ISBN: 0-226-03923-4 (paper)
The University of Chicago Press gratefully acknowledges the generous support of
James E. Rabil, in memory of Scottie W. Rabil, toward the publication of this book.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Battiferri degli Ammannati, Laura, 1523–1589.
[Selections. English]
Laura Battiferra and her literary circle : an anthology / Laura Battiferra degli
Ammannati ; edited and translated by Victoria Kirkham.
p. cm. — (The other voice in early modern Europe)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-226-03922-6 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 0-226-03923-4 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Italian poetry—16th century—History and criticism. I. Kirkham, Victoria.
II.Title. III. Series
PQ4607 . B6A24 2006
851(cid:2).5—dc22
2005024004
(cid:2)(cid:3) The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the
American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper
for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
CONTENTS
List of Illustrations vii
Acknowledgments ix
Series Editors’ Introduction xiii
Volume Editor’s Introduction 1
Volume Editor’s Bibliography 55
Note on Translation 69
List of Abbreviations 75
I Poems from Rime di Madonna
Laura Battiferra degli Ammannati 77
Men Writing to Battiferra 77
Selections from Le opere toscane,Part1 84
Selections from “Rimi Spirituali di Madonna
Laura Battiferra degli Ammannati,” Part2 218
II Poems from Other Collections 266
The Period 1560–1577 266
Poems of Uncertain Date 292
III Orison on the Nativity of Our Lord 311
IV Letters 319
Appendixes
A. Battiferra’s Wills 335
B. Genealogical Chart of the Battiferri Family of Urbino 341
C. Genealogical Chart of the Cibo, Della Rovere, Varana, and Farnese Families 343
D. Genealogical Chart of the Medici, Toledo, Colonna, and Montefeltro Families 345
E. Sources of the Selections and Textual Variants 347
F. List of Manuscripts and Printed Editions 357
Notes 365
Series Editors’ Bibliography 449
Index of First Lines 463
General Index 473
ILLUSTRATIONS
1. Agnolo Bronzino, Laura Battiferra,ca. 1561 2
2. Agnolo Bronzino, Laura Battiferra,ca. 1561 3
3. Alessandro Allori, Christ and the Canaanite Woman,detail 4
4. Alessandro Allori, Christ and the Canaanite Woman,detail, ca. 1590 5
5. Laura Battiferra degli Ammannati, Primo libro dell’opere toscane,
autograph 6
6. Laura Battiferra degli Ammannati, Primo libro dell’opere toscane,
autograph 7
7. Laura Battiferra degli Ammannati, Rime di Madonna Laura Battiferra degli
Ammannati:sonnet to Pope Paul III and rubric to Isabella de’ Medici, with
autograph 8
8. Laura Battiferra degli Ammannati, Rime di Madonna Laura Battiferra degli
Ammannati:beginning of the K signature and “Seconda parte delle Rime
spiritualidi Madonna Laura Battiferra degli Ammannati” 9
9. Autograph letter from Laura Battiferra degli Ammannati to Benedetto Varchi of
January27, 1556 [(cid:4)1557 modern style] 10
10. Autograph letter from Laura Battiferra to Duke Guidobaldo II Della Rovere,
October23, 1559 10
11. Urbino, Via Maia, no.6, Home of Laura’s great-grandfather, the physician
Jacopo Battiferro 12
12. Urbino, Via Maia, no.14, Portal of the Confraternity of the Dead (“Oratorio
della Morte”), attributed to Bartolomeo Ammannati 19
13. Titian (Tiziano Vecellio), Benedetto Varchi 22
14. Bernardo Tasso,L’Amadigi del S. Bernardo Tasso, frontispiece 25
15. Agnolo Bronzino, Eleonora of Toledo,ca. 1560 28
16. Agnolo Bronzino, Cosimo I de’ Medici,1546 or after 29
17. Agnolo Bronzino, Duke Guidobaldo II Della Rovere 35
18. Agnolo Bronzino, Isabella de’ Medici 39
19. Bartolomeo Ammannati, Neptune Fountain,1560–80 40
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The opportunity to explore aggressively archives and libraries in Italy for
information about Laura Battiferra degli Ammannati was made possible
by a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities (1996–
97), supplemented by sabbatical salary from the University of Pennsylvania.
Both contributed to a concurrent semester of residence as a Visiting Profes-
sor at Villa I Tatti, the Harvard Center for Renaissance Studies in Florence.
As director, Walter Kaiser gave vigorous and gracious academic hospitality.
Fiorella Superbi of the I Tatti Fototeca, everyone on the library staff, and
several longtime scholarly affiliates, among them Alan Grieco and Eve Bor-
sook, were always helpful interlocutors. My research continued during the
academic year 2000–2001, thanks to a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship
in Gender Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Europe at the Newberry
Library in Chicago, again aided by a sabbatical from the University of Penn-
sylvania. I am grateful to the other fellows in my cohort and to all the staff
there for providing a setting so ideally conducive to learning about Batti-
ferra’s intellectual environment from sixteenth-century Italian books, espe-
cially the director, James Grossman; his associate, Sara Austen; and Carla
Zecher, Director of the Center for Renaissance Studies. To guide my many
hours in the Rare Book Room, Paul Gehl shared collegial expertise on site as
well as over pleasant scholarly lunch breaks in the Newberry neighborhood.
Summer support, which paid for an important trip to Urbino, came from the
Henry Salvatori Research Fund, administered through the Center for Italian
Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. In the later stages of this book,
much appreciated aid to encourage its completion came from my portion
of a National Endowment for the Humanities Collaborative Research Grant,
“A Tradition Discovered: Women Writers in Italy, France, and Germany,
1400–1750” (2002–2003). Finally, I have a happy debt, both symbolically ix