Dialogue on the Infinity of Love, and: Autobiography of an Aspiring Saint (review)

Reviews 137 D'Aragona, Tullia, Dialogue on the Infinity of Love (The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe), ed. and trans. Rinaldina Russell and Bruce Merry, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1997; paper; pp.114; R.R.P. US$12.95, £10.25. Ferrazzi, Cecilia, Autobiography ofan Aspiring Saint (The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe), ed. and trans. Anne Jacobson Schutte, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1996; paper; pp. xxviii, 101; 2 b / w illustrations; R.R.P. US$14.95, £11.95. Margaret King and Albert Rabil originally collaborated in editing Her Immaculate Hand for the Center For Medieval and Reniassance Studies at the State University of N e w York at Binghamton. They have n o w collaborated again, this time as editors of 'The Other Voice' series produced by the University of Chicago Press, of which the two volumes under review here form a part. The series covers w o m e n writers between 1300 and 1700 who, as the series editors alert us, 'must be recognized as the source and origin of the mature feminist tradition and of the realignment of social institutions accomplished in the modern age'. Each volume in this attractively produced and accessible series has a c o m m o n general introduction which reviews the 'mysogynistic tradition inherited by early modern Europeans, and the new tradition which the "other voice" called into being to challenge its assumptions'. This is followed by an introduction specific to each volume. They are thus well designed readers for any general course in Women's Studies as well as for courses more specifically targetted to the particular writers' periods. The two works under review here, Cecilia Ferrazzi's Autobiography of an Aspiring Saint, and Tullia d'Aragona's Dialogue on the Infinity of Love, we written by women on the social boundaries of the age—the one, an unmarried woman, aspiring to sainthood outside the confines of a convent, and the other a high class, literate prostitute, promoting a new view of women, men, and sexuality. Beyond this, however, the two w o m e n had little in common. Ferrazzi was not a wealthy or a highly educated woman. The daughter of an artisan who was orphaned at the age of twenty-one, Ferrazzi's life is only known to us because she told it to an inquisitorial court. Though determined to remain a virgin, Ferrazzi never entered the convent, but devoted her life instead to assisting w o m e n in a similar position to her own. Her story is intensely personal and painful. Tullia d'Aragona, by contrast, was a high profile peripatetic Roman courtesan, daughter of a courtesan and (it was rumoured) of Cardinal Luigi d'Aragona. A w o m a n with a 'rare knowledge of poetry and philosophy', Tullia d'Aragona, thoughfrequentlydenounced, was always able to rely on the help of high-placed friends and protectors w h o included some of Italy's greatest literati. Her work is polished and confident and is the earlies contribution by a w o m a n to the ongoing debate on human love. 138 Reviews Undistributed and unpublished until 1990, the autobiography of Cecilia Ferrazzi is a simple yet unusual work. A n aspiring saint according to her translator, and a failed saint according to the Inquisition, Ferrazzi was tried by the Venetian Holy Office between 1664 and 1665 on suspicion of heresy, Ferrazzi requested permission to tell her o w n story to the inquisitors as a continuous narrative, rather than continue the trial in the standard way by replying to the questions posed by the inquisitor. Her autobiography, then, was one produced under duress, in extraordinary circumstances. A n n e Jacobson Schutte describes the product as 'an inquisitorial autobiography'. That w e have both the copious records of her trial and the autobiography which she produced during it means that her writing can be made to serve two functions. It tells us about her life and her perceptions of it, but equally it enables us to test the assumptions of historians who defend or criticise the merits of trial transcriptions as accurate transmitters of 'the...