Boccaccio's Heroines: Power and Virtue in Renaissance Society (review)

Margaret Franklin argues persuasively that of the hundred-plus female figures – historical and legendary – whom Giovanni Boccaccio features in his Famous Women in its final form, those of whom he approves are virtuous, in the sense of chaste and self-effacing, and those of whom he disapproves have, or seek, power or society's recognition of their accomplishments. Franklin sees Boccaccio as writing for a masculine audience that he wished to influence so that it was 'prepared to safeguard patriarchal institutions', which he believed women threatened 'if they sought to exercise power outside the domestic sphere' (p. 23).

The sub-title of Franklin's work, Power and Virtue in Renaissance Society, underscores her belief that there is such a dichotomy in Boccaccio's thinking about women. If they are intelligent and articulate or have political, military or sovereign power, even if the woman is a widow acting as regent on behalf of an underage son, she may pose a threat to social stability. Throughout Boccaccio's Heroines Franklin sees Boccaccio not only as correlating 'female sexual depravity' with 'the yearning for political ascendancy, but also with intellectual acumen that allows the possessor to participate in public life', and she argues persuasively that Boccaccio judged a woman's accomplishments 'in realms traditionally reserved for men' to be irrelevant if he judged her to lack 'feminine decency' ([FW 253] pp. 50-51).

Franklin sees the text of Famous Women as putting in place 'a coherent, comprehensible system of values which the author employs in a consistent manner' (p. 21), even while he describes 'a rich variety of lives and experiences'. Others have seen less consistency in this text, and this Franklin addresses when she quotes Stephen Kolsky and argues 'that the biographies themselves are analogous to the tessarae that make up a mosaic … that they [should] be considered as elements of a larger scheme' (pp. 1-2). And Boccaccio does indeed offer some mixed messages about female poets and artists and widowed queens who assume power and/or lead armies in defence of their deceased husbands' realms. Franklin negotiates her way through these inconsistencies by saying that such activities were acceptable to Boccaccio, who even saw such a queen as heroic and an example to males as well as females, as long as she remained a widow and a loyal steward of her deceased husband's position and property.

Throughout, Franklin emphasizes that Boccaccio's attitude towards women never falters. She argues that he upholds the medieval patriarchal tradition that did not want women to share 'such treasured elements of public influence as military and rhetorical power, fame, and wealth'. In contrast to Franklin's belief that the author's attitude was fixed, Virginia Brown in the 2001 Harvard edition of Famous Women (p. xvi) sees Boccaccio as 'provid[ing] in Famous Women a striking foretaste of ideas that would later find clearer expression in the Renaissance – ideas such as the view that it was appropriate for gifted women … to seek and acquire fame…'

Franklin argues – by referring to historical and authoritative sources – that whenever there is a liberalization of authorial attitude, such as in the biographies of Queen Joanna, Cornificia and Camiola, these were written at a later date. Her contention that these were appended so as to flatter a possible patron is persuasive, as from Vittorio Zaccaria's work we know that these were among the final revisions that Boccaccio made to the text.

In fact, a statement in the biography of the poet Cornificia is remarkably antithetical to Boccaccio's previously expressed attitude towards women, but perhaps, contrary to Franklin's thesis, his attitude was, indeed, mellowing. Under the heading 'Calculated Anomalies', Franklin outlines how Boccaccio deviates from his previous position, when he declares that 'If women are willing to apply themselves to study, they share with men the ability to do everything that makes men...