Ippolita Maria Sforza: Duchess and Hostage in Renaissance Naples: Letters and Orations ed. by Diana Robin and Lynn Lara Westwater (review)

So far during 2017, the Other Voice series has delivered two important publications of letters by women belonging to major ruling families of the Italian Renaissance, the other being Deanna Shemek's eagerly awaited Isabella d'Este volume. Although Ippolita Sforza, sister-in-law of Isabella's mother, Eleonora d'Aragona (see Letter 86 of the present volume), is the less well known of the two, she clearly constitutes a subject of interest for historians of the fifteenth-century Italian states (particularly Milan and Naples), as well as for those interested in women's access to humanist education, women and letter writing, and elite women and power in the Renaissance, both in Italy and beyond.

Ippolita Maria (1445–88), daughter of the duke and duchess of Milan, Francesco Sforza and Bianca Maria Visconti, was betrothed in 1455 to Alfonso d'Aragona, eldest son and heir of King Ferrante I of Naples. The marriage itself took place a decade later in 1465. Already by this latter date Ippolita had a certain fame as a well-educated young woman, the most public demonstration of this being her Latin oration delivered in June 1459 before Pope Pius II and assembled Italian statesmen attending the Congress of Mantua, the latter called to discuss a possible crusade against the Ottoman Turks. The present volume includes her three surviving orations, the other two being addressed to a half-brother, Tristano, and his new wife, Beatrice d'Este, on the occasion of their marriage (1455), and to her mother, shortly before Ippolita's departure for Naples (1465). Full English translations of all three are accompanied by the original Latin texts.

The bulk of the volume is, however, given over to translations of one hundred of her Italian letters, selected from a surviving total of 312 (61). Ninety-one of these are based on the edition by M. Serena Castaldo (Ippolita Maria Sforza, Lettere [Alessandria: Edizioni dell'Orso, 2004]), with the remaining nine derived from Bruno Figliuolo's edition of the letters of her secretary (Giovanni Pontano Corrispondenza di Giovanni Pontano segretario dei dinasti aragonesi di Napoli, 2 novembre 1474–20 gennaio 1495 [Battipaglia: Laveglia & Carlone, 2012]), and the related thorny issues surrounding authoring and co-authoring being extensively explored by Castaldo (e.g. xiv-xvii, lviii-lxiv). Robin and Westwater's volume also features a substantial introduction that includes biographical information, discussions of Ippolita's education and of the Visconti and Sforza in Milan, and synopses of the letter groups. The publication is further enhanced by illustrations, a glossary with brief biographical information about the major figures appearing in the text, a chronology providing the reader with further assistance as regards historical contextualization, a bibliography, and an index.

The one hundred letters, appearing in English translation for the first time (1), are cleverly arranged by the editors into nine groups. Each of these is prefaced by a useful contextualizing paragraph, while a précis precedes individual letters. Letters 1–22, dated between 1453 and 1465, are entitled "Travels in Lombardy," and addressed mainly to her father or mother, with two to Barbara of Brandenburg, wife of Ludovico Gonzaga, marquis of Mantua. The group reveals the young Ippolita learning to use the letter form to position herself as a dutiful daughter, negotiating affective and other relations with her parents. Also on display, however, is her acquisition of the skills and behaviors of a future duchess of Calabria and potential future queen of Naples: hunting with hawk and hound, absorbing the cultures of hospitality, gift-giving, and patronage, practicing networking (in this case nurturing relations with neighboring dynasties in the person of the marchesa of Mantua), and carving out a personal devotional profile, for example with her pilgrimage to the shrine of Santa Maria del Monte near Varese (Letter 16). Her mother was clearly an...