LAURA BATTIFERRA AND HER LITERARY CIRCLE THE OTHER VOICE IN EARLY MODERN EUROPE A Series Edited by Margaret L. King and Albert Rabil Jr. RECENT BOOKS IN THE SERIES MARIA GAETANA AGNESI ET ALIA MADAME DE MAINTENON The Contest for Knowledge: Dialogues and Addresses Debates over Women’s Learning in Edited and Translated by John J. Conley, S.J. Eighteenth-Century Italy Edited and Translated by Rebecca Messbarger ISOTTA NOGAROLA and Paula Findlen Complete Writings: Letterbook, Dialogue Introduction by Rebecca Messbarger on Adam and Eve, Orations Edited and Translated by Margaret L. King and Diana Robin FRANCISCA DE LOS APÓSTOLES The Inquisition of Francisca: A JOHANNA ELEONORA PETERSEN Sixteenth-Century Visionary on Trial The Life of Lady Johanna Eleonora Edited and Translated by Gillian Petersen, Written by Herself: Pietism and T. W. Ahlgren Women’s Autobiography Edited and Translated by Barbara Becker- GIULIA BIGOLINA Cantarino Urania: A Romance Edited and Translated by Valeria Finucci MADELEINE DE SCUDÉRY Selected Letters, Orations, and Rhetorical GABRIELLE DE COIGNARD Dialogues Spiritual Sonnets: A Bilingual Edition Edited and Translated by Jane Donawerth and Translated and Edited by Melanie E. Gregg Julie Strongson ELISABETTA CAMINER TURRA VITTORIA COLONNA Selected Writings of an Eighteenth- Sonnets for Michelangelo: Century Venetian Woman of Letters A Bilingual Edition Edited and Translated by Catherine M. Sama Edited and Translated by Abigail Brundin MADAME DE VILLEDIEU MARIE DENTIÈRE (MARIE-CATHERINE DESJARDINS) Epistle to Marguerite de Navarre and Memoirs of the Life of Henriette-Sylvie de Preface to a Sermon by John Calvin Molière: A Novel 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