The Century of Women: Representations of Women in Eighteenth-Century Italian Public Discourse 9781442680661

Table of contents :
Contents
Acknowledgments
A Note to the Reader
Introduction: The Century of Women
1. The Debate
2. The Very Fibre of Their Being: Antonio Conti's Materialist Argument for Women's Inferiority
3. Palliated Resistance: Diamante Medaglia Faini on 'Which Studies Are Fitting for Women
4. For the Public Good: tt Gaffed 'Defence of Women
5. Counter-Discourse: La donna galante ed erudita
Conclusion
Notes
Works Cited
Index

Citation preview

THE CENTURY OF WOMEN

This page intentionally left blank

THE CENTURY OF WOMEN Representations of Women in Eighteenth-Century Italian Public Discourse

Rebecca Messbarger

U N I V E R S I T Y OF TORONTO PRESS Toronto Buffalo London

www.utppublishing.com © University of Toronto Press Incorporated 2002 Toronto Buffalo London Printed in Canada ISBN 0-8020-3652-X

Printed on acid-free paper Toronto Italian Studies

National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication Messbarger, Rebecca The century of women : representation of women in eighteenth-century Italian public discourse / Rebecca Messbarger. (Toronto Italian Studies) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8020-3652-X 1. Women - Italy - History - 18th century. 2. Women - Italy History - 18th century - Sources. 3. Women - Education - Italy History - 18th century. 4. Women - Education - Italy - 18th century Sources. I. Title. II. Series. LC2122.M48 2002

305.42/0945/09033

C2002-901532-4

This volume was published with financial assistance from the Division of Arts and Sciences at Washington University. University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial support for its publishing activities of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP).

For Sam, Graham, and Max

This page intentionally left blank

Contents

Acknowledgments ix A Note to the Reader xiii Introduction: The Century of Women 3 1 The Debate 21 Women's Education 26 The Text 28 Vallisneri's Prologue 31 Camposanpiero's Defence of the Education of Women 33 Volpi - Against the Education of Women 36 The Judgment 40 Aretafila Savini De' Rossi's Rebuttal 41 Conclusion 47 2 The Very Fibre of Their Being: Antonio Conti's Materialist Argument for Women's Inferiority 49 Conti's Intellectual Trajectory 52 The Letter 56 3 Palliated Resistance: Diamante Medaglia Faini on 'Which Studies Are Fitting for Women' 69 Signifying the Feminine 71 A Scientific Education for Women 73 'Which Studies Are Fitting for Women' 77

viii

Contents

4 For the Public Good: tt Gaffed 'Defence of Women' 87 Historical Context and Political Designs of // Caffe 89 'Difesa delle donne' 93 5 Counter-Discourse: La donna galante ed erudita 105 History of the Eighteenth-Century Italian Feminine Press 107 Re-educating Women 113 Fashioning Femininity 118 Masking 127 Conclusion 133 Notes 141 Works Cited 183 Index 199

Acknowledgments

I wish to express my deep gratitude to the many people and several organizations that helped to bring this study to fruition. During the early stages of research and writing, I received support and guidance from my professors of Italian at the University of Chicago, Rebecca West, Paolo Cherchi, Emilio Speciale, and especially Elissa Weaver, the director of my dissertation, whose meticulous reading and extensive written comments were critical to the development of my ideas on the topic and to the process of transforming a scholarly inquiry into a book. The Fulbright Commission generously supported nine months of necessary archival research in Rome and Venice. During that extended sojourn, I was fortunate enough to meet Luciano Guerci, who vastly enriched my understanding of the development of the eighteenth-century Italian discourse about women, a topic on which he remains the leading expert, and who provided critical practical information to facilitate my research in Italy and at home. I am grateful to the late Marino Berengo for discussing with me the development and key characteristics of eighteenth-century Venetian journals, and for putting me in contact with other scholars in Venice working in the same field. Since I began this project, Marco Callegari has gone to great lengths to provide me with information about a range of subjects, from Venetian academies to eighteenth-century Italian philosophers, and to acquire and to send to me microfilms of rare eighteenth-century texts. I thank Franco Fido, whose name alone opened many doors in Italy, and who advised me on critical aspects of my research. Gianni Francione exemplified the best attributes of today's literary republican by liberally sharing his expertise on the Milanese caffettisti - in particular, information about newly discovered autographs of the journal - and by providing written comments

x Acknowledgments

on my analysis of // Gaffes 'Defence of Women.' I have also benefited greatly from Marta Cavazza's encyclopedic knowledge of the Italian Settecento as well as from her kind encouragement. I am grateful to members of the Folger Institute's Colloquium on Women in the Eighteenth Century, directed by Susan Lanser, for the support they gave me during the early stages of writing and for their useful comments on various drafts. I thank the Women's Caucus of the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies for recognizing my scholarship on learned women of the Italian Enlightenment with the Catherine Macaulay Prize. I have profited greatly over the years from an extended collaborative exchange with Paula Findlen, who shares and inspires my deep fascination with eighteenth-century Italian culture and women's unique authority during the age. Paula Findlen's expert guidance regarding many diverse facets of eighteenth-century Italian history and culture was instrumental for my revision of the book manuscript. I thank my friend and colleague Claire Baldwin for her willingness to read and to provide thoughtful written comments on numerous drafts of the manuscript. I am grateful to Ellen Nerenberg for sharing with me her knowledge of so many aspects of our profession and for her friendship over the years. The Eighteenth-Century Studies Salon at Washington University has been for me a sanctuary from the isolation endemic to academic life. I am grateful to members of this group for their commitment to collaborative intellectual exchange, for sharing their work-inprogress, and for agreeing to read and critique mine. I am deeply indebted to my colleagues in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures of Washington University, all of whom have generously supported my work, and many of whom have read and critiqued sections of the manuscript. Thanks are owed Washington University as well for providing financial support for this research. I am grateful to Jill Levin for her expert editorial suggestions. And I am appreciative of the unhesitating assistance with various research matters from my colleagues in the field, Paola Giuli and Catherine Sama. At the University of Toronto Press, I wish to thank Editor-in-Chief Ron Schoeffel for his skilful and gracious counsel throughout the review and publishing process. I am indebted to the anonymous reviewers of my manuscript for their meticulous and constructive critical comments. I am also grateful to the Editorial Board for supporting this project, and to the editorial staff for helping to see it to press. Finally, I wish to recognize those most intimate bonds that have borne me up and made this all worthwhile: to my family for their loving sup-

Acknowledgments xi port and for taking me seriously but not letting me take myself too seriously; to Eileen Campe for her friendship, humour, and steady encouragement; to my wondrous sons Graham and Max; and to my husband Sam Fiorello, who has been my most dedicated and scrupulous critic, and whose confidence and love have sustained me over the course of this long journey. Portions of chapter 1 and chapter 2 were previously published in the Cincinnati Romance Review 13 (1994): 69—80, and Bollettino del Museo Civico di Padova 86 (1999): 137-45, respectively. An earlier version of chapter 4 was published in Eighteenth-Century Studies 32:3 (1999): 355-69. Portions of chapter 5 previously appeared in Italian Culture 12 (1994): 125-37.

This page intentionally left blank

A Note to the Reader

Unless otherwise indicated, all translations from the Italian are mine. The original Italian quotations are included in the endnotes. I have chosen to cite women of the Italian Settecento by both their maiden and married names when applicable for the convenience of future researchers, as these figures are often identified variously by their husband's and their own surnames. R.M.

This page intentionally left blank

THE CENTURY OF WOMEN

This page intentionally left blank

introduction

The Century of Women

Eighteenth-century Italian playwright Pietro Chiari designated the age he lived in 'The Century of Women.'1 Despite the lack of substantive changes in women's political condition during the Italian Settecento, Chiari's epithet has a certain validity. Women stood as a leitmotif at the centre of Italian Enlightenment discourse. The list of eminent eighteenth-century Italian male authorities who engaged with the 'woman question' is noteworthy for its length and its geographical breadth: from Naples to Venice, Rome to Milan, members of the Italian Republic of Letters converged to debate woman's role in the enlightened polity and her proper education for it.2 This torrent of words about women had important discursive, if not practical, consequences for Italian Settecento culture generally. As Natalie Zemon Davis and Arlette Farge have shrewdly observed, such 'abundant and repetitious discourse' about women was 'shaped by a need to hold them in check, by a barely concealed desire to turn their presence into a kind of absence, or at any rate, a discreet presence within narrowly defined boundaries, rather like a walled garden.'3 That desire for women's containment, however, created its own paradoxical inverse, and as the discourse about women accumulated, women became more and more vibrantly present to the project of Enlightenment reform, not merely as thematic objects but as speaking subjects asserting their own distinct authority over enlightened reconstructions of femininity and the sphere of public discourse. This book seeks to authenticate and to delimit the new status attained by women in the theatre of intellectual exchange through an analysis of the prolific public discourse about women produced by male and female authorities of the Settecento.

4 The Century of Women

Like Enlightenment thinkers generally throughout Europe, the Italian illuministi gave priority to the public good and believed that it could be achieved through systematic and pragmatic policies devised by reasonable men.4 Challenging speculative theory and the authority of what were now viewed as arbitrary moral, historical, and social criteria traditionally used to evaluate human actions and institutions, 'things not words' became the mandate of the enlightened class and social utility a critical touchstone of the age. The Neapolitan illuminista Melchiorre Delfico succinctly articulated the contemporary utilitarian ethic when he suggested that 'if virtue is not put into action, if great ideas do not become of some use, if the torch is hidden under the bushel, not only is it wrong, but it is an evil of a corrupt humanity, a crime that should warrant a punishment greater than scorn and oblivion.'5 In this not-uncommon appropriation of the authority of scripture to the discourse of secular ethics, human virtue is reconfigured as quantifiable, concrete acts of social efficacy,6 and the sinner redefined as no longer the corrupt individual, but the ineffectual community as a whole. This burgeoning Enlightenment ethics founded on social utilityjoined with the exigencies of the 'new science and philosophy' to transform the formal discourse about women. Breaking with a dialectical tradition that has been traced to Giovanni Boccaccio's fourteenth-century catalogue of famous, infamous, and mythical women, De mulieribus claris, the 'woman question' no longer served primarily as a diversion for male intellectuals wishing to exhibit their ingenuity by reworking standard arguments of the querelle des femmes. As Ruth Kelso, Joan Kelly, Marc Angenot, Linda Woodbridge, and others have adeptly shown, prior to the Enlightenment the dispute about women was an ensconced literary genre characterized by set themes, tropes, and authorities, and frequently lacking in authentic conviction.8 The seventeenth-century proto-feminist Arcangela Tarabotti, who devoted much of her life to censuring men's abuse of women in life and in print, poignantly describes the spirit in which many tracts about women were written: 'It is the custom of those presumptuous and arrogant male scholars to believe that they can reach the pinnacle of fame by asserting things [about women] which, having no foundation in truth, are justified on the most fragile grounds of paradox.'9 Alongside misogynist tracts cataloguing feminine vices and the infamous women who epitomized them, formulaic defences of women abounded in early modern Italy that conversely indexed women's superior attributes and illustrious women of virtue.10 But, as Virginia Cox recommends to the modern reader, '"Sincerity," in the sense of a personal

Introduction

5

commitment on the author's part to the ideas expressed, should certainly not be assumed in Renaissance defenses of women. We are on safer ground with "courtesy," "ingenuity," or "eloquence": the qualities contemporary readers most frequently praised in such works.'11 This is not to say, of course, that all literary defences of the female sex by men prior to the Italian Settecento were written only in jest and offered no meaningful challenges to conventional notions of women as essentially inferior. Nuanced readings of the literature of the quarrel by Constance Jordan, Albert Rabil, Margaret King, Pamela Benson, and others have demonstrated the potency of select pro-woman arguments to contest the misogynist tradition.12 Yet, these arguments were, with rare exception, addressed to a male academic elite, essentially fixed in terms of their classical structure, their tropes, and their grounding in the authority of natural and divine law, and devoid of political effect.13 In distinct contrast to this formal discursive tradition, during the aptly named 'Age of Criticism' women's nature and social functions were analysed seriously and pragmatically and seen as central to the public good. The terms of the debate about women changed when rational civil law, secular moral philosophy, and the majority good challenged the authority of natural and divine law so integral to the querelle. Women's essential roles may not have altered significantly in the ideal enlightened society envisioned by illuministi, but the criteria for assessing the purpose and value of these roles were transformed. Admittedly, some influential members of the Italian Republic of Letters did persist in treating the 'woman question' as an academic exercise, but the scarcity of these arguments is proportionate to the contemporary currency of their approach. Ferdinando Galiani (17281787), Neapolitan diplomat to France at the height of the siecle des lumieres, epitomizes this retrograde standpoint in his essay Croquis d'un dialogue sur les femmes (1772).14 That he 'appeared a man of a different generation,'15 adhering to the academic protocol and ideological principles of a past age, is nowhere more evident than in his sardonic dialogue on the question of women's essential nature and social functions. Undoubtedly, as Franco Fido has observed, Galiani advanced the extreme misogynist argument that woman is 'a naturally sick and weak animal' in order to mock both Antoine Leonard Thomas's pretentious Essay on Women, which had recently been published,16 and the indignant responses to the essay by his 'feminist friends.' Galiani exploited the 'new' empirical science and philosophy with hyperbolic exactness to lay bare women's weak physiology and to prove that the female existence is

6 The Century of Women a chronic illness sporadically abated by moments of well-being. He extended his ludicrous portrait of the female sex by characterizing the domestic sphere as an asylum for these naturally sick, idle, and indeed deranged 'animals' that men occasionally visit from the rational and vibrant public domain. Although Galiani had few cohorts among eighteenth-century Italian intellectuals who engaged in this 'manly sport,'18 two of note were Diunilgo Valdecio, an alias for Carlo Maria Chiaraviglio, whose 6,880 rhyming verses of 1774 reiterated worn arguments characterizing women as the Affliction of Humanity (Lo scoglio dell'umanitd),19 and the Marchesa di Sanival, an alias for Fausto Salvani, who responded to this antifeminist attack with a parodic Defence of Women (La Difesa delle Donne o sia risposta apologetica al libro detto Lo Scoglio dell'Umanitd di Diunilgo Valdecio, 1786).20 In contrast to the resuscitation by Galiani and his few like-minded brethren of exhausted misogynist cliches, the numerous male intellectuals who published arguments during the Settecento about the place and purpose of women in contemporary society did so, by and large, out of genuine concern about women's impact on society and the public good, no matter how self-interested their arguments or how indifferent they may have been to women's own needs and desires. Among illuministi, women were reconceived in terms of the Enlightenment project as 'citizens,' as 'the soul of society,' and as 'the linchpin of public happiness.'21 Redesignated 'the cradle of [modern] deportment and reason,'22 the home now represented a primary training ground for an enlightened citizenry. And mothers, as 'the most worthy educators of every man,'23 practically facilitated this training and the consequent well-being of the modern state. Thus, as the illuminista Pierdomenico Soresi averted, 'to liberate the fair sex from ignorance' was no longer merely a theoretical question but 'a matter of public utility.'24 Enlightened advocates of women's education delineated academic curricula for the modern female citizen ('cittadina') that typically comprised morally sound literature, sacred history, moral philosophy, some mathematics, and in rare instances the natural sciences and contemporary novels. However, the object of educating women was invariably the indirect promotion of the public good through the enhancement of women's contributions within the domestic sphere: their management of the household, education of children, maintenance of a moral aspect, and even participation in social conversations ('conversazione'). Beyond women's domestic service, the illuministi re-evaluated women's labour outside of the home in the public marketplace in terms of its 'utility to the State.'25 Questions

Introduction 7

of women's private and public functions and physical and intellectual make-up likewise became integral to contemporary discourse on such varied subjects as health, anatomy, education, social morality, demographics, and the effects of an expanding commercial economy. The vigorous and rampant drive to represent woman and to define her social, political, and moral functions was in fact inextricably linked to the cultural vanguard's ambition to define and represent itself and its reformist political imperatives. Cesare Beccaria's assault on patriarchal authority in his commanding tract On Crimes and Punishment (1764) demonstrates how Enlightenment discourse theorized a transformation in women's essential social and political condition, even as it served the political and personal designs of a male intellectual elite. In the chapter titled 'The Spirit of the Family,'26 Beccaria banishes to the unenlightened past the entrenched concept of family as a monarchy in miniature in which all members acquiesce to the arbitrary will of the father-sovereign. In his ideal modern republic, private and public ethics converge, subordinating paternal will to that of the state, which is made up of enlightened citizens 'not slaves' to the father, and whose overarching purpose is 'the good of the majority.' Beccaria never speaks to the place of women in his modern republic. His revolutionary thesis that paternal authority is not in fact political authority is a declaration of war on the old order, that of private and public power based on ensconced tradition and privilege rather than on reason and social utility. His battle, and that of his fellow illuministi of the ecole de Milan, was as much with the traditional political system founded on inherited power as with his own patrician father, against whose oppressive tyranny he furiously rebelled in youth.27 However, by reconceiving the basis for authority in the private, domestic sphere, he provides an opening, narrow as it may have been, for the reconception of women's position therein, as well as for a new theory of their rights and responsibilities vis-a-vis the state. Enlightenment ethics was not, however, the sole impetus behind changes in the public discourse about women in Italy. The Italian Settecento represents a critical transitional period in the expansion of women's presence in arenas of intellectual exchange traditionally restricted to men. Although women gained no meaningful political rights in Italy, the age produced a uniquely large and commanding body of learned women active in every sphere of intellectual endeavour, a female intelligentsia that was, remarkably, not limited to the aristocratic class. In contrast to women's strictly confined presence in official centres

8 The Century of Women for academic exchange in the past, and in other contemporary European countries, a significant number of women intellectuals secured institutional authority in Italy. During the Settecento, French and British women intellectuals excluded from academies in their homelands were inducted along with their Italian sisters into the most prestigious Italian scientific and literary academies. Several learned Italian women such as Clelia del Grille Borromeo (1684-1777), Bianca Laura Saibante Vannetti (1723-1799), and Maria Selvaggia Borghini (1654-1731) themselves founded influential academies.28 Philosopher and physicist Laura Bassi (1711-1778), legal scholar Maria Pellegrina Amoretti (1756-1787), and Newtonian scientist Cristina Roccati (1734-1814) were among a restricted number of women awarded university degrees. An elite society of women also held university teaching positions. Laura Bassi was professor of experimental physics and philosophy at the University of Bologna and a celebrated member of the prestigious Bolognese Institute of Sciences, while her contemporary Anna Morandi Manzolini (1717-1774) conducted lessons in anatomy, dissection, and anatomical ceroplasty as lecturer in anatomical design at the University of Bologna. The mathematician Maria Gaetana Agnesi (1718-1799), whose Analytical Institutions for the Use of Italian Youth (1748) on differential and integral calculus won recognition from the French Academy of Science as the 'best and most complete book on the subject,' was awarded an honorary chair in mathematics at the University of Bologna by Pope Benedict XIV; classics scholar Clotilde Tambroni (1758-1817) was likewise installed as chair of Greek at the University of Bologna.29 Literary women with academic affiliations included the many female members of the Arcadia Academy with its colonies dotted across the peninsula. As Elisabetta Graziosi has shown, this literary movement, which aimed at 'the spread of good taste' through the imitation and performance of Petrarchan verse by intellectuals as well as literary neophytes, offered women unprecedented authority in official academic life and cultural reform. Graziosi observes: The Arcadia did something more than propose and change feminine and linguistic paradigms in the course of its century-long existence, gathering together the aristocratic woman in combat with her destiny, the wife and the platonic lover, the cultured actress, the female adventurer, the professional woman poet and playwright. After the conclusion of its first moment under the star of female patronage [Queen Cristina of Sweden] the Arcadia opted for a commingling of the sexes that had as its model the salon

Introduction 9 and that relegated to the past the misogynistic closure of the seventeenthcentury Italian intellectual class.30 Women's new cultural approbation is embodied in the spectacular crowning of Arcadian improvisational poet Gorilla Olimpica (Maria Maddalena Morelli, 1727-1800) as poet laureate on the Roman Campidoglio in 1776, the only woman in Italy ever to achieve this distinction.31 More commonplace exemplars of women's literary influence are the many translators whose work made classical and contemporary texts accessible to a broader literate public. Traduttrici of note include the Neapolitan philosopher Giuseppa Eleonora Barbapiccola (n.d.), a member of Vice's inner circle who translated Descartes's Principles of Philosophy expressly for the enlightenment of her female contemporaries,32 arid her compatriot, the natural philosopher Maria Angela Ardinghelli (1728-1825), whose translations of the English Newtonian Stephen Hales were the first to appear in Italy.33 Luisa Bergalli Gozzi (17031799), a poet, playwright, theatre director, and author of a vast anthology of Italian women's poetry from the Middle Ages to her own day, Componimenti poetici delle piu illustri rimatrici d'ogni secolo (1726), translated Racine's Works (1736), Moliere's Misanthrope, Madame du Boccage's Amazons, and the comedies of classical playwright Terence, among many others.34 Elisabetta Caminer Turra was a chief purveyor in Italy of the new European bourgeois drama through her translations of the plays of Voltaire, Du Bellay, Mercier, Henry Fielding, William Congreve, Johann Jakob Engel, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, and Madame Le Prince di Beaumont/" Susanna Lemaitre Mengazzi, Maria Vittoria Ottoboni Serbelloni, and Francesca Roberti Franco also translated classical, and modern French and British, texts; and Giustina Renier Michiel (1755-1832) made availableo/?for the first time to her compatriots numerous works by Shakespeare. Elisabetta Caminer Turra (1751-1796), mentioned above as a translator, deserves attention in another context as well: her work as journalist, editor, and publisher. Though few, the women involved in publishing and editing had a marked influence on eighteenth-century literary culture and the circulation of new texts and ideas. In collaboration with her father, she directed the literary journal Europa letteraria (1768-73); on her own, she edited three other literary periodicals: Giornale enddopedico (1774-82), Nuovo giornale enddopedico (1782-89), and Nuovo giornale enddopedico d'ltalia (1790-7), instrumental in introducing and critiquing for a cultured Italian public current literary and philosophical works

10 The Century of Women

published in and outside of Italy. Not only did she offer in her journals 'a mirror and resonant sounding-box of the new European Enlightenment culture,'37 but also, perhaps most remarkable of all, for fifteen years Caminer Turra managed her own publishing house, the Stamperia Turra.38 Beyond transgressing the confines of intellectual exchange historically closed to them, learned women of the Italian Settecento claimed their place in the literary republic to formally defend the rights and the education of women. While they joined a longstanding tradition among women in Italy of pro-woman disputation, in contrast to their predecessors, who were generally excluded from 'the world of the male intellectual,'39 eighteenth-century Italian women more and more frequently defended the integrity and the rights of women from inside recognized centres of intellectual exchange: the academy, the university, and the pages of respected publications. No longer relegated to monastic or 'book-lined cells,'40 as was customary for their Renaissance and Baroque precursors, eighteenth-century Italian women asserted an alternative public discourse about women in orations delivered from the podiums of academies to which they belonged, and in published tracts, as well as in the novel 'feminine' media of the fashion magazine. The new insider's position they held may, in fact, be seen as influencing a greater moderation in their tone and demands. There are no ferocious repudiations of the male sex or assertions of a radically separate feminine sphere as found in Moderata Fonte's The Worth of Women (II merito delle donne}, published in 1600. The revolutionary proto-feminist voice of Arcangela Tarabotti, a forced nun whose powerful tracts written from her conventual prison castigate fathers for their brutality toward their daughters, refute misogynist authors, and denounce the misery of convent life, finds no match during the Settecento. Indeed, what the protofeminist of the Italian Settecento says is often less striking than where and to whom she speaks. l Women's expanding influence and the attributes and cultural consequences of their rejoinders to the 'woman question' are the primary focus of this book. By uncovering the characteristics of the eclectic dominant discourse about women and of the counter-discourse women authors produced to assert their own distinct authority over constructions of femininity and the public sphere, this book aims to reconceive prevailing notions of eighteenth-century Italian culture and to rectify misconceptions about Italy's position and influence within the Republic of Letters of the European Enlightenment. It should be noted that here and throughout this

Introduction

11

study, my usage of the term 'public sphere/arena/domain' is intended to reflect the express viewpoint and ideological designs of Italian Enlightenment thinkers themselves. Except where I specifically interrogate well-known theories about the eighteenth-century public sphere by Jurgen Habermas and such contemporary feminist critics as Joan Landes and Nancy Fraser, my usage is rooted in its tacit definition in the texts and contexts of the age. (While the illuministi did not actually use the term 'public sphere,' it clearly existed on a conceptual level.) The public arena, as numerous arguments and tracts of the period make clear, was less a matter of place than a series of specific (masculine) activities and modes of exchange - social, discursive, economic, political, and cultural. The question that opens Antonio Conti's letter of 1721 to Magistrate Perelle, for example, asks if women are as capable as men in politics, war, and the arts and sciences, pursuits that demarcate the public sphere and, for Conti and many like him, the purview of male authority. The warning by eminent ittuminista Pietro Verri to his daughter Teresa about the scarce means available to women for defining themselves in the world in Ricordi a mia figlia (Advice for My Daughter, 1777), perhaps most explicitly outlines the contrast between women's narrow existence of self-restraint with the vast domain for men of selfrealization and attainment: 'Man, through a career in the military, or through church office, or the arts and sciences, or through government vocations, has a means of silencing idle chatter, and of going forth as a conqueror to subdue public opinion. But woman lacks these resources. Weak, graceful and timid by nature, she has no other means but her sweetness, her placid goodness, and the virtues of her heart.'42 This explicit division along gender lines of the human activities and conditions that constitute public and domestic life in eighteenth-century Italian discourse thus forms the basis of my own interpretation of them. As this study seeks to make manifest, women's increasing publicity during the age, their infiltration of traditionally 'masculine' sites and endeavours provoked, at the very least, disquiet among illuministi, who, despite their embrace of the modern project of Enlightenment, desired a return to a traditional social order built upon women's domestic restraint. The chapters that follow tell the tale of five paradigmatic eighteenthcentury Italian texts whose theme is woman, including an academic debate (chapter 1), a scientific tract (chapter 2), an oration (chapter 3), an Enlightenment journal (chapter 4), and a fashion magazine (chapter 5). In each case, the discourse in question is treated less as a literary arti-

12 The Century of Women

fact than as a textual event, and the aim is to combine close analysis with an account of the political underpinnings, the personal conditions and desires, and the larger cultural and ideological contexts, both regional and international, from which the discourse emerged. The movement is from story to Storia, or cultural history, and from the literal to the literary. The texts discussed are at once manifestly provincial - tightly bound to specific times, places, and constituencies - and more broadly emblematic of the representation of women by instrumental groups and in chief literary venues of the age. They are fundamentally dialogic in design, engaged in discourse with members and interest groups of the contemporary literary republic and with other texts of the present and the past. By revealing the cultural and intertextual foundations on which their arguments are built, I aim also to suggest the political and discursive relationship between a dominant class of male intellectuals and an emerging contemporary 'counter-public' of women.43 Structured as an extended disputation running across the eighteenth century, the five texts together enable a juxtaposition and comparison of the themes, viewpoints, genres, and modes that distinguish men's from women's contributions to the critical controversy about women. The formal debate in 1723 of the internationally noted Academy of the Ricovrati in Padua, 'Should Women Be Admitted to the Study of the Sciences and the Noble Arts?', which forms the subject of the first chapter, prefigures all of these themes in microcosm. The Ricovrati debate manifests in deed and word the emerging transformation of the querelle des femmes genre from male intellectual sport 'without political consequence'44 to a more self-consciously modern dispute that takes into account the audience of elite women present in 1723, and, in its amended published version of 1729, incorporates women's objections, as well as apologies for the misogynistic views expressed by the original combatants.45 The Ricovrati debate thus epitomizes the back-and-forth among the male intellectual class at the beginning of the period between the discourse of misogynist polemic, which characterizes women as physiologically and essentially inferior, and the discourse of the illuministi, which, in its 'reconsideration of all the old questions,'46 begins, however hesitantly, to challenge notions of women's inherent subordination. Antonio Vallisneri, the Prince of the Paduan Academy, is an emblematic transitional figure in this process. Although he proposed the 'consequential' question of women's education for debate as a corrective to the frivolous, unscientific discussions in which the Academy commonly

Introduction

13

engaged, he preserved the artificial format of the querelle des femmes genre by assigning the antithetical parts to his fellow academicians in a debate that was more theatrical spectacle than authentic dispute. Vallisneri likewise rendered an equivocal judgment at the 1723 debate by endorsing learning, but only for the female elite. However, it was this same Prince of the Ricovrati who insisted that the publication of the debate in 1729 include apologies for women's education written by women contradicting the argument of the editor, Giovann Antonio Volpi, against women's education as well as Vallisneri's own judgment. Although the 1729 publication includes two other defences of women's education, Aretaflla Savini De' Rossi's is the dominant female voice of objection and critique, and forms the subject of the second half of chapter 1. Her defiant voice is amplified in the volume by its doubled presence not only in her studiedly cool and formal 'Apology in Favour of Educating Women' but also in the thirty-six acid footnotes she annexes to Volpi's misogynist argument. We know little more about her than that she was married to a Florentine nobleman and a member of the Arcadia Academy under the name Larinda Alagonia, and even less about the process by which her responses to the debate came into existence. Still, an embryonic feminism is discernible in her appropriation and subversion of the terms of modern intellectual discourse. In her rebuttal, Aretaflla Savini De' Rossi conflates the new scientific method based on empirical proof with the authority of personal experience to oppose Volpi's arguments from history, tradition, and myth.47 Her presence in the 1729 publication of the Ricovrati debate, along with Volpi's fulsome apologies for the antifeminist arguments 'enjoined on him' by Vallisneri, ensures that this literary dispute carries a very different valence from the actual debate of 1723. And her footnotes - telling, sarcastic, in places even insolent - comprise an intervention unique to the genre that modernizes and opens up the dispute while leaving its androcentric outlines visible. Intimately tied to the Ricovrati Academy's debate and the subject of chapter 2 is Antonio Conti's 'scientific' and materialist argument for women's inferiority, written in 1721. A native of Padua, the internationally renowned philosopher Conti (1677-1749) was a long-time friend of Vallisneri, and his close ally and collaborator in the promotion of the 'new empirical science and philosophy.' These Paduan accademici espoused kindred secular, mechanistic intepretations of natural phenonmena, and a belief in preformism, the infinite divisibility of matter, and the uniformity and order of reality. As their prolonged epistolary

14 The Century of Women

exchange indicates, they also shared a common interest in the questions of women's nature and educability. Vallisneri and Conti repeatedly discussed in their letters the Ricovrati debate of 1723 and the 1729 published version of the dispute, and Conti indicated his own research and writing on the subject - in particular, his philosophical tract that 'proves scientifically' women's innate inadequacy for all endeavours related to government, the military, and the sciences. Remarkably, their correspondence reveals that Conti's tract was solicited unsuccessfully by Vallisneri for publication in the 1729 volume. While Conti's account of women's inferiority was undoubtedly inspired by the same desire to 'modernize,' the querette that prompted Vallisneri to propose the education of women as a subject for academic debate,49 unlike the Ricovrati, he is unequivocal in his method and his judgment. Conti wrenches the debate from its rhetorical and philosophical roots in the prescientific querelk des femmes in order to render it theoretically congruent with a materialist account of the cosmos. So thoroughgoing is Conti's materialism, in fact, that he writes in part to correct the insufficiently conclusive argument for women's inferiority of his mentor, the French theologian and philosophe Malebranche, who allowed for the existence of exceptional women capable of transcending the sex's inferiority as a whole. Conti will have none of this. For him, a cosmos governed by immutable material codes and universal laws of order and utility disallows exceptions, and his monistic theory of female materiality applies not only to women, but indeed to the whole of female creation, at every level and across species. Conti's tract exemplifies the overarching objective of the burgeoning 'Science of Woman,' to probe the 'facts' of female matter in order to seize upon the material source of women's difference. The movement away from the querelle continued as the century progressed, abetted by the presence of women writers and scholars in official centres for intellectual exchange. Diamante Medaglia Faini's oration in 1763 to the Academy of the Unanimi, of which she was not only a member but the elected Princess, epitomizes this progress by featuring the appearance of a woman scholar 'in braids and a skirt' at the podium defending women's education to her academic peers. Faini, a member of the bourgeoisie who abandoned her vocation as celebrated regional poet for the 'new science and philosophy,' argues for women's education in mathematics and science at the expense of the more traditional and familiar literary curriculum. Her oration, which forms the subject of chapter 3, explicitly revisits and revises the Ricovrati debate,

Introduction 15

although she by no means leaves behind the argumentative ambivalence of her precursors.50 Indeed, her oration is deeply equivocal: radical in its recommendation that all women be taught mathematics and science at a time when universal education even for men lay a century in the future, but traditional in its justification of that curriculum as required to correct her sex's innate idleness and corruption. And although Medaglia Faini may begin by quoting Vallisneri's moderate judgment, she signally - and strategically - fails to mention the arguments of any of her female precursors in defence of women's education, including Aretafila Savini De' Rossi's contribution to the dispute. The Age of Sociability, as Dena Goodman has shown, not only witnessed the expansion of prime arenas of the Republic of Letters to include the authoritative presence of women, but also saw an increased permeability among traditionally masculine and feminine, elite and popular social and discursive practices.51 Simply put, the boundaries between the worlds of letters and manners were often fluid. In their pursuit of the modern ideals of sociability and standards of taste, the culture and practices of the academy, the salon, the masquerade, and the cafe often overlapped. Academies frequently evolved from intimate reunions held in private households among the socially elite or, as in the case of the Arcadia, modelled themselves directly on the more informal 'feminized' discursive practice of the salon; moreover, academies embraced the lively contemporary spirit of the 'perpetual carnival' by frequently conducting their reunions in mask; and the cafe, from which the leading journal of Illuminismo took its name (II Caffe), represented the new 'anti-academic' site for enlightened social practice and intellectual exchange. This permeability contributed to the emergence of the overtly feminine 'counter-discourse' of the eighteenth-century women's magazine, of which Gioseffa Cornaldi Caminer's La donna galante ed erudita is a paradigmatic example. La donna galante ed erudita and periodicals like it served a growing public of affluent bourgeois women eager to climb the social ladder, and in so doing created an alternative sphere of public discourse designed to articulate and satisfy women's specialized interests. Limited scholarly attention has been paid to the development of this discourse in Italy or to its unmasking of the constructed quality of feminine identity, which it portrays as a series of endlessly varying performances requiring precise settings and props rather than as a set of essential attributes. Chapter 5 aims to remedy this omission and to examine the ambivalence and ambiguous effects of a genre that teaches its readers that women's power is predicated on their conformity to the

16 The Century of Women

feminine myth while at the same time demythicizing the feminine by exposing it as a set of traits so tenuous that they may be fabricated with make-up, wardrobe, and studied comportment. The dominant intellectual class of male critics and scholars was not silent as the construction of that alternative discourse and counter-public proceeded. The illuministi, the group most inclined to approve a transformation in women's roles within Enlightenment society and the state, were ambivalent about women's new public prominence praising contemporaryfilosofessein their texts and defending the limited instruction of girls, but at the same time reiterating traditional arguments for women's domestic containment. Even the most progressive among them failed to imagine women as essentially more than a symbolic marker, as the emblem and essence of the domestic sphere. Giovanni Bandiera's provocative Treatise on the Education of Women of 1740,53 for example, adopts Poullain de la Barre's radical formulation that 'the mind has no sex' and asserts the uniformity of 'the constitution of the body, the organs, the sentiments' in men and women - even argues their equal ability to master the abstract disciplines of logic, metaphysics, mathematics, astronomy, and so on. Yet, he also recommends that women's formal education be limited to subjects that will strengthen domestic life and motherhood - in effect, the already-conventional curriculum of music, painting, dance, and languages, supplemented by only the most rudimentary mathematics and sciences. The 'sublime sciences' are superfluous to women's obedience, modesty, and Christian virtue, he concludes, and might promote rather than curb their unnatural desire to go 'outside the home.' Similarly, the aforementioned Neapolitan illuminista Melchiorre Delfico argues for the significance of woman as the linchpin of social stability and happiness and disputes her essential inferiority in his Philosophical Essay on Marriage of 1774.54 He grants women authority over child-rearing and the management of the household; he recognizes their natural physical (including sexual), emotional, and intellectual needs; and he demands their meaningful education. But at the same time he, too, places them under male tutelage and authority, and embeds in his apparently radical argument for the importance of marriage what Carole Pateman has termed 'the sexual contract' - women's implicit subjugation to male authority, their circumscription within the domestic sphere and the denial to them of public personhood.55 Both Bandiera's and Delfico's 'defences' are marked by the ambivalence at the heart of all Enlightenment discourse about women and

Introduction 17 their centrality to a properly constituted public sphere, an ambivalence which feminist critics of Jurgen Habermas attribute to the paradoxical suppression of women's subjectivity common to these 'enlightened' writers. The 'Defence of Women' published anonymously in the preeminent Italian Enlightenment journal II Cafjeand analysed in chapter 4, displays this contest between the rhetoric of inclusion and the practice of exclusion at its height. // Cafje constructs an ideal eclectic readership in its pages, including everyone from 'grave magistrates' to 'spirited maidens,' but in practice it appealed to an elite male readership who shared the editors' rejection of the authoritarian politics of entitlement and their interest in an enlightened political rhetoric influenced by Locke, Hume, Diderot, Montesquieu, and Rousseau. In this vein, the 'Defence of Women' (one of only four articles published without any authorial attribution and in effect a statement of editorial policy) assumes women's social, moral, and intellectual importance to the modern state, and, like the aforementioned Delfico and Bandiera, blames men for the corruption and indolence the authors see as widespread. All over Europe, the caffettisti complain, elite women neglect their domestic duties for the world of fashion and sociability - the world of La donna galante ed erudita - while plebeian women do the same and are rude and immodest to boot. The solution they propose is, of course, better education, but like Bandiera and Delfico they mean an education that will return women to the home, where men's authority will be paramount, as it is in the public arena. This assertion of an identity between the enlightened female citizen and the guardian of the hearth serves as a restatement, in Enlightenment terms, of women's essential domesticity and a reinvigorated justification for her containment. The female protagonist of the enlightened tract and the chief source of the illuministi's disquiet was not, in fact, the rare woman scholar but, as // Cafje s 'Defence' makes plain, the contemporary woman of means, especially the rising bourgeoise, who casually breached the tenets and the real walls of the domestic sphere. This modern donna di spirito, who became a pervasive cliche in the literature of the period, frequents cafes and gaming houses, the theatre, the masquerade, the salon, and the world of fashion generally. She reads fashion magazines, novels, plays, and books of science, like Algarotti's Newtonianism for Ladies, written ostensibly for her. She threatens the household economy with her devotion to Moda, and she threatens the household tranquillity with her devotion to her cicisbeo (gallant) and her consequent neglect of her children and husband. The prolific discourse of the illuministi, exemplified

18 The Century of Women here by Bandiera, Delfico, and the 'Defence' in E Gaffe, aimed fundamentally to contain this woman. Their language of disinterest and the invocation of the rational method of the 'new science and philosophy' buttress their arguments for her redomestication and for utilitarian social 'reforms' that will transform her from woman of fashion to enlightened dttadina (citizen), capable of safeguarding the public welfare as Delfico's 'attentive wife, tender mother, and compassionate mistress of the home.'56 These anxious efforts at containment have not been without effect, at least where the history of the period has been concerned. Despite the critical importance of the 'woman question' to eighteenth-century intellectual exchange, and despite the challenge presented by women of the age to male dominion over women and the spheres of public discourse, these issues have been pervasively neglected as subjects of analysis. Between Giulio Natali's seminal history II Settecento, published in 1929, with its chapter on women intellectuals and authors,57 and Luciano Guerci's La discussione sulla donna nell'Italia del Settecento and La sposa obbediente: Donna e matrimonio nella discussione dell'Italia del Settecento (1987, 1988) ,58 women writers and the 'woman question' all but disappear.59 Eminent historians of this period such as Franco Venturi, Stuart Woolf, Giuseppe Ricuperati, Dino Carpanetto, and Mario Fubini have excluded from their analyses virtually any consideration of the public discourse about woman or of women's influential voices and roles in the Republic of Letters of the Settecento. And while Guerci's anthological study represents a pathbreaking overview of the controversy about women and includes analysis of myriad tracts from the popular to the scholarly, the religious to the libertine, and from every region of Italy, his explicit concern is, in fact, the neglected 'other Settecento,' the conservative, 'nonEnlightenment and anti-Enlightenment' contributions to the debate about women.60 For this reason, he offers scant analysis of women's contributions to the debate, despite treating the primary male actors in detail. Fortunately, more recent work has begun to remedy these omissions and to elucidate women's increasing authority in eighteenth-century Italian culture generally. The inclusion of biographical sketches of eighteenth-century Italian learned women in such widely promoted academic texts as Alma Mater Studiorum: La presenza femminile dal XVIII al XX secolo (Bologna, 1988) reflects the expanding interest in women's roles during this period. Current studies of eighteenth-century Italian women scientists have enriched our understanding of the institutional gains

Introduction 19

women intellectuals were able to make. Recent and forthcoming biographies have begun to clarify the circumstances and contributions of such important women scholars as Maria Gaetana Agnesi, Elisabetta Caminer Turra, Laura Bassi, Gorilla Olimpica, Cristina Roccati, Clotilde Tambroni, and Anna Morandi Manzolini.62 And the forthcoming translations of writings on the 'woman question' by Diamante Medaglia Faini and Aretaflla Savini De' Rossi promise to broaden understanding of women's authority during the Italian Enlightenment among Englishspeaking scholars.63 This book seeks to add to their contributions by juxtaposing the biographies of five paradigmatic eighteenth-century textual events. Examining them individually and in tandem and exposing their points of rhetorical and analytic stress, inter- and intratextual, will, I hope, clarify why Chiari called his 'the Century of Women' and will define the discursive realities that helped to make it so.

This page intentionally left blank

chapter one

The Debate

A daughter serves her father; A wife serves her husband; A widow her decorum, And they die having only served. Martellian verse cited by Aretafila Savini De' Rossi in Apology in Favour of Educating Women, 1723

On 16 June 1723, the internationally renowned Academy of the Ricovrati in Padua held a public debate to answer the question: 'Should Women Be Admitted to the Study of the Sciences and the Noble Arts?' Antonio Vallisneri, Prince of the Academy, natural philosopher, and professor of practical and theoretical medicine at the University of Padua, introduced the debate and judged its outcome. Paduan patrician and university librarian Guglielmo Camposanpiero argued in defence of instructing women in the arts and sciences, while Giovann Antonio Volpi, noted publisher and professor of Greek and Latin at the University of Padua, argued in opposition. The debate was a staged event in the manner of the dialectical tradition dating to the classical age. Held at nine in the evening in the 'Green Room' ('Sala Verde') of the Prefect's Palace amidst the flow of music and warm drinks, the disputation was given a vibrant backdrop by frescoes of the hierarchy of angels created by thirteenth-century Paduan artist Guariento. Prince Vallisneri had assigned the antithetical positions on the question of women's education to his fellow academicians and, in accordance with protocol, had assumed the presentation of the prologue and the epilogue to the debate. Stock characters in the well-

22 The Century of Women

worn comedy of the querelk des femmes, Camposaripiero and Volpi were to captivate the audience and incite sympathy for their parts by their artful and original rhetorical performances. Yet, while the casting and presentation of the debate were in most ways customary, the site and the audience were not. Founded in 1599, the Academy of the Ricovrati was a longstanding locus of the 'new science.' Indeed, Galileo, a foremost originator of the empirical scientific method, was among the Academy's founding members.1 At the time of the debate, Prince of the Ricovrati Antonio Vallisneri continued to uphold the Galilean tradition in his scientific and theoretical work, becoming a leading defender in Italy of secular, experimental science grounded on a mechanistic cosmology.2 Despite the conventionality of the Ricovrati's treatment of the issue, the formal consideration of women's education at the advent of the Enlightenment by this esteemed academic institution headed by a chief proponent of the 'new science' signalled a crucial transition in the Italian controversy about women. This is not to say that the Ricovrati had disregarded either the 'woman question' or educated women during their extended history. On the contrary, not only were matters pertaining to women a favourite subject of the Academy's public and private assemblies, but also the Academy of the Ricovrati was among the first academic institutions in Europe to grant honorary membership to learned women. A well-documented event dating to 1678 illustrates both conventions. It was at that time that the Ricovrati staged a debate on 'Which Would Be More Desirable, Given a Reign of Government Led by a Woman, a Woman Dedicated to Arms or to Letters'3 to honour Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia, whose graduation in philosophy from the University of Padua in June of that year distinguished her as the first woman in Europe to receive a university degree. Cornaro Piscopia was also the first of several European women to be inducted in the Academy of the Ricovrati, becoming an honorary member in 1669.4 Other female Ricovrati included the noted French translator and philosopher Anne Lefevre Dacier, inducted in 1679; Madame Rousseau, also inducted in 1679; Madeleine de Scudery of France, known as the Sappho of the seventeenth century, inducted in 1685; Maria Selvaggia Borghini, Pisan poet and scholar, inducted in 1689; and the French writer Claude-Elisabeth Perrot Brettonvilliers, inducted in 1699.5 It is important to note, however, that most of the female Ricovrati of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, especially those dwelling outside of Italy, never set foot in the academy. Indeed,

The Debate 23

among the women granted membership prior to the 1723 debate, only four were Italian while twenty-one were French.6 The women of the Ricovrati were in fact essentially symbolic members disallowed 'a deliberative voice within the academic Counsel' until 1962. 7 They could not vote; except in rare cases, they did not address the assembly of academicians, a requirement of all regular members; and they could not hold higher office within the institution. Significantly, no women had been permitted entrance to the ranks of the Ricovrati for a quarter-century prior to the 1723 debate. Other relevant topics discussed by the Ricovrati before 1723 included 'Whether It Is Better for Those Who Serve Women to Win Their Hearts by Enduring or by Resenting Women's Amorous Injuries' and 'What Would Be More Laudable, to Exclude Women from Government as the Romans Did, or to Admit Them As Did the Greeks.'8 Numerous assemblies were also devoted to the 'womanly' theme of love. Vallisneri and his esteemed fellow scientist Giovanni Poleni had, in fact, debated in February 1721 'Whether Every Man, for His Own Good, Should or Should Not Fall in Love.'9 Indigenous to the canon of the querelle des femmes, these strictly rhetorical questions, disengaged from practical and moral consequence, served to showcase the wit and ingenuity of male intellectuals with regard to 'set pieces in an established literary genre.'10 In a letter dated 9 May 1722, written to the philosopher and historian Ludovico Antonio Muratori, however, Vallisneri voiced his desire for the modernization of the academy's formal discourse. As Prince, he intended to abandon frivolous disputes like those about love, which the 'grave men' of the academy 'could no longer abide,' and to propose an unprecedented subject for debate: the education of women.1 The exigencies of the 'new empirical philosophy and science' and of a burgeoning Enlightenment ethics based on social utility and the public good demanded that 'modern' academic institutions address issues of actual social consequence. In contrast to such remote suppositions as female military prowess, or the inclusion of women in government, the question of women's education was bound to key contemporary concerns about the formation of a sound and rational society. Thus, despite the authority of tradition and predominant assumptions regarding feminocentric matters (including the assumptions of the debate participants themselves), the 'woman question' in general, and women's education in particular, should no longer merely serve to entertain. At this time and in this place, women, their nature, and their social functions gained legitimacy as socially relevant subjects worthy of serious consideration by

24 The Century of Women 'grave men' ('gravi uomini') within their elite spheres of intellectual exchange. The presence of the public as witness and final adjudicator of the contest also upset convention, destabilizing that ensconced 'process of male empowerment' articulated through history in discursive and social practices alike.12 According to notes on the event recorded in the Giornale delle adunanze (Journal of the Assemblies), part of the current library holdings of the still extant academy: 'The preparations having been made with solemn formality, the Hall filled with ladies who had come there in marvellous numbers.'13 The debate was waged and judged by men, yet the numerous women officially in attendance influenced the performance and the outcome of the debate by means of their actual presence. Although the debate participants reiterated conventional masculinist notions about women within a space and according to rules of exchange fabricated by and for male academicians, each also attempted to appease his female public, often at the expense of the coherence of his argument. The ambivalence and incongruities that mark arguments in the debate stem largely from an increased, albeit anxious, recognition of women as a rising interest-group whose reality and perspective contradicted longstanding constructions of femininity. Not only did women contest men's authority over them and the sphere of public exchange by occupying a historic preserve of male authority, but also a number of women formally challenged the misogynist arguments in the debate that sought to deny or unreasonably restrict women's education. According to Giovann Antonio Volpi himself, 'a great clamour arose' among women in and outside of Padua at the publication in 1723 of his argument against the education of women.14 Beyond what he claimed was 'universal condemnation' at the time for his part, nine-yearold prodigy Maria Gaetana Agnesi presented an oration in Latin in 1727 to academicians in her home town of Milan, Oratio qua ostenditur Artium liberalium studio, a femineo sexu neutiquam abhorrere, defending the formal instruction of girls. Even thirty years after it took place, the debate provoked reactions from female intellectuals. In the exordium to her oration on 'Which Studies Are Fitting for Women,' presented in 1763 to an academy in Said of which she was a member, poet and mathematician Diamante Medaglia Faini recalled the debate and reiterated Vallisneri's final judgment as a point of departure for her own divergent view on the right way to educate women. (Faini's argument is discussed in detail in chapter 3 of this book.) However, the most comprehensive and forceful rebuttal came soon after the debate from Sienese noblewoman and poet Aretafila

The Debate 25 Savini De' Rossi. Her Apology in Favour of Educating Women, against the Preceding Discourse by Signor Gio. Antonio Volpi and her critical notes disputing specific claims in Volpi's argument exemplify the challenge increasingly posed by female intellectuals to male control over intellectual discourse generally, and the terms of the debate about women specifically. In 1729, the Academy of the Ricovrati published an appended edition of the 1723 debate proceedings that comprised the original arguments as well as several supplemental texts, including Maria Gaetana Agnesi's and Aretafila Savini De' Rossi's defences of women's education, and an oration by fellow academician Giuseppe Salio in favour of instructing noblewomen in moral philosophy. This volume explicitly locates and enacts the multifaceted polemic about women that stood at the centre of eighteenth-century Italian public discourse. Moreover, it manifests transformations in discursive practices and in the construction of femininity that took place during the Italian Settecento as a result of the rise of Enlightenment ethics and of women's public prominence. Edited by the designated opponent to women's education from the debate, Giovann Antonio Volpi, it epitomizes the ambivalence and ideological conflict characteristic of the public discourse about women of the Italian Settecento. Traditional constructions of femininity and arguments standard to the querelk des femmes skirmish with Enlightenment ethics and pro-woman objections within and among the texts in the collection. Volpi's repeated intercessions in the volume exemplfy the political and discursive ambiguities that mark the broad public discourse about women. The academician undermines his position as the official spokesman against women's education not only by including supplemental texts that contradict his argument, but also by repeatedly disclaiming his part in the debate. Vallisneri and Camposanpiero, too, struggle to present coherent positions. While Camposanpiero strains logic to accommodate both his male and his female audiences, even to the point of recasting the problem to render it irrelevant to the women before him, Vallisneri, in his presentation and judgment of the debate, assumes a dispassionate, centrist approach that leaves the question more suspended than resolved. And Savini De' Rossi's reasoned, empirical, utilitarian, and egalitarian defence of the education of women adopts the academicians' scientific method and Enlightenment ethics to advantage, even as it leaves dominant assumptions about women's essential domesticity intact. The Ricovrati debate thus 'particularizes, localizes, specifies' and removes the 'woman question' from the realm of the 'mystical and onto-

26 The Century of Women

logical,' as the feminist theorist Biddy Martin recommends.15 In so doing, it foregrounds the intellectual class's self-conscious struggle to construct a unified discourse of sexual difference at the same time that it puts any such discourse into question by including Savini De' Rossi's critical interrogation. Reconstructing and analysing the volume's polyvalent interchange, and focusing especially on the contest between Volpi and Aretafila Savini De' Rossi, lays bare the complex and equivocal ways in which woman and the feminine nature were construed - by women's male adversaries, but also, by women themselves. The Ricovrati event, both actual and textual, also provides a clear point of departure and a preparatory historical and theoretical foundation for the diachronic analysis of constructions of femininity in principal texts and genres of the Italian Enlightenment that ensues in subsequent chapters. Women's Education Before embarking on a close analysis of the 1729 volume, a brief consideration of the littie that is known about women's education in the Settecento may make clear the importance of the Ricovrati's tentative foray into new discursive and political territory. Unfortunately, the subject has been pervasively neglected. Although numerous scholarly accounts exist of political reforms to the educational system during the Italian Enlightenment, women's education has been the subject of only scant archival research and analysis.16 How women lived and how they were taught must therefore be deduced from the historical studies that bear on the question, and from the fictional and non-fictional literature of the age. Although girls' schools existed in Italy during the eighteenth century, those that offered serious academic instruction were scarce and distinctly anomalous. In the final decade of the Settecento, several public schools for girls were established in Lombardy as part of Maria Theresa's and Joseph II's campaign for educational reform.17 Schools that taught girls basic literacy along with 'arti muliebri' opened in Rome in the second half of the seventeenth century and were presumably still in existence during the Settecento.18 Antonio Illibato has documented the proliferation of various religious institutions, conservatories, and parochial schools in Naples during the eighteenth century that admitted girls for training in 'womanly arts,' catechism, occasionally reading, and, in the case of girls destined for conventual life, possibly writing.19 These schools appear to have served two primary purposes, the moral and intellectual cultivation of the daughters of the upper classes, and the protec-

The Debate 27

tion from vice of the daughters of the lower classes. Significantly, not until the nineteenth century was a true system of formal public education for girls officially mandated in Italy.20 The wealth and politics of the family pervasively determined the kind of education a daughter would receive. In general, girls of the aristocratic and uppermiddle classes had access to limited formal instruction, while women of the middle and lower classes were given only rudimentary training in the domestic arts.21 Girls from affluent families who received instruction were commonly educated first at home by their parents, then by private tutors or in convents. Girls from the lower classes were occasionally admitted as educande to convents, where they were taught to perform domestic duties and marketable handiwork such as weaving and embroidery, and where they infrequently acquired basic literacy. Statistics compiled by historian Harvey Graff show 94 per cent of brides to have been illiterate in Turin in 1710 and 70 per cent in 1790. Likewise, Illibato has shown that in Naples, of the two hundred brides asked to sign their marriage certificates, 8.5 per cent could write some portion of their name in 1731, 7 per cent in 1750, 8.5 per cent in 1775, and 4 per cent in 1798. These data plainly indicate that the vast majority of women received no academic instruction at all.22 The literary historian Maria Ines Bonatti surmises from Italian and European novels that the typical academic curriculum for socially elite Italian women of the Settecento commonly included French language, singing, dance, writing, and the reading of morally sound literature, which, depending on the inclinations of the woman's academic guardian, may or may not have included novels and moral philosophy.23 The historian Carmela Covato's research indicates that although some women managed to obtain serious instruction in the arts and sciences, the education of girls of prosperous families consisted most often of lessons in singing, speech, and select foreign languages.24 The education given to the daughters of the privileged classes is most poignantly described by an eighteenth-century Italian woman who sought to bolster the intellectual preparation of women. Giuseppa Eleonora Barbapiccola, Neapolitan philosopher, poet, and member of Vico's intellectual circle, translated Descartes's Principles of Philosophy in 1722 for the express purpose of contributing to the defence and the development of women's education. In the introductory apology to this translation, 'La Tradu trice a' Lettori' ('The Translator to Her Readers'), Barbapiccola notes disparagingly that women's contemporary education consists solely of 'catechism, sewing, and diverse little works, singing,

28 The Century of Women

dance, fashionable dress, courteous behaviour and polite conversation.'25 Hardly an adequate preparation for engaging intellectually on equal terms with their male peers. And yet the existence of the Ricovrati debate in 1723, with its ladies in attendence 'in marvellous numbers,' and the strong female presence in the volume published six years later attest that however deficient even the patrician woman's education had been, discourse on the subject was changing - partly in response to the desires of women themselves. The Text In his dedicatory introduction, Volpi designates this text a 'curious collection.' It is precisely the volume's peculiarity that makes it compelling. No other publication perhaps better discloses the ambiguities and the liminality of the formal discourse about women of the Italian Settecento - what the historian Luciano Guerci has called the tendency to 'accommodate and combine innovative and misogynist notions, indulgence and intransigence' within the same text. In Guerci's appraisal, 'these works produce an ambiguous configuration' as 'certain authors seem to take back with one hand what they concede with the other. ... At times, in fact, the ambiguity leads to incoherence,'26 not inapt as a description of the 1729 volume, which is less a collection of arguments than a pastiche or, more accurately, a pasticdacdo, a term ranging in meaning from 'mix' to 'mess.' Held together by the frayed thread of Volpi's frequent obsequious interpolations, the volume comprises an inelegant patchwork of conflicting outlooks, politics, and desires. Volpi's equivocal position on the 'woman question,' at once self-righteous and remorseful, masculinist and proto-feminist, hackneyed and reformative, acts as the organizing principle of the collection, in so far as there is one. His personal dilemma over constructions of gender reflects the underlying dilemma of the text. What defines femininity? What are the social functions of women? What traits, material and ontological, distinguish women from men? By and for whom should women's nature and social functions be defined? Neither Volpi nor the text can decide. The volume lacks the rhetorical and methodological synthesis common to the closed exchange of the prior querelle des femmes, a polemic that had indeed been predominantly academic, a virtual dispute without object or consequence on either a social or a symbolic level. Male intellectuals had traditionally conversed among themselves about the virtues and vices of the female sex (indeed, as Linda Woodbridge has

The Debate 29 shown, many argued both sides of the debate) without expecting to modify the actual condition of women and typically without admitting the forceful, pro-woman words of dissent directed at them by female writers and intellectuals. But as the female Other enters the literal and symbolic space of male authority, and infiltrates the discourse both explicitly and implicitly, she forces 'open' the text. The collection consists of a traditional antifeminist dedication written by Volpi to his female patron Lady Elisabetta Cornaro Foscarini; a preface, also by Volpi, that serves first as an apology for his adversarial stance in the debate, and second as a precis of the volume's contents; arguments presented by Vallisneri, Camposanpiero, and Volpi in the 1723 debate; Aretafila Savini De' Rossi's apology for women's education and critical footnotes to Volpi's discourse; a letter written by Volpi in protest against the general criticism of his argument by the greater public, as well as against the specific critique composed by Savini De' Rossi; Ricovrato Giuseppe Salio's conservative defence of the education of noblewomen in moral philosophy; and finally, Maria Gaetana Agnesi's Latin oration in defence of the formal instruction of girls. The 1729 discursive pasticdaccio constitutes a reluctant acknowledgment by the male academicians that the women who have entered their real and discursive space cannot be assimilated to a masculinist logic.2 A brief sketch of Volpi's various interjections in the collection will illuminate the principal paradoxes of the text and certain of their origins. In the opening dedication to Elisabetta Cornaro Foscarini, wife of the Procurator of Venice Piero Foscarini, Volpi casts his patron in traditional patriarchal terms. Her illustriousness derives chiefly from her husband's greatness and her own family's male line of religious, civil, and military leaders. Volpi offers vague descriptions of the virtues of Elisabetta's female kin, calling them women of 'merit' and 'select qualities.' In her he praises classic feminine attributes, 'beauty, grace, carriage, discretion, affability,'28 and stereotypical virtues, 'faith in God, love of her husband, strength of spirit in the face of adversity as well as good fortune, prudence, decorum.'29 She is set apart by private virtues founded on self-constraint and self-effacement. As Volpi depicts her, Lady Cornaro Foscarini typifies archaic paragons of femininity dating to the Middle Ages. Indeed, this representation acts as an efficient substitute for the catalogue of heroines standard to the querelk desfemmes and locates the author among the ancients of the genre. Notably, in a volume devoted to the issue of women's education, Volpi does not extol his female patron's intelligence or learning.

30 The Century of Women

In the 'Preface' that follows, however, Volpi attempts to cast himself as broad-minded on the 'woman question.' He solicits the sympathy of his 'kind and learned reader' for the onerous part of women's adversary that he has had to play. His tone is at once sycophantic and defensive: 'By my ill fortune, it fell to me to sustain the negative part (thus ordered the Academy, whose laws I am obliged to obey); and having arrived, as they say, at this slippery slope, I sought to temper my words in some way so that I would offend neither the noble female listeners present at my argument, nor any other member of the gentle sex, this being my custom, which I have never judged lacking in respect or esteem toward women.'30 Couching his preface to the volume in deeply personal terms, Volpi represents the debate as a case of his own private misfortune. He suggests that he opposed the education of women out of obligation rather than conviction. Calling his role in the debate an 'ill fortune,' and a 'misadventure,' he underscores his powerlessness. He repeatedly professes dismay at the ire directed at him for his simulated opposition by his 'noble female listeners' ('Nobili Ascoltatrici') as well as by other 'members of the fair sex' not then present. He claims to have moderated his arguments and tone specifically to render them more agreeable to his female public. Finally, Volpi points to his inclusion in the volume of treatises written by female defenders of women's education as concrete proof of his liberality and true regard for women. Volpi reiterates these same complaints and apologies in his 'Letter of Protest' later in the volume. Volpi's impassioned defence hinges largely on an unanticipated public response to his performance and, more precisely, on the unanticipated response of a traditionally disregarded female public. As he casts his position, he was merely adhering to the ancient protocol of the academy, whose laws and interests had previously required no explanation. However, by their presence, women have exposed the real consequences of this male intellectual sport: its bigotry would deny them the authentic status of subject, either in the actual social sphere or in the symbolic sphere of words and ideas: 'Notwithstanding the rhetorical tempering that I attempted ... my discourse achieved the opposite effect and has brought me universal condemnation instead of praise.'31 Volpi's mask has been lifted within this new academic theater - much as the masques of Commedia deH'Arte would be stripped away during Carlo Goldoni's reform of the Italian theatre when a rising interestgroup demanded authentic representations of itself, its reality, and its desires.

The Debate 31 The divided politics and discursive practices evident in Volpi's interventions, at once steeped in the masculinist rhetorical tradition and selfconsciously 'enlightened' with respect to women's interests, foreshadow the ideological conflicts underpinning each of the discourses in the debate. Vallisneri's Prologue Vallisneri begins his remarks with a telling justification for the disputation about to ensue: If I had not heard from illustrious, noble, and spirited Women, adorned and arrayed with every superior attribute, their bitter complaints, harsh rebukes and, indeed, their sullen disputes with Men for their having been generally denied an education in the Arts and Sciences, I would not dare on so solemn a day, in so venerable a gathering, in a City greatly renowned for Letters and Arms, I would not dare, I say, to propose a Problem that will seem to some superfluous and, perhaps, even laughable ...32 Vallisneri ascribes responsibility to women for the conceivably 'laughable' issue in contention, an issue, he notes, that had been decided by 'custom, by sage Masters, and by Legislators' throughout the course of history. Vallisneri's introduction points to the fundamental paradox in the status of Italian women during his age: women's increased participation in the public sphere altered public discourse, including, but not limited to public discourse about women, yet women's influence was recognized only reluctantly, if at all. Vallisneri's introductory remarks also indicate the essential incongruity between women's actual social and political influence and the political and social norms that would deny women's consequence in the public arena. Challenging such norms by contemplating the formal instruction of women would indeed be absurd, as Vallisneri recognizes, if not for the women before him who had successfully infiltrated that domain and consequently confounded the 'natural' course of history. In his selection of the debate topic, Vallisneri thus faced a choice between the reality of women's presence within the sphere of public exchange and conventional notions about women that deny this possibility, what Vivian Jones has deemed a contest between fact and ideology.33 The acclaimed scientist appears to have let the facts decide. The scientific present looms large in Vallisneri's prologue to the

32 The Century of Women

debate. He shuns the irrational, superstitious past, and invokes the modern scientific method as the basis for truth and validity in this epoch in which 'every opinion, every judgment, every history, every action and every custom' is subject to the most rigorous critique.34 As with all of the ancient questions, the 'woman question' must be reexamined according to the rational, pragmatic dictates of the 'new science.' In contrast to the circular discourse of the old querette des femmes that envisioned no real outcome for the dispute, the scientific study of the question of women's education pursues practical effects. Antonio Vallisneri underscores for his audience the singularity and magnitude of the Academy's judgment on this question: 'This case, Oh Noble Listeners, is grave and most worthy of your attention; it is awaited by the governments of every well-regulated Republic, and it conveys consequences of great weight.'35 The reader must ask, however, if the Prince of the Ricovrati has given himself over to the excesses of oratory here, or if he is exploiting the issue to extol the political authority of the Academy, for he cannot, in fact, believe the question he had labelled 'laughable' only moments before to be of serious interest to governing institutions. As he was well aware, Italian 'Republics' were not on the brink of reforming public education by allowing access to girls. Public schooling for girls became a short-lived reality only in Milan, and only during the later half of the century at the directive of Empress Maria Theresa.36 Despite the Prince's exaltation of the 'new science,' the method applied during the debate to determine the value of women's education was not, in fact, scientific, grounded in controlled empirical analysis; rather, it was retrograde. To settle the question, Vallisneri orchestrated a traditional rhetorical disputation of the old querelle des femmes, one in which male academicians acted out assigned parts in a formulaic dispute and in which women had no voice. Vallisneri's orthodox approach in the debate belies his invocation of the 'new science,' his acknowledgment of the authority of women, and his claims about the practical social and political effects of the debate. In Vallisneri's prologue, various discursive traditions and fields intersect in the articulation of the contemporary question of sexual difference, exposing what Foucault has called the 'forcefield of struggling pressures' that here contribute to the construction and the production of gender. While ancient and modern practice vie to own the 'woman problem,' the most formidable transformative pressure on conventional operations of power within this particular realm is the newly perceived group of women. o'y

The Debate

33

Camposanpiero's Defence of the Education of Women

Camposanpiero begins his apology for women's education by recasting the debate. Vallisneri, he insists, could not have intended for the Academy to dispute women's ability to master the arts and sciences. Such a debate would be absurd in light of the numerous examples in history of learned women, and especially given the conspicuous presence of illustrious female intellectuals in the annals of the Academy of the Ricovrati itself. He lists several names of French and Italian women who had been granted honorary membership in the Academy in the past.38 Surmising that Vallisneri must have intended a debate on whether the arts and sciences should be included in the primary education of all women, he avers: 'thus, instead of to admit one should, in my view, understand to enable; in other words, to equip [women] with a primary education for the study of the sciences and the arts.' 9 Camposanpiero succinctly identifies the underlying issue in contention in this debate as well as the thrust of the 'woman question' during this century. Women's educability was widely accepted even by conservative anti-illuministi, outspoken misogynists, and those who believed that, despite women's intellectual ability, they should not be educated, an argument Luciano Guerci has characterized as 'they are capable but they shouldn't' ('son capaci, ma non devono').40 The real controversy centres instead on the social value of 'enabling' women with an education. The synonyms 'to enable' ('abilitare') and 'to equip' ('addestrare') underscore the larger theme of empowerment. For Camposanpiero, the Academy of the Ricovrati was not charged to determine women's intellectual competence but rather the effects that the education of the general mass of women would have on established social structures. Social class thus subsumes gender as the primary focus of Camposanpiero's argument. Speaking to the presumed biases of his aristocratic audience, particularly his aristocratic female audience, Camposanpiero assures his listeners that Providence destined to a life of labour a large part of humanity for whom formal instruction is wholly pointless: Nobody who is not given to false opinion could have come to believe that, out of laudable custom, we wanted to propose today the question of admitting all women, of every condition, to the study of the sciences. That would be too vain a thing, just as it would be extremely vain to say that all men should be admitted without distinction, many of whom, by that most perspicacious Providence, were destined for sowing and for reaping in the fertile fields.41

34 The Century of Women

The outlook of this Paduan patrician reflects not only his elite position in a society of narrow economic mobility and stark class distinctions,42 but also the social status of the female public that attained formal recognition and authority as a unified interest-group during the Italian Settecento. As this historical event makes manifest, the headway made by women into influential spheres of social and intellectual exchange generally extended only to those of high rank.43 Camposanpiero surreptitiously sidesteps the possible resistance of the gentle ladies present by condoning their privileged existence quite distinct from the life of labour and subordination of common women. He adopts a strategy conventional to treatises on the education of women in which an elite female audience is invited either to identify with, or to recognize as anomalous, the female exception. By invoking a double female standard which justifies special entitlements for a 'superior' class of women, women of means are enlisted to defend the established social order. Heeding the conventions of the querelle des femmes, Camposanpiero builds his defence of the education of elite women on a standard heroic female genealogy. To prove women's intellectual competence, he constructs a bipartite catalogue of renowned heroines, from Sappho to Vittoria Colonna, and those male authorities he construes as pro-woman, including Plato, Dante, Petrarch and, astonishingly, even Aristotle. The catalogue, an arbitrary resource exploited by pro- and antifeminist actors alike in the formal controversy about women, provides quantitative rather than qualitative validation of women's essential nature. Real-life stories of heroic women exceed the design of the catalogue, whose authority is founded on the reiteration of standard feminine myths. Camposanpiero thus constructs a fundamentally conservative defence of women and their education, even though his discourse is flecked with several striking 'enlightened' and pro-woman arguments. Interrogating the cultural and political origins of women's intellectual oppression, he determines that men have historically prohibited the education of women because they realized that ignorance was the maximum safeguard against women's opposition to their will and desire, and thus the key to male ascendancy: Thinking that ignorance makes the other a servant of the wise, men tyrannically debase women, from the outset directing them toward anything other than learning. In this way men are assured never to have any opposition from women to their desire, which is always aimed at their undeserved

The Debate 35 sovereignty. And in order to appear just in their argument, men insist that [educated] women will disregard the sacred laws of public honesty, and therefore cannot be admitted to the sciences without evident peril.44 Camposanpiero deconstructs a foundational concept of the 'Age of Criticism' by showing how the 'public good' is often exploited by the dominant male class for the purposes of social control and their own advancement. And he reveals that men's selfish desire is the impetus behind public policies that ensure the perpetuation of women's ignorance. However, his spirited critique of the masculinist politics often underlying Enlightenment ethics immediately dissipates into traditional claims about the benefits of educating women. A schooled female populace will, he maintains, contribute to the public good ('pubblico vantaggio') by better fulfilling their traditional responsibilities in the home, namely, the management of the family and the rearing and early moral education of their children: 'they must bring order to the family and raise the children, planting in them the first seeds, and insinuating in their souls a living desire for virtue.'45 Camposanpiero thus engages in a subtle and eloquent capitulation to masculinist ideology by conflating the public good and women's domestic containment. The final lines of Camposanpiero's address represent an innovative and opportune variation on a standard appeal for the education of women. Many conventional treatises, essays, and articles of the period that address the 'woman question' call for the instruction of women in order to reform their corrupt nature typically given to frivolous and immoral preoccupations.46 Camposanpiero similarly considers an education a means to rehabilitate the female character; however, in contrast to conventional arguments, his analysis casts the gallant and not the lady as the true threat to the social order: 'How great an advantage to the whole world would be knowledgeable women, who would delight themselves with anything but vanity! They would not look for ornate and affected attire in men, nor certainly weak and insipid grace. Rather, they would enjoy seeing [men] adorned in those rare and useful doctrines, and schooled in beautiful and eclectic arts.'47 Speaking to the unique circumstances and appealing to the self-interest of his elect female listeners, Camposanpiero dresses men, not women, in frills and affected gestures. He claims that an education would support the public good by enabling gentlewomen to distinguish between cultured men of real quality and finely dressed fops. This slippery conclusion attempts to appease several publics. Camposanpiero defers to his male public by

36 The Century of Women

making men's satisfaction and women's honesty the end of women's education: an education would equip women with moral discernment and lead to their union with men of real virtue. He courts the incredulous, traditional male by reiterating standard, misogynist characterizations of women: women are naturally given to superficiality and vanity. But he most obviously appeals to his distinctive female public by casting men rather than women as puppets of fashion, by defending women's right to an education, and finally, by again underscoring his female listeners' distinction among women. Volpi — Against the Education of Women

Like his opponent before him, Volpi strives to convince his privileged female listeners not only that woman is separate and distinct from man, but also that women from different social and economic circumstances are radically separate from each other. He opens his argument by enumerating the attributes that distinguish his female listeners from the common mass of women and petitions them to recognize that his discourse and its implications are not directed toward them but toward those other women: 'Given the splendour of their lineage, the richness of their education, the greatness of their spirit and genius that set them far above common women, the Illustrious Women present before me should in no way apply to themselves what I intend to say about the ordinary female masses.'48 Woman, as Volpi constructs her, is always the other being, one who is inherently outside spheres of power. He summons aristocratic women to act as lumiers by confronting rationally and scientifically the intrinsic inferiority of common women, that broad swath of female humanity that merits a separate destiny both from men and from exceptional women like themselves. The female spectator is not, however, invited to share in the male inheritance. She is set apart from men, who are immersed in the world, and set above common women, whose existence is determined by their innate weaknesses. The central argument of Volpi's address struggles to recast women's subjugation to men as the very foundation of their happiness: 'Prohibiting Women's knowledge of the arts and sciences is not only useful for the Republic, but a great benefit to women themselves.'49 Volpi argues that while nature has burdened men with shaping history and directing social progress, women's intrinsic intellectual deficiencies and dependence on men insulate them from the anxieties that come with active participation in the world. To demonstrate that women enjoy greater

The Debate 37 freedom and happiness, Volpi juxtaposes women's carefree existence inside the protective confines of the domestic sphere with a list of men's social and political obligations in the world: among his responsibilities, 'he must know how to speak, to play cards, to battle, to dance, to ride a horse; along with a hundred other things.'50 For Volpi, social custom confirms women's innate inferiority and justifies the exclusion of women from the public estate. 'Custom,' he claims, 'holds the position of the strictest laws,'51 and is therefore an infallible authority for the comprehension and management of present events and institutions. Volpi refers sweepingly to the uniform subjugation of women by the ancients ('gli antichi') during ancient times ('tempi antichi') and cites the recurrent exclusion of women from the public arena by one civilization after another throughout the course of history as incontrovertible evidence that women are essentially unfit to pass beyond the threshold of the domestic space. Yet, Volpi does not argue against the education of women solely on the basis of social precedent. In accord with the dictates of the 'new science,' he uncovers empirical biological proofs of women's inherent inferiority. Mapping woman's innate deficiencies along her outward form and inside the dark recesses of her body, he designates her a seductive object of desire, a generative animal, and a biological aberration. Volpi wavers between a traditional and a scientific account of the female form, at once exalting the power women's beauty has over men the devastating effect of their modest glances and hushed sighs - and detailing women's overabundant fluids, slack fibres, and the weak powers of cognition that result from these: 'and where [the body] is possessed of overflowing humidity, such that its fibres are rendered weak and in a certain way relaxed, so too does the mind remain deprived of sufficient vigour to give itself over to the contemplation of sublime things.'52 In accordance with dominant scientific thought on female difference, which remained firmly rooted in ancient humoralism, Volpi seeks to demonstrate a natural contingency of the female intellect on the inherently inferior female body. The reinvigorated authority of the humours for the Enlightenment 'Science of Woman,' an offshoot of the 'new Science of Man,' is more deeply explored in the succeeding chapter on Antonio Conti's 1721 argument for the essential inferiority of 'female matter,' with which Volpi was likely familiar. Women, in Volpi's conventional binary schema, are antithetical to men. Men are defined by action and women by inaction. Men achieve social acceptability and avoid disdain through successful public perfor-

38 The Century of Women

mance. Society and their own masculine nature demand that they prove themselves as skilful orators, warriors, dancers, horsemen, and so on. Woman renders herself desirable to men, the object of her existence, through faint, allusive gestures. A woman's virtue and beauty are defined by silence and stasis. Repeatedly, Volpi insists on the correlation between the happiness of women and their physical and mental inertia. The more static the female existence, and the more remote she is from the male life of activity, the greater her contentment and her desirability among men. Indeed, Volpi's ideal woman approaches lifelessness. A minimal presence, a woman renders herself fascinating to men 'without making a move, even remaining mute, with a simple glance, and perhaps a smirk, with a gesture, and a small sigh drawn from the breast - all this does far more than many gasps and eloquent sayings.'53 Yet, at the apex of his argument, Volpi abandons his veneration of feminine attributes and his portrait of the carefree female existence to focus on women's procreative function. The academician asserts that women are perfected, and the social order and the survival of the species upheld, through their surrender to maternity. He follows this assertion with a graphic and highly polemical depiction of the suffering intrinsic to motherhood: women's bodies lacerated, depleted, and ruined in the production of offspring for whom they function as both mater and matter: With regard to that first state of life, who doesn't understand that nature produced Woman for this end alone, that by means of her our descendants would be preserved? She has been ordained to conceive in herself offspring, to nourish these with her own substance, supporting (as punishment for original sin) the long tedium of nine months of pregnancy, which will cause her to suffer weary limbs, and faintness of stomach, swoons, boredom, and irritations. Then, with atrocious pain and evident risk of death she will give birth to these offspring, and afterward nourish them with her own milk, and care for them through childhood - burdens all of which are vexing if not intolerable, and in regard to which the union of Man and of Woman, Matrimony, was named for her rather than for him.54

In this passage, one that makes no allusions to the rewards of motherhood, Volpi invalidates his earlier characterization of the untroubled, labourfree female reality and subverts his prevailing argument. Ignorance serves not to safeguard women's happy uncomplicated lives, but to

The Debate 39 prevent women's resistance to the tortures of maternity. Indeed, Volpi's argument serves paradoxically as a forceful justification for women's resistance. As he portrays it, the education of women threatens to destroy the male-designated and male-controlled social order by allowing women to see themselves and their social and biological functions realistically. The modern reader must ask why Volpi demythicizes motherhood, undermining the very point he claims to defend. Through its implicit subversion of absolute male authority and established gender roles, this passage discloses the arbitrary operations of power that produce and sustain women's subordination. In the same vein, Volpi engages in misogynist hyperbole in his representation of woman as the consummate vehicle for man's happiness: 'From the beginning, woman was created not only to serve as helpmate to Man, but for his recreation and innocent delight; who, returning home drained either from public or from private responsibilities, seeks a comfort through whom he might purge his bothersome thoughts and restore himself from the tensions he has suffered.'55 Woman represents an antithesis to all things outside the familial walls. She functions as a space, a sensation, a milieu experienced by man. In order for woman to serve in this capacity, Volpi suggests she must remain malleable, unformed by an education and undirected by intellectual curiosity. The cultivated woman will attempt to shape herself and her rapport with her husband, destroying in the process her husband's command over her existence, which is commensurate with his happiness, and the general peace and order of society. Volpi ends his address by invoking traditional male fears of the femme savante. once she is instructed, a woman's lust for knowledge will become insatiable; educated women will thwart the public good and jeopardize the survival of the species by refusing to marry and to bear children; educated, married women will rebel against the authority of their husbands. The woman philosopher will plague her husband with academic questions when he returns from a day made difficult by the demands of the world. An education would, in short, induce women to deny their biological destiny and absolute male authority upon which the social order rests. Much like his interpolations throughout the 1723 volume, Volpi's evaluation of the female condition and the oscillating focus of his address in the debate betray his ambivalence regarding the principles he claims to defend. His irresolution is evident in his immoderate entreaty that his female audience consider itself, under no circum-

40 The Century of Women

stances, implicated in his characterization of women's preordained nature and social functions; in his overstatement of the male burden; in his caricature of the learned woman; and in his bleak portrait of maternity. Volpi most thoroughly undermines his credibility at the culminating point in his address, when he correlates the education of women with the end of the human race. Seemingly inadvertently, he provides a persuasive argument for why women should arm themselves against male tyranny and the persecutions of marriage and maternity. The Judgment Vallisneri's final judgment on the question of women's education again exploits the 'exceptional woman' argument. He concludes the debate by advocating a hollow compromise: Let there be admitted to the Sciences and the liberal Arts only those women who are in love with the same, and who are predisposed to virtue and to glory by a noble and occult genius, in whose veins flow clear and illustrious blood, and in whom excites and sparkles a spirit outside of the norm, surpassing that which is common to the masses, exactly that which I recognize in You, O noble and, by your many titles, most esteemed Ladies, who with great benevolence now listen to me.56

Vallisneri's judgment caters to the expectations of the specific audience seated before him. He affirms for his male constituency the general inferiority of women and opposes the universal education of women, and at the same time allows that an education may be granted to a female elite, such as the one he addresses. He sanctions a practice essentially already in place, in which aristocratic women who demonstrate intellectual merit receive some unspecified formal instruction. Vallisneri's final commentary gives way to a succession of hyperboles praising the attributes of the attending women: 'noble occult genius,' 'clear illustrious blood,' 'spirit outside of the norm.' Vallisneri's veneration of his female audience invites them to distinguish themselves conceptually and practically from the rest of their sex and to accept as just the disparate standards he has designated for educating women. The event closed decorously and in perfect conformity with the old querelle. Numerous academicians stood and recited sonnets for and against the education of women, many arguing in verse both sides of the debate.57 And the music played until all the women had filed from the room.58

The Debate 41 Aretafila Savini De' Rossi's Rebuttal

Few extant details remain about the life of Aretafila Savini De' Rossi and the circumstances that prompted her apology for the education of women. She was born in Siena on 2 December 1687 to patrician parents, Antonio Savini and Margherita Conte. After her marriage to the Florentine nobleman Isidoro Rossi, she made her home in Florence, where she became an intimate of the philologist Anton Maria Salvini (16531729), who wrote a tract in 1714 in her honuor, and whose discourse about women's education may have had some influence on her own.59 She frequented Florentine and Sienese literary salons, including the colony of the Arcadia Academy in Siena, under the name of Larinda Alagonia. In honour of her talent as a painter and a poet she was awarded two medallions inscribed with the epigraphs 'gratior et pulchro' and 'mentis acumen.'60 Poet and playwright Pier Jacopo Martello (1665-1727) tells of gazing upon the effigies of her as Athena and Venus inscribed on these medallions as he composed the dedication to her of his tragedy Elena Casta (Florence, 1721), for which she was the inspiration. In this same dedication, Martello also gently chastises his lady muse for keeping from him the comedies and the amorous novellas he has heard that she has written.61 These works never came to light. Broad acclaim for her intellect and eloquence obtained from the publication of her defence of women's education that was, as Volpi explains in his preface to the 1729 volume, part of that 'great clamour that arose,' in response to his argument against women's education published in 1723. After first appending footnotes to Volpi's argument that contradicted each of his antifeminist theses, Savini De' Rossi wrote a formal rebuttal in the form of a letter to an unidentified 'Cavaliere.' According to Volpi: This letter's having come into the possession of ... Signer Vallisneri and he having graciously communicated it to me, we agreed that it was necessary to re-publish my Argument that had been the original catalyst of this contest, an argument that was sought by many, as copies could no longer be found among the booksellers, and to include the footnotes of the Lady in the margins along with her sage Letter of reply, which might be called an Apology in favour of the Education of Women.62

A study of the representation of women by a woman writer, particularly if she wrote before the collective feminist political action that began at the end of the eighteenth century,63 must ask how she negoti-

42 The Century of Women

ates discursive practices defined and dominated by men. What techniques does she devise to challenge and appropriate an entrenched rhetorical and methodological legacy to which she has no birthright? In Savini De' Rossi's case, she chooses the ingenious device of doubling her voice, creating a two-part proto-feminist offensive unlike any other published during this century in Italy: on the one hand, she writes a formal apology for women's education, and on the other, she appends thirty-six scathing critical footnotes to Volpi's text as well. She thus extends her authority and creates two distinct authorial personae: that of the Apology, which is restrained, judicious, analytic, and ironic, and that of the notes, which is reactive, sarcastic, and insolent. This dual presence allows her simultaneously to mock and to submit to the decorum of classic disputation, and to stand inside and outside of academic discourse. In her Apology, she is an authoritative participant in the debate on women's education; in her footnotes, where she indicts Volpi's masculinist offences one by one, she is a heckler from the back of the room. Her thirty-six notes break abruptly into Volpi's discourse to subvert his claims, his motives, and his authority. For example, Savini De' Rossi dismisses his opening panegyric to his female public as 'overblown adulation that destroys the argument.'64 She counters Volpi's argument that 'studies render negligent and distracted those with a natural proclivity for domestic affairs,'65 by calling it 'ridiculous stoicism, more often than not feigned. By infiltrating and disrupting Volpi's text, Savini De' Rossi not only dismantles her opponent's argument and his authority but also succeeds in stripping away the opportunistic masks he had donned in his discourse, whether of (pretended) proto-feminist or of enlightened scientist. The explicit doubleness of Savini De' Rossi's bipartite critical discourse prefigures a more subtle duality in her Apology. There, she subverts her opponents' arguments by imitating their analytic methodology, dispassionate rhetoric, and enlightenment aims at the same time that she articulates and privileges women's lived reality, and creates a paradoxical poetics based on her similarity to and difference from the ideal male academic. In contrast to the participants in the Paduan debate, Savini De' Rossi does not engage in a discussion regarding the a priori essence and meaning of woman and man. Rather, she bases her arguments on the ordinary reality within which women, men, and children live and interact. Her steady, world-bound view lays bare the ideological and masculinist biases that inform and sustain conventional conceptualizations of woman (and by extension of man as well). She appropriates

The Debate 43 the language and ideas of the male academy and redirects them, arguing not what woman ought to be but what woman is in her everyday life, as when she declares that despite a deficient education, she will not be deterred from publicly defending women's cause: 'If only it had pleased God that I not be barbarously impeded from following my penchant for learning, perhaps I would not lack the arguments necessary on this occasion to satisfy your expectations and to defend the justice of our cause. However, despite the risk of compromising my reputation, I will not be silent about what little I know, because I believe I can bolster our defence.'67 By applying her own experience to the question of educating women, in this way, Savini De' Rossi implicitly rejects the male debaters' division of women into two distinct categories: the exceptional and the norm. She seeks to unite the two in a vision of a single womankind, no longer divided by differences in class and wealth. At the same time, the design of her rebuttal defies the conventions of the querelk des femmes. She supplants the quantitative catalogue mythicizing traditional feminine virtues with her own 'narratable life history.'68 This tactic privileges real, first-hand knowledge, central to 'enlightened' analysis, over legendary history, and implicitly contrasts the author's modernity with her opponent's orthodoxy. Savini De' Rossi predicates her credibility and the validity of her arguments on her status as an outsider to the academy, an outsider who, however, models the ideals of modern intellectual critique. She contrasts the probity of her intentions and the transparency of her arguments with Volpi's rhetorical skill and artful manipulation of the truth. Unlike the sophisticated academic engaged in intellectual sport, she promises to defend her position on women's education 'neither through artistry, nor through genius, but through having observed that we dwell on and scrutinize every detail of those things in which we have a vested interest.'69 Savini De' Rossi's social, intellectual, and linguistic alienation thus become the very source of her authority, rendering her a more exacting and reliable judge than the academician. Like her contemporaries Giuseppa Eleanora Barbapiccola, Diamante Medaglia Faini, and Rosa Califronia, she uses modern academic standards to combat the very notions of femininity promulgated by male academicians.70 Thus she bests the academy on its own ground and appropriates its authority at the same time, to persuade a reluctant male audience to recognize the legitimacy of her arguments. Mimicry is one of the author's primary weapons against her opponent, mimicry that fluctuates between serious imitation and caricature.

44 The Century of Women She subverts Volpi's construction of femininity by drawing identical conclusions about the masculine nature. The author inverts the male subject and the female object of the original discourse in order to prove, for example, that women naturally reign superior over men because of men's inherent excitability: 'After close examination of the way things truly stand, it is apparent that men find themselves conquered and ruled over by us, not through any violence or tyranny on our part, but because they do not know how to control their own passions.'71 Savini De' Rossi utilizes mimicry to underscore the similarities between the sexes and to support consistent terms for evaluating human virtue. Mimicry also permits the author to designate masculinity, that conventionally unspecified and unlimited array of superior 'human' attributes. Through a redeployment of the terms and ideas of masculinist discourse to delimit the male subject, the author defies the false binarism that, in fact, only stipulates the feminine, and she thereby revokes male transcendence and female immanence. At the heart of her rebuttal, Savini De' Rossi deconstructs Volpi's idealization of feminine beauty. Exposing the portrait of womanly perfection as a masculine fiction that undermines authentic virtue and the wellbeing of the domestic sphere, the author counters Volpi's deception with realism: 'How miserable We would be if our greatest asset were Beauty, which soon vanishes and with which few women have been endowed! But regardless of what one says about this privilege, how greatly it would be enhanced and perfected by an Education! Certainly, much more than by the expensive luxuries of fashion, clothing, and household services in which the majority of women wastefully indulge at the cost of condemning their Homes to financial ruin.'72 Not only does Savini De' Rossi contradict Volpi's facile veneration of womanly charms with a frank account of the moral poverty and material extravagance common to women who predicate their self-worth on their outward appearance, she also calls into question his authority to interpret women's reality. A self-defining female chorus, 'How miserable We would be,' defies the solitary voice of her male opponent. Her use of 'We' again contradicts the distinction made by Volpi and his cohorts in the 1723 debate between noblewomen and ordinary women and unites the author and her class with all the members of their sex. In her proposal for the education of women, Savini De' Rossi advocates an essential transformation in the existing social order for the general benefit of women. She proffers an egalitarian system of education to improve women's lives, which bases access on individual ability and

The Debate 45

desire: 'Allowing women access to a formal education, each according to her constitution, her circumstances, and above all her talent, would not only be a great but an honest diversion for women.'73 Reiterating a principle of Lockean philosophy to counter the classbased arguments of her opponent, Savini De' Rossi asserts that nature indifferently awards individuals with talent, whether intellectual or practical: 'In distributing its gifts, Nature does not demonstrate greater partiality toward the poor man, the rich man, the nobleman, or the plebeian, as has always been proven by people of rare talent who overcome adverse fortune.' 4 Although Savini De' Rossi never directly challenges Volpi's invocation of history to prove the essential inferiority of women, her underlying belief in the impartial distribution of human potential makes history beside the point. She offers an innovative notion of place and time that privileges the microcosm, the individual story [storia], discrete experience, and personal desire over the macrocosm of human history [Storia] whose periods arid significance had already been decided by men. The author condones a remarkable system of open access for all women desirous of an education and delineates the distinct benefits this access would provide to noblewomen and to women of other classes: 'Do not scorn a great gift out of petty fear, but let all women study on whom the heavens have bestowed a strong will and intellect: Noblewomen and citizens for their personal benefit and glory, common women, not for themselves alone, but in order to educate willing young women in the sciences.' Savini De' Rossi replaces conventional notions of sexual difference based on an essential biological, intellectual, and psychological disparity between men and women with a modern interpretation founded on social and political proto-feminist practice. In bidding women to usurp male authority by collaborating to educate each other, the author advances a practice of pedagogical separatism, a radical proposal in an age that viewed men as women's intellectual masters. Indeed, Savini De' Rossi's proposition would render irrelevant to the question of women's education traditional (male) institutions of power, like the academy or the state. Finally, in accord with Enlightenment ethics, Savini De' Rossi correlates the education of women with the public good, as when she rebuts Volpi's assertions that educated women would refuse to bear children and thus extinguish the human race. Savini De' Rossi again subverts Volpi's notion of femininity by substituting a careful analysis of male conduct for his examples of women's behaviour. She considers the sex-

46 The Century of Women

ual behaviour of educated men and concludes that, contrary to Volpi's claims, learned women would be no more inclined than learned men to isolate themselves from the opposite sex, refuse to marry, or cease propagating the species: 'Were Women to be allowed to philosophize, what follows would be no more, no less than what we have now with Men.'76 Savini De' Rossi counters Volpi's assertion that educating women would destroy the harmony of the home with several practical arguments that study women's real contribution within the domestic sphere. The author considers household harmony and the protection of the moral and financial well-being of the family to be a positive effect of educating women. She recognizes that women are responsible for the primary care and early education of their children and for the management of the household. Formal instruction would necessarily improve women's ability to fulfil these duties. She further maintains that educating women would provide a practical and crucial safeguard against realistic threats to the family estate posed by husbands' prolonged absences from home or premature death. Savini De' Rossi does not promote a radical alternative to women's traditional roles within the home. She neither proposes that women endeavour to conquer the public domain nor advocates any practical modification in their civil status. She clearly considers the domestic space to be the fitting site for women's lives. Although she presents a powerful challenge to conventional assumptions regarding women and their essential nature, her treatise stops far short of analysing the origins of women's inequality and the social, psychological, and political structures that contribute to it. Centring the discourse on women's lived reality provides Savini De' Rossi with unique control and authority over the discourse about women and lays a foundation for new proto-feminist discursive and social practices. However, the defensive posture Savini De' Rossi assumes in her apology prevents her from substantially subverting the masculinist logic that underpins dominant assumptions about the good woman as well as about the good of women. Savini De' Rossi's rebuttal reflects implicit approval of the frame and primary terms of the opposing discourse. She often restates negatively her opponent's view: 'There is no credible foundation to persuade one that the education of women will result in their impudent behaviour, rudeness, and carelessness about their assigned duties; that it will cause infinite damage to themselves, the republic, the domestic economy; vexation for their husbands; onus to polite conversation; and finally that it will produce female misanthro-

The Debate 47 pists. She does not question the basic premises upon which her opponent's argument is built. While she argues that an education will lead women to the truth and thus to lives of virtue, the good woman for Savini De' Rossi, as for her opponent, is one who effectively satisfies the exigencies of domestic life. A woman's virtue is gauged by the extent and the proficiency of her care of her family and her home, and the well-being of women is defined within this domestic context and is thus essentially contingent. Indeed, in citing in her argument the martellian verse: 'A daughter serves her father; a wife serves her husband; a widow her decorum, and they die having only served,'78 Savini De' Rossi points to women's perpetual state of subjugation not to inveigh against men's abuse of their daughters and their wives and to advocate an alternative, but instead to counter her opponent's claims that an education will lead women to abandon marriage for a life of freedom. Although she considers this condition 'tragic,' and the laws of the state that perpetuate women's debasement harsh, she would appear to accept that woman 'is never free.' Conclusion In 1723 there was a debate. In 1729 that debate was converted into text. The transmutation of the one event into the other was, in essence, an act of sublimation. In the process, the traditional rendition of the querelle des femmes the Academy of the Ricovrati staged in 1723 became a textual model of enlightened disputation founded ostensibly on the open, rational exchange of ideas among interested male and female members of the polity. Driven by Enlightenment discursive imperatives and, more consequentially, by the desire to appease a newly perceived public of women, the Academy 'reformed' the controversy. Antonio Vallisneri, the academic official who had presided over the actual disputation wherein women had no voice, commanded the publication of a revised contest in which women were literally granted the final words: Aretafila Savini De' Rossi's argument supersedes Vallisneri's, Camposanpiero's, and, most important, Volpi's, the avowed opponent of women's education; and Maria Gaetana Agnesi's defence of the formal instruction of girls concludes the text. The liberal inclusion of women's viewpoints in the 1729 text undercut the Academy's traditional, masculinist treatment of the issue in 1723, which formed part of the same volume. With its publication, the Academy of the Ricovrati thus authorized fundamentally irreconcilable views on the formal controversy about women: one in

48 The Century of Women

which women's subjectivity was occluded and another in which it was foregrounded. But as a text, the volume constituted a virtual sphere of egalitarian exchange only, not an actual site where women could defend their political and economic interests on equal terms, and ultimately improve their social status. Joan Wallach Scott argues that the interpretation of political events and social operations depends upon their contextualization at a precise time and place. The 1729 publication by the Ricovrati Academy encapsulates and epitomizes the discursive and ideological conflicts over constructions of gender characteristic of the Italian Settecento. The interplay of traditional and 'enlightened' constructions of femininity in and among the arguments of this volume elucidates the liminal state of the controversy about women at the dawn of the Italian Enlightenment. As the 1729 text and its complicated development demonstrate, new cultural and social forces - in particular, Enlightenment ethics and women's rising public prominence - disturbed and transformed the formal controversy about women without, however, substantially altering the real condition of women.

chapter two

The Very Fibre of Their Being: Antonio Conti's Materialist Argument for Women's Inferiority

During the Enlightenment, when the 'new empirical science' combined with the 'new experimental philosophy,' sexual difference was a categorizing principle of the human species equal in authority to such newfound facts of nature as gravity and the circulation of the blood. The desire of natural philosophers of the encyclopedic age to know, rank, and systematize all natural phenomena prompted them not only to postulate two, perfectly differentiated, stable, and universal gender identities but also to deem them substantially knowable and qualifiable. Ludmilla Jordan ova rightly speaks of a 'hardening,' a 'stiffening' of the male-female binary that took place during the Enlightenment.1 Scientist philosophers probed the 'facts' of sexual difference on the dissecting table, under the microscope and in those spheres of human exchange, public and private, effectual for the revelation of human nature. Thomas Laqueur has shown that the 'era of disclosure' enacted a conversion from a 'one-sex' to a 'two-sex' body model, in which 'sex as we know it was invented.'2 No longer read as an inferior duplicate of male sex and sexuality, the female sex now signified 'incommensurable difference,'3 materially as well as ontologically. Renamed and reconstrued as essentially other than those of men, the organs and fluids of female sexuality designated not only a different anatomical and physiological design but distinct human functions, nature, and desire.4 Enlightenment attempts to unlock the cryptomena of femininity formed part of a campaign to decipher the core of human nature, or more precisely, human natures.5 A primary subset of the 'Science of Man,' this 'Science of Woman' applied principles of modern physiology, anatomy, and natural philosophy to designate women's essential nature. The Enlightenment quest to resolve the mystery of sexual difference signified a new chapter in the ancient dispute about the relationship

50 The Century of Women

between the mind and the body as applied to the issue of gender. Eighteenth-century philosophers wielded the exacting scientific method - systematic observation and 'experience' of the anatomical, physiological, social, and psychological characteristics of the female sex - to designate the material facts of women's difference and to invalidate prior 'unscientific' ontological precepts about sexual identity. Empirical analysis of the female subject displaced (or perhaps it would be more appropriate to say replaced) the authority of Aristotle's reigning theory of woman as a deficient man, and what Londa Schiebinger has termed 'the AristotelianGalenic theory of humors,'7 founded on an ancient cosmological schema that explained and ranked all of reality, including gender, by means of the four elemental properties: hot, cold, dry, and moist.8 The outmoded theory of humours, or 'economy of fluids,' as Laqueur has described it,9 that viewed women as innately less vital because of their colder and more humid constitution, was not swept aside by the 'new science,' however, but was indeed refurbished by it. Enlightenment scientists and philosophers translated the humours and their deleterious effect on feminine matter into the language of modern physiology and anatomy, adducing women's inherent weakness from the 'manifest' saturation of their tissues in blood and milk essential for the generation and sustenance of offspring. New empirical knowledge of the body also fostered its reconceputalization as a machine that, as John Sawday has written, 'silently operated according to the laws of mechanics.'10 This mechanistic cosmology served both to contest and to confirm the fixity of women's inferiority. Descartes, the most influential, though not the first, proponent of the Man-Machine theory, asserted a radical separation between the mind and the body, in which the human body acted as automaton distinct from the thinking subject, notions which proved foundational for opposite sides of the dispute about women's inferiority. Poullain de la Barre (1647-1723), and such followers of his in Italy as Giovanni Bandiera (discussed in the Introduction), asserted the revolutionary proto-feminist thesis that 'the mind has no sex' on the basis of the Cartesian mind-body duality. Poullain affirmed that women may be more delicate physically and have distinct reproductive organs and functions, but these physiological facts have no bearing on the capacity of their intellect, which is independent from the body and in all ways equal to that of men: Tt is easy to realize that the difference between the sexes concerns only the body - being correctly, only [in] this part that serves for the production of men. Since the mind participates [in this activity] only by giving its

The Very Fibre of Their Being

51

assent (and giving it in all people in the same manner), we can conclude that it is sexless ... And the mind, not functioning differently in one sex than in the other, is equally capable of the same things [in both].'11 In distinct contrast to Poullain de la Barre's thesis, that segment of the 'Science of Woman' which studied, documented, and visualized the 'natural' anatomical parts and physiological mechanics of the female subject, from their delicate skin and hair to their layers of fat, from their sluggish nervous system to their weak osteology, from their reproductive organs and genitalia to their littler brains, discovered the mind and everything else about women to be replete with sexual distinction. Misogynist politics frequently steered 'enlightened' scientific discovery and interpretation of the feminine nature and sexual difference and generated numerous publications claiming to describe and pinpoint the material constituents of that difference. A discrete textual event intimately allied with the Academy of the Ricovrati's debate about the education of women, but with more spacious cultural and ideological dimensions, reveals the matter of sexual difference as it unfolded during the course of the Italian Enlightenment. In 1721, internationally noted Italian philosopher and scientist Antonio Conti wrote to his friend and fellow philosopher, French magistrate Andre-Robert Perelle, a letter that has been recognized as a 'summa of eighteenth-century scientific misogyny.'12 In his epistolary tract, Conti painstakingly exploited the modern empirical method and philosophical precepts to establish a singular, material point of origin for female inferiority and thus to provide the definitive argument for male supremacy and women's permanent exclusion from the public sphere, which, in his interpretation, comprised the scope of political, military, and intellectual pursuits. Conti joined the vigorous contemporary controversy about the nature and function of women in order to silence it with science. His materialist exegesis of women's inferior nature, in which he probes the female body for its 'unifying principle,' is a cultural hyperbole, whose value for the modern reader lies primarily in its discursive and methodological extremism. In his effort to provide the last, defining word on the subject of female inferiority, Conti renders transparent the object, method, and underlying ideology of dominant arguments for female inferiority not only at the dawn of the Italian Enlightenment but indeed throughout the century. Although written in 1721 and circulated during the early Enlightenment, Conti's original letter in French became a subject of great interest when it was first published in Venice in 1756 as part of his complete

52 The Century of Women

works. It was reissued in 1773 in Italian by editor and translator Lodovico Antonio Loschi in an appendix to the Italian translation of Antoine Leonard Thomas's Essai sur lesfemmes.13 As Loschi states in the preface to his translation of Conti, he decided to annex Conti's letter to Thomas's essay because of the continued currency of the 'Venetian Philosopher"s tract, and because of the superiority of Conti's concise scientific observations about women as compared to the 'Parisian Orator"s verbose thesis founded on broad generalizations.14 The letter thus captured the attention of philosophers and scientists through the course of the Settecento, holding the greatest sway at the acme of the Italian Enlightenment. The personal, historical, and discursive contexts out of which Conti's paradigmatic argument for female inferiority emerged elucidate the politics and poetics of the 'new' Science of Woman and how this 'science' served to more perfectly justify women's domestic containment and their subjugation to men. Conti's Intellectual Trajectory Antonio Schinella Conti (1677-1749) was born and educated in Padua, a longstanding European axis for liberal scientific inquiry whose scholars had resisted the controls on intellectual freedom imposed during the Counter-Reformation.15 Conti's biographer Michele Melillo aptly concludes that 'the intellectual life of Conti ... is the life of his age.'16 A wealthy patrician, he was able to devote himself through the course of his life to the intensive study and interpretation of philosophical and scientific theories of the early Enlightenment. Through his extended sojourns to the intellectual centres of Europe, where he engaged in direct and/or written disputations with chief luminaries of the early Enlightenment, including Malebranche, Fontenelle, Newton, Leibniz, Voltaire, Vico, Le Clerc, Clarke, s'Gravesande, Montesquieu, and Christian Wolff, Conti sealed his standing as a principle conduit and interpreter of contemporary European philosophy and science within and beyond Italy.17 In his brief intellectual biography, Conti describes the moment of his conversion from scholasticism to the 'new philosophy.' One evening in 1706, upon joining the usual band of scholars that assembled in Luigi Pavini's bookstore in Venice, Conti overheard a colleague celebrate the concision and lucidity of Cartesian philosophy:18 'His discourse made such a profound impression on my mind so impatient for the truth, that I sought Abbot Fardella, who was then in Venice, and I spoke with him

The Very Fibre of Their Being

53

about Descartes with such fervour of spirit, that he instantly agreed to explain to me the metaphysical meditations of this same philosopher.'19 Under the direction of philosopher and mathematician Michelangelo Fardella,20 Conti thus initiated an intensive study of Cartesian rationalism, through readings of Descartes's Meditations and Principles of Philosophy and Malebranche's The Search after Truth, as well as of the philosophical and scientific theories of Bacon, Galileo, Locke, and Leibniz.21 His early philosophical formation foundered on the rift between the rationalism of Descartes and Malebranche and the empiricism of such philosophers as Bacon and Locke: 'I came to a clear understanding that to depart from the senses to philosophize was vastly different from beginning with God.'22 This contest between reason and sense within the 'new philosophy' led Conti in 1708 to leave the religious Order of the Fava in Venice, which he had entered in 1699, and to return to Padua, where he embraced his provincial cultural inheritance: the Galilean world-view and empirical scientific method.23 At the University of Padua, Conti attended lessons on algebra, physics, differential calculus, and geometry with noted University of Basel mathematician Jacob Hermann. Johann Bernoulli's and GuillaumeFrancois-Antoine de L'Hospital's theories of the infinitely small came to underpin his cosmology and his notions of the real.24 Conti viewed mathematics as an expression of the cosmic rules that uniformly govern reality. Extending mathematical theorems of the infinite to the physical structure of living things,25 he conjectured that every part of living matter 'contains within itself many infinite parts, and each of these parts, other infinite parts without end.'26 At this time, Conti also began an enduring friendship and collaboration with AntonioVallisneri, the natural philosopher, professor of theoretical medicine at the University of Padua, and Prince of the Academy of the Ricovrati discussed in chapter 1 of this book. Vallisneri's secular, mechanistic interpretation of natural phenomena, his preformism, his presumption of the uniformity and order of the universe, and his theory of a Great Chain of Being 'singularly lacking in any reference to divine presence'27 became the primary building blocks of Conti's philosophical thought. However, Vallisneri's application of the theory of the infinite divisibility of matter to the primary physical organization of insects, animals, and human beings proved most consequential for Conti's notions of living matter. Following Vallisneri, Conti affirmed that, like an infinity of 'Chinese boxes,' the structure of every living being, both corporeal and spiritual, would remain intact even if it were to be divided endlessly.28

54 The Century of Women A principal object of Conti's philosophical reflections was the vexing question of force-matter, namely, whether force/soul/life/motion are inherent to or separate from matter/bodies. Straddling the divide between Cartesian dualism and pure materialism, Conti affirmed the essential split between matter/body and force/soul, but he held that these distinct entities are contingent wherein the one cannot exist without the other: 'matter's cohesion depends on force and ... force itself would have no cohesion if it were not supported by matter.'29 All of reality is thus at every level an ordered convergence between force and matter. Conti's early philosophical and scientific evolution can be seen to culminate in 1712 with his public attack on Francesco Nigrisoli's defence of natural theology over mechanistic, empirical interpretations of reality. Written at the encouragement of Antonio Vallisneri and published in the Giornale de' Letterati, the premier Italian periodical of modern thought at the time of which Vallisneri was also an editor, Conti's fierce rebuttal of Nigrisoli's Considerations Regarding the Generation of Living Things, Particularly of Monsters (Considerazioni intorno alia generazione de' viventi eparticolarmente de' mostri) was, in the words of Vincenzo Ferrone, a 'manifesto' for modern experimental philosophy 'founded on Galilean sensate experiments and a rejection of all finalism.'30 Yet this tract was equally important as a defence before the European literary republic of the virtue of contemporary Italian philosophical thought and discourse. Through his rejoinder to Nigrisoli, Conti became an exemplar among European philosophers of Italy's reinvigorated engagement with modern scientific and philosophical thought, as the congratulatory letters he received from Malebranche and Leibniz, and the following from Fontenelle, confirm: 'I read with great pleasure, Sir, your Dissertation on the book by Signor Nigrisoli. You perfectly defend Italy against the charge that she has little taste for good Philosophy, which you say has been levelled against her. You alone could bring her up to date ... Despite my great esteem for Italian genius, I believe that those who are as penetrating as you in Physics and Math are rare in that country, and in every other.'31 Shortly after writing his rebuttal to Nigrisoli, Conti embarked for France in order to converse directly with the 'Professors of Paris,'32 at the Academic des Sciences and other centres of intellectual exchange. During this first sojourn to France (1713-15), Conti regularly frequented Malebranche to discuss chief tenets of the French philosopher's Cartesian metaphysics, which had been foundational for Conti's philosophical formation. Polemical discussions of Malebranche's theory

The Very Fibre of Their Being 55

that God is the one true cause (known as occasionalism: God furrows my brow on the occasion of my willing it) and Malebranche's Cartesian dualism and providentialism, as well as Conti's growing interest in Newtonian philosophical theories, led him to reject Malebranche's theocentric philosophy in favour of a more strictly mechanical, materialist interpretation of reality.33 In 1715 he left Paris for London in order to meet face to face with Sir Isaac Newton and preeminent members of the British intellectual class. Until his departure in 1718, he was adopted as one of their own. He was a frequent companion of Newton's at formal gatherings and in private, and through Newton's sponsorship was inducted into the Royal Society. As a result of this extensive contact with the English philosopher, Conti came to espouse many of Newton's philosophical and scientific tenets. He approved the principal Newtonian axiom that predictable, universal laws govern the natural world. He adopted Newton's scientific method, what historian Nicola Badaloni has termed the 'philosophy of factum,'34 which deduced general scientific and philosophical principles exclusively from observable facts and privileged mechanistic over metaphysical interpretations of natural reality.35 In a letter dispatched from England in 1716, Conti plainly manifests his Newtonian bent when he declares that true philosophy 'does not concern itself with possibilities; it goes to the fact, and draws no conclusions except as a result of observation and experience.' Finally, from the time of Conti's first visit to France, he had engaged in an extended exchange of letters with the German philosopher Gottfried Leibniz on contemporary philosophical theories, especially Leibniz's own cosmology and his concepts of form, force, the soul, preestablished harmony, the will of God, and an infinity of substances (monadology) ,37 While Conti initially rejected Leibniz's 'philosophy of possibilities' in favour of Newton's philosophy of facts, he came to espouse a materialist version of Leibniz's concept of reality in which a universal principle of harmony governs the innumerable species of matter. At the time he wrote his letter to Perelle in 1721, Conti had thus integrated key aspects of contemporary European philosophical and scientific thought. The Paduan philosopher envisioned a universe, in toto and in each of its discrete parts, formed of the perfect, ordered, and harmonious fusion of force with matter, in which every creation is useful and necessary. Extending these same theories to the human sphere, he maintained that a fundamental and intrinsic ordering principle governs human existence, which, like all else in the universe, also consists of the Q£-

56 The Century of Women

merging of force with matter, or, in this case, mind with body. The essential structure for this intricate material configuration would remain intact, according to Conti, even were the bodies to be endlessly partitioned. These theories of force-matter, utility, divisibility, harmony, and order underlie Conti's argument for women's inferiority. The Letter The chronological and ideological overlap between Conti's response to the 'woman question' and the Ricovrati Academy's published pronouncement on the problem of women's education in 1729 is plainly documented in his correspondence with Antonio Vallisneri, the Prince of the Ricovrati from 1722 to 1723. In a letter from Venice on 21 January 1726, Conti thanked Vallisneri for sending him Lady Aretafila Savini De' Rossi's apology for the education of women, adding that he would append the apology, along with Savini De' Rossi's notes, to his copy of the 'dissertation on the education of women' by Giovann Antonio Volpi to which she was objecting.38 In this same letter Conti disclosed that he, too, had 'laboured greatly' on the issue of women's educability in dialogues and letters in French that he meant to translate for publication, including one in which he had demonstrated 'physically that women have less ability than men of the same temperament and with the same education, not only in the sciences and arts generally, but also in those very abstract sciences that demand great depth, great subtlety and great sophistication of mind.'39 Ten days later, in a letter dated 31 January 1726, Conti promised Vallisneri that he would send him a copy of his 'dissertation about women' at the first opportunity.40 Although the correspondence has not survived, evidence of an ongoing exchange during the succeeding four months between Vallisneri and Conti, as well as between Giovann Antonio Volpi and Conti, regarding the acquisition of Conti's tract on women, is found in Vallisneri's epistle of 5 June 1726. Vallisneri here entreated Conti to satisfy finally Volpi's and his own many requests for a copy of the article on women. That Conti did not send the argument to his Paduan colleagues before the publication in 1729 of the amended proceedings of the Ricovrati debate, and that he thereby thwarted the convergence of two defining textual events for the discourse about women of the Italian Enlightenment, is made plain in an undated letter to him from Vallisneri. Vallisneri opens his missive by expressing his pleasure that Conti had finally received the copy he sent of the academy's 'libretto about women'; however, in the following sentence the prince of the Ricovrati declared

The Very Fibre of Their Being 57

his disappointment that Conti's own argument on the question of women's education was not among those published in the volume: 'If only you had honoured [the book] with your very noble dissertation, you would have endowed it with the greatest lustre and the greatest decorum.' 41 The near union of these distinct paradigmatic discourses about women in a single published volume is starkly revealing with respect both to the intimacy and insularity of the society of accademid and to the critical importance of the 'woman question' for contemporary intellectual exchange. It is clear from these letters that women were a real and pervasive focus of enlightened intellectual inquiry- an inquiry whose object was to resolve scientifically and conclusively persistent questions about women's essential nature, and thereby determine their social functions, formation, placement, and utility. Not coincidentally, Conti addressed his epistle on female inferiority to his long-time friend and collaborator, the French magistrate to the Grand Conseil and administrator of 1'Hopital general Andre-Robert Perelle (1695-1735). A sceptic, and Gallican, Perelle was a member of the Academic royale des sciences, as well as the Club de 1'Entresol, a political academy founded by the abbe Pierrejoseph Alary and Philippe d'Orleans for analysis of international and domestic political and economic policy.42 The friendship between him and Conti had developed during Conti's first trip to France when they both kept frequent company with Malebranche. Perelle's extant philosophical journal, preserved in the Bibliotheque Nationale de France, documents his prolonged intellectual exchange with Conti.43 While sojourning in France and then through the course of his travels, Conti had corresponded with Perelle about contemporary philosophical and scientific theories. Criticism of Malebranchian metaphysics and enthusiasm for Newtonianism dominated their epistolary exchange.44 The Italian and the French philosophers were bound by their common attraction to materialist, anti-finalist explanations of reality, in particular what Vincenzo Ferrone has termed Baylian Stratonism: 'a vision of the universe worked out dualistically as a force-matter with an intrinsic principle of order.'45 In his letter of 1721 to Perelle, Conti applies to the 'woman question' the general philosophical theories to which he and the French magistrate mutually subscribed. At its core, the epistolary tract is a methodological offensive against insufficiently scientific reasoning. Indeed, Conti opens his argument by accusing those who had previously attempted answers to the 'woman question' of analytical dereliction: 'It is true, Sir, that the question as to whether or not women are as capable as men in govern-

58 The Century of Women ment, the sciences and war is much debated; but where is the author who has reduced the question to its essential aspect, and in treating it has descended from first principles?'46 Conti repudiates as unscientific the traditional approach of cataloguing positive or negative feminine traits and illustrious or infamous women in history who modelled these traits. Yet, Conti's primary target is his former master Nicholas Malebranche, whom he indicts for failing to proceed systematically and conclusively from first principles in his argument for female inferiority in chapter 1, book II, part II of De la recherche de la verite (1674-5). Although Conti credits Malebranche with being the first philosopher to base his analysis of female inferiority strictly on physiological proofs, he renounces the variability of Malebranche's response to the 'woman question.' In De la recherche de la verite Malebranche had claimed that women's weak brain fibres left them unable to engage in abstract analysis and rendered them generally more sensitive, agitated, and befuddled over intellectual questions than men: This delicacy of brain fibres is usually found in women, and this is what gives them great understanding of everything that strikes the senses.... Everything that depends upon taste is within their area of competence, but normally they are incapable of penetrating to truths that are slightly difficult to discover. Everything abstract is incomprehensible to them. They consider only the surface of things, and their imagination has insufficient strength and insight to pierce it to the heart, comparing all the parts, without being distracted ... Finally the style and not the reality of things suffices to occupy their minds to capacity; because insignificant things produce great motions in the delicate fibers of their brains, these things necessarily excite great and vivid feelings in their souls, completely occupying it.47 Although the French philosopher considered women intellectually weaker than men as a consequence of their inherent physiological inferiority, he did allow that those women having the right physical constitution were, in fact, capable of intellectual deftness equal to and, in some cases, even greater than that of some men: If it is certain that this delicacy of the brain fibers is the principal cause of all these effects, it is not at all certain that it is to be found in all women ... Strength of mind consists in a certain constitution of the volume and agitation of the animal spirits with the brain fibers; and sometimes women have the right constitution. There are strong, constant women, and there are

The Very Fibre of Their Being 59 feeble, inconstant men. There are learned women, courageous women, women capable of anything; and on the other hand one finds men who are soft and effeminate, incapable of penetrating or accomplishing anything. In short, when we attribute certain defects to a sex, to certain ages, to certain stations, we mean only that it is ordinarily true, always assuming there is no general rule without exceptions.48

Conti will have none of this ambivalence. He means to displace Malebranche's indeterminate judgment with a definitive answer derived systematically from natural laws and empirical proofs, the prescribed method of experimental philosophy. Conti's challenge to Malebranche is a criticism of scientific impurity. A cosmos governed by immutable material codes and universal laws of order and utility disallows exceptions and noncompliant beings. The Paduan materialist builds his analysis of female inferiority upon several implicit 'first principles': matter is ubiquitous, extended, imbued with force, and infinitely divisible. A body of natural laws uniformly governs macro-, meso-, and microcosm: the universe, the genus, and the individual body. To answer the question of 'whether or not women are as capable as men in government, the sciences, and war,' those defining arenas of the public sphere wherein human attainment may be legitimately gauged, Conti must uncover the key traits of female materiality, traits that determine and demarcate in toto women's being in the world. From the specific 'facts' of female matter, the philosopher can infer woman's essential functions, her social placement, and her ontological status in the universe. It should be noted that matter for Conti is not merely synonymous with body. Matter signifies both body and the essential, underlying code by which body and being are defined. It is the core schema that is at once prior to and predicated on the body, like a blueprint that anticipates but is only realized in the standing edifice. Working within the requisite binary frame of male and female, Conti 'materializes' woman scientifically by systematically comparing men's and women's physical and intellectual 'vigour.' 'The government, the sciences, and war are occupations that depend on the vigour of the spirit and of the body. What could a robust body not undertake? And of what art would a sound, extended, and penetrating spirit be incapable? The whole question may thus be reduced to a comparison of the vigour of the body and of the spirit possessed by men and women.'49 Where Malebranche liberally conceded exceptions to the general rule concerning women's inferior brain fibres and intellect, going so far as to caution

60 The Century of Women

that 'we need not posit essential differences where we do not find perfect identity,'50 Conti aims to substantiate absolute sexual difference. Defining vigour both physiologically and according to the laws of physics, he maintains that it is determined by the inherent constitution of the fibres, which serve as the basic building blocks of the living body: The force of the human body depends on the strength and on the elasticity of its fibres. The strength of the fibres derives from their cohesion, their density, and their solidity: their elasticity, whatever the reason, is established at the animal's birth and continues until its death.'51 Fibres are the essential life-matter of the organs, muscles, and nerves. Invested with an innate force, they channel energy and information to all parts of the body more or less efficiently. And as with all physical bodies, according to Conti, the force of the fibres depends on the convergence of their mass and velocity. He translates the question of the intrinsic potency of the male and the female body into the formula F = MV. The greater the density of the fibres, the more elastic they are and the stronger their force. Bodies constituted of more elastic fibres thus excel throughout in vigour. Conti constructs his evaluation of men's and women's essential vigour on a singular premise: because of her reproductive function, woman is more humid than man: 'Woman is not made for herself alone. She must bring to light a child, for whose sustenance nature has given more fluid to her than to us.'52 Conti renovates the ancient conflation identified by Judith Butler of 'matter with mater and matrix (or the womb).'53 In her etymology of the term 'matter,' from the Greek hyleand the Latin materia, Butler traces its earliest associations with origin, cause, reproduction, and the feminine. Citing Aristotle's theory of reproduction, Butler demonstrates that in its ancient explication matter is quiescent, a site of becoming, actualization, and 'materialization': in the creation of human beings, 'women are said to contribute the matter; men, the form.'54 By fusing the genus of woman and the female procreative function,55 a deterministic union that takes place at the material level, Conti extends the ancient associations between matter, the feminine, and generation. Women are defined at their material core, they are 'materialized,' by their potential maternity; their material constitution is thus contingent on the exigencies of the womb. Refurbishing the humoralism of classical antiquity with proofs from contemporary anatomical science, Conti redesignates women the moist sex. He claims that because of women's generative function, blood and milk saturate the multitudinous fibres that lead to the brain, rendering

The Very Fibre of Their Being 61

these fibres less elastic and less solid than those of men. This physiological fact decides women's inherent and comprehensive weakness: slack, bloated fibres are the 'curious fabrick' of women's inferiority. Moreover, it reconfirms that woman 'is not made for herself alone' but instead exists in a state of dual dependency: her life is naturally subordinate to the lives of her offspring, the production of which is woman's ultimate function. And because of this reproductive imperative, women are naturally dependent on men for protection and support. Thus, in contrast to man, woman's material utility is neither boundless nor self-reflexive but essentially contingent. Her existence is determined inside and out by a necessary and all-encompassing dependency originating in her reproductive function. Conti's method is founded on the mandate espoused by his mentor Sir Isaac Newton that experimental philosophy eschew hypotheses: 'In experimental philosophy we are to look upon propositions collected by general induction from phaenomena as accurately or very nearly true, notwithstanding any contrary hypotheses that may be imagined, till such time as other phaemoena occur, by which they may either be made more accurate, or liable to exceptions. This rule must follow, that the argument of induction may not be evaded by hypotheses.'56 Adhering to Newton's directive, Conti lets empirical data alone steer him by inference to the natural laws underpinning matter, in this case female materiality. For his answer to the 'woman question' to be absolute, Conti must not only glean the hidden universal from the facts of the finite female body but must also show how this rule issues generally throughout the material world. He therefore buttresses his characterization of women's materiality with a series of empirical 'proofs,' the first of which would demonstrate that physical weakness and sodden fibres are universal feminine traits common throughout the Chain of Being and across species. Comparing the flesh of male and female birds, and in particular that of 'Indian chickens,' he concludes that, as in the case of women's bodies, 'the meat of the female is spongier than that of the male.'57 The Italian philosopher considers this proof especially compelling 'because all birds and chickens manifest identical education and exercise';5 in other words, because of their uniform development, they represent an ideal control group. Although his example is at odds with his main argument, since birds do not give birth or nurse, Conti seeks to advance what can be described as a monistic theory of female materiality. The circumscription of the feminine to a singular physiological imperative is universally determined at every level of existence and in every species.

62 The Century of Women

Not only does the author disallow exceptional women, he would seem to argue for a uniform materiality of all things female. Moving across the scientific continuum wherein all spheres of knowledge confirm the same cosmic truths, Conti turns from physiology and physics to anatomy to prove the immanence and totality of women's subordination. He has unwrapped the inferior core of the female body, but he must show the link between women's subaltern matter and their mind/spirit, which he locates in the 'oval centre of the brain.'59 To do so, he fixes on the two organs essential for life and intellection: the heart and the brain: 'I infer from the inferior arterial pulsations [in women], that the heart thrusts the blood with less impetus into the arteries; therefore the blood rises more slowly to women's brains.'60 From his fundamentally flawed anatomy, Conti concludes that women's slack and therefore weakly vibrating brain fibres prevent them from engaging in systematic, critical analysis, preclude them from making any legitimate contributions to the arts and sciences, and render them incapable of abstract analytical thought: 'if systematic and critical thinking is superior to the capacity of women's fibers, what will we say then of metaphysics or mathematics?'61 And once again, he supports his conclusions about women's physiological weakness with his observations ('esperienze') of other animal species: 'If you would shoot a male and a female dog, you would find ... greater blood pressure in the heart of the male than in the female.'62 Conti's politics most plainly shows itself in the overstatement and considered inaccuracies of his science: women, hens, and female dogs have an equivalent physiology; the aorta is larger and the pulse slower in women. Conti's arguments make plain that reality is not, in 'fact,' revealed, but rather is rendered by means of selection and construction. His 'production' of the feminine seeks to naturalize female inferiority, and more importantly, to establish male superiority. Having risen up from women's fibrous depths past their heart and brain, Conti breaks surface with an analysis of women's external, and therefore qualifiable, physical traits, traits that, like all else essential to women, originate in their second-rate force-matter. He evaluates separately women's hair, skin, colouring, vocal strength and flexibility, and physical strength and agility from youth to old age and finds women to be invariably inferior to men. Women, he asserts, 'have hair nearly as delicate as that of children.' About female singers he maintains that 'the fibres of their trachea and of their muscles used for exhalation are so fine they are useless in sustaining the great quantity and force of air

The Very Fibre of Their Being 63

needed to dilate the trachea without lacerating it.' After enumerating the essential attributes of female dancers, he asks rhetorically, 'could one ever equate either in terms of strength or in pure dexterity the leaping female dancers of the Fair of Saint Germane with the athletes of Greece or the gladiators of Rome?'63 To underscore the lack of physical strength in women Conti again poses a rhetorical question: Tn what city or in what century have women ever been seen cutting marble or metal, excavating mines, building, or fortifying piazzas?'64 The author concludes his survey of the physical attributes of women with the laconic judgment: 'The ordinary occupations of women have always been sewing, weaving, and embroidery, occupations that require nothing other than dexterity and patience.'65 Conti simplifies the diversity of reality, and in this case female reality, to an economy of one: fibres, the lowest perceptible common denominator of human matter, demarcate all facets of women's existence. From external, physical characteristics, Conti continues to extend his analytical reach in the direction of less quantifiable feminine traits. He surveys women's behavioural attributes, their erratic gestures and movement, excessive laughter, frivolous conversation, and mercurial passions, all of which originate in female materiality. Postulating a kind of proto-genetics, he conceives an essential material code that controls all aspects and spheres of the female existence, from the physiological to the cultural. Underpinning Conti's interpretation of the physical, cultural, and sociological manifestations of female materiality are Newton's theories of attraction/repulsion and the Universal Spirit, and Leibniz's concept of preestablished harmony. In the Principia, Newton had inferred from his studies of natural phenomena the existence of a 'most subtle Spirit which pervades and lies hid in all gross bodies' and whose function is to cause attraction and cohesion among the various particles of bodies.66 Conti interpreted Newton's Spiritus as 'the concurrence of natural laws'67 that govern and order all reality. It is especially important to note that Conti, in his materialist world-view, did not separate the objective physical from the subjective human sphere. He regarded physical, intellectual, behavioural, and psychological traits as fixed necessarily within the naturally ordered human material structure.68 An individual's material composition even designated for Conti expressions of love and emotion: 'our way of feeling things, love, etc., is imposed on us by our materiality and factualness; indeed, it is the first expression of these.'69 From Leibniz's notion that the universe is a congruous and unified system in which an infinity of closed substances exists in harmony and thus

64 The Century of Women

confirms the existence of God,70 Conti culled his own theory that each creation in the universe is necessary and is defined at the material level, in relation to all other creations, by a cosmic law of order, harmony, and utility: 'the development of the most vile and contemptible little animal is necessary to equilibrate all the agitations of matter. For Conti, female materiality is therefore far from an originary mistake, as Aristotle had claimed. Rather, from her flooded fibres to her lethargic brain, from her delicate hair to her facile conversation, she is in all of her parts and in all ways a necessary and useful being in an orderly universe. The Paduan philosopher makes plain the function of women's 'flaws' in what at first appears an abrupt about-face, when he suddenly hails the same feminine traits that he previously cited to prove women's intrinsic inadequacy. Conti predicates the natural affinity and compatibility of the sexes directly on women's physical and intellectual deficiencies. Those essential feminine qualities, which Conti now recasts as vivacity, imagination, a refined sense of humour, a gentle disposition, and spontaneous conversation, make women the objects of male desire and once again originate in women's frail and flaccid brain fibres: 'the proportions of the weak vibrations of their brains inform them with the vivacity, the gaiety, the charming imagination, the refined jests, and all of the delicacies of their conversation ... that render speaking with them so delightful and so gratifying.' Conti's female subject is functional for male desire. Indeed, woman's inherent inferiority, inscribed on the very fibre of her being, determines at the primary, material level the attraction between the sexes and the immanency of women's subordination and men's preeminence. The primary force that conjoined with matter to form woman is thus intrinsically and unremittingly deficient, a 'real' lack that would seem to find its justification and its correction in the sexual union with man. Indeed, man appears to be more force and woman more matter, and their marriage a microcosmic enactment of the harmonious fusion of force-matter that governs the universe. From women's fibres to the history of the world, Conti encloses all reality within a single material continuum. He concludes his argument by gazing across the historical landscape to the monuments of Western civilization for corroborating evidence that women do not have the 'stuff for the public sphere. Greek sculptures, Roman piazzas, and Renaissance Italian art all attest to men's greatness and women's inconsequence. In his assessment of the Western cultural legacy, he finds that there has never existed a woman Virgil, Cicero, Livy, Michelangelo, Correggio, Titian, or Tintoretto.74 (He pauses from his perusal of the annals rro

The Very Fibre of Their Being 65

of history to debunk as either monstrous or mythical those 'glorious' women often noted for their achievements in the arts, war, or politics.) The inherent deficiencies of female matter (those loose fibres!) once again circumscribe women's existence. Women's intrinsically limited intellectual capacity precludes their artistic and political achievement and justifies their exclusion from those principal arenas of human endeavour. Their subordination throughout the history of civilization confirms women's material status. The answer to the opening question of whether or not women are as capable as men in government, the sciences, and war, is thus a 'no' that resounds from the visceral depths to the starry heights of the material world. Conti's theory of woman seeks to convince his contemporaries of a material point of origin for women's ontological inferiority. Moreover, in couching his estimation of the female nature in precise, scientific terms, in specifically pinpointing the material components of women's inferiority, and in arguing for the fundamental material and social utility of this inferiority, Conti strives to render women's subordination a fact as indisputable as Newton's law of gravity. Indeed, he speaks as the 'Newton of feminine inferiority.' Clearly, in Conti's 'Science of Woman,' woman acts as antagonist to the implied male protagonist. While women are essentially contingent creatures with determined potentialities, formed as they are for the reproduction and sustenance of the species, men are unfettered by any imperative, and capable of self-realization within any sphere of human endeavour. Conti's tract is a tacit defence of absolute male authority. The same misogynistic science that undergirds Conti's thesis served to substantiate similar arguments for women's 'natural' subordination published throughout the century. Shortly after Conti had written his letter to Perelle, Giovann Antonio Volpi, addressing the Ricovrati Academy during the debate of 1723, also excavated the fibrous substructure of the female body to prove positively the inferiority of the female intellect and thus the futility of educating women: Let no one reply that intelligence conjoined with physical force necessarily will prevail over intelligence alone, and that for precisely this reason Women are unjustly oppressed by men ... [AJmong the human species we frequently observe that the vigour of the brain marvellously agrees with the temperature of the body, and where the body has abundant humidity, such that the fibres are rendered weaker and to a certain extent relaxed, the brain is deprived of the strength sufficient to ponder sublime notions.

66 The Century of Women Small children, whose excessive humidity leaves them intellectually wanting, validate my claims. That the same is true of women, those will judge who are much more learned in natural science than I.75 Later in the century, in 1772, just before Conti's tract was republished by Loschi to wide acclaim, Ferdinando Galiani also defended his extreme argument that woman is a 'naturally weak and sick animal' ('Un animal naturellement foible et malade') unfit for anything but a life of domesticity, by citing palpable evidence from anatomy,76 the scientific discipline that, as John Sawday has observed, 'was in the forefront of the new philosophical regime. Indeed for some ... was the new science. In his Croquis d'un dialogue sur lesfemmes, Galiani's mouthpiece, the Chevalier, asserts that 'the female is weak in her muscular structure, which results in her retiring life; her dependence on the male of the species, who is her support; her frivolous way of dressing; her pastimes; her occupations, etc.'78 Not only does the Neapolitan writer, like Conti, attribute to women's bodily tissues the cause for their subordinate social condition and negative behaviours, he also exploits comparative anatomy to defend male supremacy in all things and across species: 'Compare roosters with chickens, bulls with cows, etc. The female is one fifth smaller than the male and she is also one third as strong.'79 Galiani entered the formal controversy about women, as Luciano Guerci has noted, with a sincere aim to oppose changes in women's traditional roles and condition, especially their education, notwithstanding the 'semiserious tone' of his dialogue. By erecting his argument on definitive physiological proofs he sought to discredit as superfluous arguments based on history and experience, indeed to repudiate as 'vain and illusory' any challenge to women's natural inferiority.80 At nearly the same time that Conti's letter was reissued in Italian and Galiani's dialogue circulated throughout Italy and France, the Bolognese anatomist Petronio Ignazio Zecchini anonymously published his tract Di geniali. Delia dialettica delle donne ridotta al suo vero principio ('Genial Days: On the Dialectic of Women Reduced to Its True Princi81 pie'), which perhaps most plainly manifests the misogynist politics behind the 'Science of Women.' Zecchini combined mechanistic with metaphysical interpretations of the relationship between the mind and the body in a single theory of the human body as a machine 'affected by and subject to the actions of two contrary, spiritual and material, powers':82 rational thought and predominant corporeal operations. However, while he conceded that, among men, the vigour of the rational

The Very Fibre of Their Being 67

mind might occasionally be able to overcome the force of the body's physiological functions, this could never be the case for women. The female mind is always defined and subjugated by women's inherent 'visceral' weakness. Zecchini takes eighteenth-century 'scientific misogyny' to a new extreme. In opposition to 'the common consensus of [modern] philosophers,'83 he rejected the brain as the organ of intellection and instead theorized that the mind occupies the entire nervous system such that it 'can receive impressions from any innervated part of the body, and form its ideas.'84 For the female sex alone, however, one 'predominant organ' governs intellection: the uterus regulates women's thoughts and unconditionally circumscribes their intellectual potential. He argues that the 'continual, necessary irritations' of this organ are the root cause of women's erratic behaviour, their psychological volatility, and their incapacity for concentrated thought, and are the final justification for women's exclusion from the world: 'impeded, limited, confused by this predominant organ, it is necessary that you [women] relinquish learning all things that require a pure logic, and a stable system [of thought].'86 His misogynist politics plainly reveal themselves in his admonishment to women: 'willingly subject yourselves to men, who, by their counsel, can curb your instability and your concupiscence.'8 Zecchini goes so far as to designate this reproductive organ a 'thinking uterus' (Tutero pensatore'), because, as he tells his female readers, 'it is the absolute ruler of your thoughts ... and ... because it causes you to think the way it wants.'88 In radical opposition to the assertion of Poullain de la Barre and his followers that the mind has no sex, Zecchini avers that the female mind is not only sexed, it is supplanted by the womb. In her expert analysis of the cultural and personal circumstances that influenced what Zecchini called his 'isolation of the true principle of women's singular metaphysics,'89 historian Marta Cavazza argues that he was motivated, at least in part, by resentment over the increasing authority attained by learned women in the university and the scientific academies of Bologna. His principal 'targets,' Cavazza explains, were Maria Gaetana Agnesi, who held an honorary chair of mathematics at the University at the time; Laura Bassi, professor of philosophy at the university and a renowned member of the prestigious Bolognese Academy of Sciences; and especially the internationally renowned anatomist and anatomical wax modeller Anna Morandi Manzolini, who worked in Zecchini's own field, and who was appointed by the Senate of Bologna, at Pope Benedict XIV's behest, as university lecturer of anatomy and Qf-

68 The Century of Women

anatomical design. Beyond the spiteful insinuation in his tract that Maria Gaetana Agnesi was not the author of her celebrated book on analytical geometry and integral calculus, Analytical Institutions for the Use of Italian Youth (1748), Zecchini's argument as a whole may be read as an attack against the rising class of women intellectuals, and indeed all women who dared to defy the traditional social order founded on male supremacy.90 He wields science and, in particular, the hard proofs of 'modern' physiology as a weapon to subdue presumptuous women - to re-consign them to the domestic domain and to their reproductive imperative (the controlling uterus). Notwithstanding his extreme tone and scientific and philosophical conceits, little, in fact, distinguishes the pseudo-scientific method and misogynist politics of Zecchini's thesis of 1771 from what Conti and Volpi had advanced fifty years earlier, or from what Galiani would say the following year. These arguments spanned the Enlightenment; indeed, the various lives of Conti's 'Letter' in 1721, 1756, and 1772 illustrate the sustained authority of misogynist scientific discourse over the course of the century. It may be said that the very reiteration of arguments for the material, physiological foundations of women's inferiority by 'men of science' facilitated their authority (just as centuries of reiteration validated Galenic physiology). The consistent, systematic abuse of the empirical scientific method - in particular, the exploitation of anatomical science — to naturalize women's subjugation likewise gained authority through repetition. Inspired by misogynist politics, anxiety, and desire, the 'Science of Woman' was, in fact, anything but scientific. Rather, it was a new deterministic, flesh-and-blood rationale for denying women the status of subject, for precluding their education, for confining them to the domestic sphere; in other words, for defending male ascendency according to the established method and terms of the modern Age of Reason.

chapter three

Palliated Resistance: Diamante Medaglia Faini on 'Which Studies Are Fitting for Women'

In contrast to the ensconced literary genre of the seventeenth-century querelle des femmes waged (or staged) by male intellectuals, with rare exception, competing to manifest their wit and originality by reworking standard arguments and rhetorical schemes,1 those who undertook to confront the 'woman question' during the Settecento entered a field of serious intellectual discourse. Although some members of the Literary Republic, most notably Ferdinando Galiani in his Croquis d'un dialogue sur les femmes (Outline of a Dialogue on Women, 1772), Carlo Maria Chiaraviglio in Lo scoglio dell'umanitd (The Burden of Humanity, 1774), and Fausto Salvani in La Difesa delle Donne o sia risposta apologetica al libro detto Lo Scoglio dell'Umanitd di Diunilgo Valdecio (The Defence of Women or an Apologetic Response to the Book Called The Burden of Humanity, 1787), persisted in treating the 'woman question' as an academic exercise, theirs was a distinctly outmoded approach. The vast majority of male intellectuals who published arguments about the place and purpose of women in contemporary society were prompted by authentic concern about women's impact on the public good, despite their common disregard for the interests of women. At the forefront of the controversy about women, as previous chapters have sought to show, was the question of women's education. The tutored ignorance and near ubiquitous illiteracy among all but the most privileged of the sex,3 as well as the arbitrary, and often superficial, academic preparation given to women of means, inspired a profusion of writing on the subject. The illuministi focused their concern on the general health and welfare of the nation-state that obtained from the wellbeing of the nation's young and from the serenity and security of the domestic sphere, arid many among their number advocated formal

70 The Century of Women instruction that would promote these ends, niuministi and anti-illuministi alike vigorously censured the worldly education of women in fashion, modern consumerism, unscrupulous literature, and immoral conduct, and conceived diverse, though equally nostalgic, strategies for forming a more reticent and domesticated female populace. Not only did the question of women's education receive unprecedented notice during the Italian Settecento, but also, unlike their precursors, the eighteenth-century women who addressed this issue were not wholly outside principal arenas of intellectual discourse. They often spoke from within the academy and the university and, as Savini De' Rossi did, from the pages of respected publications. Nonetheless, they faced many of the same dilemmas as their predecessors: Should they engage with or disregard the canon of arguments about women? Should they adopt the methodology of their opponents or introduce an original, unauthorized design? Should they speak to men in power or address themselves to an unrecognized female public? Very often they do all of these, explicitly and implicitly. This plurality of purpose and rhetorical method characterizes their discourse. Diamante Medaglia Faini's defence of women's education, 'Quali studi convengono alle donne' ('Which Studies Are Fitting for Women'), published in 1774, manifests this rhetorical and methodological plurality, not least in its appropriation of masculinist assumptions and its confirmation of women's essential inferiority. Medaglia Faini's oration is not a feminist manifesto. In contrast to Carolina Lattanzi's unambiguous assault on The Slavery of Women (Schiavitu delle donne), which she read before the Academy of Public Instruction in Mantua in 1797,4 Medaglia Faini's oration adopts the dispassionate rhetorical and political conventions of the Enlightenment Republic of Letters, and the tono media of academic disputation. Unlike Lattanzi and other female insurgents who came of age in the atmosphere of political promise and upheaval of the French Revolution, women who laid the groundwork for the organized feminist opposition of the nineteenth century,5 Medaglia Faini continues to speak from within the masculine discursive tradition. She seeks to change the condition of women neither through revolutionary politics nor through dissident discourse, but rather by canonical means of persuasion: dispassionate terms and well-reasoned arguments. She takes as her point of departure the assumptions and the rhetorical means of the sanctified canon of Western thought itself, which she uses to authorize her innovative pedagogical goals for women. The import of her oration lies in its disclosure of the vexed, transitional politics and modes of discourse that characterize women's formal apologies for women during this age.

Palliated Resistance 71

In essence, Medaglia Faini revisits and recasts the academic discourse on the education of women, without overturning it. Once again, as in 1723 in the Academy of the Ricovrati discussed in chapter 1, an academician enters the sacrosanct setting of the academy, a symbolic site of intellectual and moral gravitas, to argue before an elite scholarly community the unresolved question of women's education. Now, however, Medaglia Faini exemplifies the new face and voice of the Academy that had emerged over the passage of forty years. Unlike Aretafila Savini De' Rossi, whose retaliatory notes and apology for women's education were added after the 1723 Ricovrati debate, Medaglia Faini's authoritative, markedly female presence at the centre of intellectual exchange signifies a rupture in the patrician and patrilineal control that characterized the academic discursive space generally. Her presence at the podium of the Academy of the Unanimi in Salo, and the recollection and amplification of her voice on the printed page, document the rising authority of women within the Republic of Letters, as well as women's increasing sway over the 'woman question' and constructions of femininity. Signifying the Feminine Strange will it seem to each of you, valorous and honorable Academicians, that I, who am in braids and a skirt, dare to appear today before this select and gracious assembly.

With these words, poet and mathematician Diamante Medaglia Faini initiates her oration advocating a science-based curriculum for women, which she presented in 1763 to the Academy of the Unanimi in Salo to which she not only belonged but was the elected 'Princess.' In beginning her discourse with the word 'strange,' Medaglia Faini anticipates her audience's reaction upon seeing a woman before them in the seat of authority. She emphasizes her feminine inferiority, positioning herself as consummate foil to the honourable male academicians to whom she addresses her remarks. The woman speaker assumes in her exordium the conventional humility of feminine discourse; however, she aims to do more than satisfy the requisites of oratory. Her self-representation, 'I, who am in braids and a skirt,' directs the academicians' collective gaze to what Susan Bordo has called the 'docile body of femininity,'8 and poignantly reveals her problematic position within the sphere of intellectual exchange and the equivocal rhetorical and methodological qualities of her argument. Like other female defenders of the rights and the education of women

72 The Century of Women

during the eighteenth century,9 Medaglia Faini conveys her argument obliquely. She overlays and defends her unorthodox academic curriculum for women with arguments conventional to the dominant masculinist discourse about woman. She couches her defence of women's education in the very terms used to rationalize women's subjugation and to deny women's intellectual development. And she underscores women's essential feminine inferiority, her own intellectual inadequacy, and the weaknesses of her public discourse in order to establish the need for her proposed curriculum. But her presence as a sign of femininity within the academic space and within her own discourse is far from simple. Medaglia Faini does not merely construct herself as a paragon of feminine inadequacy. She acts as the emblematic object and the authoritative speaking subject of her address simultaneously. Indeed, even as she indicates her 'feminine' deficiencies, physical as well as intellectual, she showcases her deep knowledge of canonical texts, classical literature, and religious doctrine. The classical structure of her oration itself serves to confirm her erudition. As a deliberative exhortation in the middle style, it seeks to persuade by supporting logical arguments with citations from learned authorities, and is a model version of the Aristotelian protrepticus,10 placing her in the company of ancient and modern rhetorical masters. By representing herself as both the inherently inferior female Other and the distinct exception to that stereotype, Medaglia Faini becomes in herself the double but fundamentally paradoxical justification for the rigorous academic curriculum she advocates. Medaglia Faini's oration thus exemplifies the rhetorical dexterity and ideological subterfuge required for women's proto-feminist writing during an age fraught with ambivalence about the function and nature of women and apprehensive at their increased prominence in the public arena. She simultaneously approves and subverts what Foucault calls the 'regime of truth,' in this case the truth of women's essential inferiority. She defines her discourse as a 'divisata risoluzione' ('devised resolution'), an ambiguous expression with several denotations, including 'devised,' 'planned,' 'carefully constructed,' and 'ordered,' as well as 'different,' 'distinct,' and 'disguised,' all of which would seem to apply to her methodology. On the one hand, Medaglia Faini capitulates to male authority; she simulates feminine weakness, and she condones conventional misogyny. But on the other, she surreptitiously promotes women's intellectual autonomy, she contests male authority, especially over scientific knowledge, and she encourages essential changes not only in the treatment of women but in the established social order.

Palliated Resistance 73 Medaglia Faini's markedly feminine presence in the Academy of the Unanimi, her occupation of the ensconced masculine seat of authority, and her discreet, erudite defence of the universal education of women in the 'new science' to a male academic elite signifies a reversal of key facets of the Ricovrati debate of 1723 and of the querelk in general. Her precursors in Padua, distinguished not by braids and skirt but by venerated academic robes, spoke to their elite brethren about the remote question of women's education with easy dispassion from ordained positions of authority. The audience of women in attendance in 1723 was alien to the space, summoned there by the academicians to observe and to admire in silence. Notwithstanding the artificial rhetoric and design of her oration, Medaglia Faini's defence of women's education is by contrast wholly interested, built on private experience and desire. Her own intellectual trajectory forms the unmistakable basis for the academic curriculum she advocates, and she herself serves to embody in her address both the disruptive force of feminine difference and the potency of the illuminated female intellect. And while she does not explicitly contradict the prevailing 'scientific misogyny,' advanced by such authorities as Antonio Conti, Ferdinando Galiani, and Petronio Zecchini, as a learned woman, expert in the substance and the practical methodology of modern mathematics, science, and natural philosophy, she acts as her own best proof that this knowledge is the necessary and rightful province of women. She offers no defence of women's political and social emancipation against the many who, like Conti, argued that they are inherently and 'physically' unfit for the public arena. Indeed, she exploits many of the same assumptions espoused by Conti and his colleagues about women's natural irrationality, excitability, and intellectual frailty to justify their instruction in the sciences. Rather than mire herself in the arbitrary logic of the scientific misogynists by opposing to their self-serving premises and conclusions her own partisan counter-proofs from physiology and anatomy, she advances instead a utilitarian vindication of women's education in which the sciences represent a practical means rather than the grounds for edifying women, and thus for bolstering domestic tranquillity and the larger public good. A Scientific Education for Women Although little changed with respect to the serious academic preparation of women, toward the second half of the century it became increasingly fashionable for upper-class women to possess a conversational

74 The Century of Women knowledge of the 'new sciences.' Articles on such scientific topics as physics, chemistry, and botany appeared in popular women's magazines and became de rigueurfor the fashionable lady,11 as did books ostensibly designed to introduce women to scientific disciplines. Noted examples of this popular new genre include Francesco Algarotti's Newtonianism for Ladies (II Newtonianismo per le dame, 1737), Philosophy for Ladies (Lafilosofia per le dame, 1737), and Giuseppe Compagnoni's Chemistry for Ladies (Chimica per le dame, Venice, 1792). At the same time, Italian women, both fictional and actual, helped to expand and to popularize scientific knowledge, as Paula Findlen has discussed. The intellectually naive female interlocutor who receives scientific instruction from a male master, featured in dialogic texts like those listed above, and the real scientific woman working within an academy or university each served to domesticate science, although they occupied incongruous roles. These two groups - the fashionable female amateur and the learned female scientist - are brought together in Francesco Algarotti's Newtonianism for Ladies.1^ The scientific education of Algarotti's neophyte lady scientist, the Marquise of E ... , begins during a conventional (womanly) discourse about poetry when she calls upon her male companion to explain enigmatic verses lauding a contemporary woman scientist which begin: 'O, of the golden / Sevenfold light / The myriad ardent, mixed, and glorious colors ,..'13 Written by Algarotti himself, the poem praises the scientific acumen of Laura Bassi, a professor of philosophy and physics at the University of Bologna with a particular expertise in Newtonian optics. An early admirer of this Bolognese neutoniana, Algarotti had in fact been present when Bassi became in 1732 the first woman awarded a degree by the University of Bologna.14 The fictional lady who seeks 'to become Newtonian,' but knows nothing of optics and possesses 'not even the slightest trace' of understanding of the physical world, is foil for the real woman scientist internationally known for her mastery of Newtonian physics. The scientific innocent of Algarotti's dialogues facilitates the edification in the 'new science' of an uninitiated public, male as well as female, despite what Algarotti's title might suggest. Prosaic analogies culled from the Marquise's domestic universe - her home, her garden, her books of poetry, indeed her very hands and complexion - decipher essential premises of prevailing scientific and philosophical systems. As the symbolic mean of intellectual facility, the fictitious gentlewoman lowers science to the reach of the literate multitude. By contrast, Laura Bassi represents the apex of an elite, specialized scientific knowledge. Bassi symbolized, indeed embodied, the insurgent

Palliated Resistance

75

reach of the 'new science' beyond vested learning and traditional paradigms. As Paula Findlen has shown, her distinction as woman physicist was, in fact, exploited by the Bolognese academic establishment in order to raise its own stature in the modern, scientific world.15 Dilettante women scientists, exemplified (at best) by the Marquise of E ... , and illustrious scientific women like Bassi provoked varying and intensified reactions to the question of women's education. The garden filosofessa and salon stienziata were commonly criticized by Enlighten ment and anti-Enlightenment thinkers alike for degrading science by domesticating it,16 as Robbio di San Raffaele's satire of the pseudo-intellectual Lady Urania makes clear: The natural sciences were her favourite study. These so engulfed her that her apartment both in her country villa and in the city quickly filled with machines, instruments, and tools for following the tracks of those most secret mysteries of Nature ... Decorated with the title 'Observatory,' the coop where her grandfather trained his rock pigeons would from now on serve the Lady during her stargazing for measuring astronomic fluxions and flow. In a corner of the yard sprouts forth the outline of a botanical garden. Five or six machines, although defective and covered in leaves of gilded bronze, await forty others to finally merit the name of Physics Cabinet ... Even the kitchen would have fallen victim to the invasion, if not for the rare presence of mind of the cook, who voiced his opposition by saying that this was a theoretical-practical school of flavours, and that he himself was a fine physicist. But he could not save the pantry. To his disdain a chemical laboratory was installed there where the Lady, not wishing to be merely a minor spectator, was not infrequently seen engaged in the duties of Cyclopessa ...I7

Both advocates and foes of women's formal education cited these filosofesse as proof of the shallow intellectual formation of contemporar women, and of the need to restore women's sights to their 'natural' domestic purview. Contariwise, Bassi and her illustrious sorority were deemed exceptions to the feminine standard. Confined to a parenthetical place in the modern story of science, these extraordinary women were marginalized by their very exceptionality and viewed as irrelevant to the question of women's education. Masculinist logic nullified their academic attainments with respect to the rest of womankind. Given their aversion to women's scientific amateurism on the one hand, and their exclusion of women's scientific learning on the other,

76 The Century of Women what, then, did the Italian illuministi have to say about the education of women? The Milanese philosophe Pietro Verri exemplifies the paradoxical view of women's intellectual formation commonly held by proponents of their formal instruction. Like many of his enlightened brethren, Verri defends the public utility of educating women, asserting that the lack of proper instruction has left contemporary women 'trifling and confused.'18 He prescribes a liberal academic curriculum for his daughter Teresa that includes music, drawing, select pedagogical works by Locke and Rousseau, comedies, tragedies, history, and morally suitable novels. He declares fervently that books make for the best companions in life, and insists that if Teresa wants to witness God she should study astronomy and take up the microscope. But at the same time, he warns his daughter against becoming 'truly learned and scholarly' ('veramente dotta e scienzata'), since the realistic cost of immoderate learning will be her failure to find a mate, and society's unrelenting scorn.19 In 1740, the cleric and illuminista Giovanni Bandiera published a lengthy, two-volume Treatise on the Education of Women.20 The author's radical assertions that women 'do not differ in nature from men with respect to their ability to understand the sciences,'21 and that their formal education is necessary for public happiness, nearly put his book on the Index. Yet despite his defence of women's equality and his insistent reiteration of Poulain de la Barre's revolutionary manifesto, 'the mind has no sex,'22 Bandiera still advocates limiting women's education 'solely to those Studies that directly benefit the family.'23 These include moral literature, enough Latin to read Scripture, and a practical knowledge of mathematics. Like many of his fellow illuministi, Bandiera followed a logic that Luciano Guerci has summarized as 'they can but they shouldn't' ('possono ma non devono'),24 and denied women preparation in such 'sublime' sciences as calculus and metaphysics. Similarly, in his Essay on the Necessity and the Facility of Educating Girls (Saggio sopra la necessitd e lafacilitd di ammaestrare lefanciulle, 1774), the Enlightenment author and pedagogical theorist Pierdomenico Soresi outlines a pragmatic curriculum aimed at producing more productive, virtuous, and content female citizens for the sake of the general 'public happiness' ('pubblica felicita'). A basic preparation in reading, writing, mathematics, and natural philosophy would, he argues, rehabilitate women who have been injured morally and intellectually by men's rampant neglect and by the matrilineal chain of instruction, which entrusts girls' education to women who have no education themselves: 'Your childhood is given over to an ignorant nanny, and thus to a person your

Palliated Resistance 77 parents would not trust with their crockery. Your adolescence is arbitrarily placed in the charge of other women, who have little more distinction than having always been enclosed in a place which they entered deprived of knowledge, experience, and good judgment, just as the innocent pupils consigned to them have been - God knows with what aim! And as soon as you learn to read and to recite Latin that you don't comprehend, to knit some lace, and to do an embroidery, you consider yourselves satisfactorily educated.'25 But Soresi, too, recommends restricting women to those disciplines appropriate to domestic life, and adds that 'a woman who abandons the duties of her station in order to cultivate the sciences should be condemned, though she attains the most glorious success.'26 In book 4 of his internationally acclaimed work The Science of Legislation (1785), embraced by Benjamin Franklin and designated 'the culmination of the Enlightenment in Italy' by one twentieth-century historian,2 the Neapolitan author Gaetano Filangieri proposes the first ever in Italy compulsory system of public education. Aiming to cultivate superior citizens for the enlightened state, Filangieri advocates 'universal' public education for all social classes, aristocratic and plebeian alike, since 'If one class of citizens were excluded from public education, my plan would be imperfect and vicious; it would not destroy the leaven of corruption; it would lose the major part of the advantages which I have attributed to public education; it would leave certain individuals in society without the assistance which law would offer to others pursuing their vocational goals; it would render legislation biased and iniquitous because the equality of penalties and rewards would be manifestly unjust.'28 But what does this revolutionary thinker, this extreme egalitarian, have to say about the place of women in his 'universal' system of education? In the 'Appendix to the Proposed Plan of Public Education,' Filangieri is explicit and succinct: 'women have no place in this plan of public education.'29 He opposes any but a 'domestic education for women,' maintaining that academic instruction makes women 'bad mothers.'30 He concludes that 'through the education of men, the law will indirectly instruct women, as well.'31 *Which Studies Are Fitting for Women' Diamante Medaglia Fiani thus enters a debate in which even the most progressive Enlightenment thinkers fail to conceive the intellectual emancipation of women. As a group they articulate conventional biases

78 The Century of Women

against the 'unnatural' femme savante, they unanimously distrust the effects of philosophy and science on the female mind; and they equate female enlightenment with cloistered domesticity. Proponents of the education of women tend to support a curriculum that promotes literacy, Christian morality, and only an elementary acquaintance with the arts and natural sciences, disciplines, intended above all to enhance women's obedience, reticence, and competency in the domestic sphere.32 Medaglia Faini's defence of an academic curriculum for women explicitly based on science and philosophy thus sharply distinguishes her from her male counterparts in the debate. Not only does Medaglia Faini make science and philosophy the cornerstones of her ideal curriculum for women; she also defies conventional wisdom by negating the value of poetry for women's intellectual preparation. She vigorously repudiates allowing women to read and especially to write poetry, averring that 'writing poetry can never serve as an ornament for women, indeed it will lessen women's regard among those who have the intellectual competency for judging the merits of authors, either because women's compositions are tedious, or because they lack the necessary erudition.'33 And she insists that women take up the pen only reluctantly and after they have fully mastered the 'weightier disciplines.' The poet cannot attain the sublime, she maintains, without being deeply rooted in the science and metaphysics of the substantive world. Medaglia Faini's distinctive views of women's education cannot be fully understood without reference to critical details of her private and public life. As will be seen, her pedagogical theories were the direct result of her own intellectual formation. Medaglia Faini was born in the small town of Savallo in Brescia, on 28 August 1724. Her education was entrusted by her father, a busy doctor, to her uncle Antonio Medaglia, the pastor of the Church of Savallo. Under her uncle's guidance, Medaglia Faini studied religious history, and Latin and Italian literature; she began to write poetry on her own in imitation of her favourite Tuscan poets. She soon won renown throughout the region for her stirring sonnets and canzoni. The following love sonnet suggests the passion and sentimentality of her youthful poetic voice. You depart, my divine Sun, you depart, and I Alas, remain here abandoned and alone, Deprived of my heart, because it flees with you And to remain with you it eternally desires.

Palliated Resistance 79 Ah! This pitiless and cruel blow Every happiness, every pleasure steals from me, And the spirit lacks in me and the word, My adored goodness, to tell you farewell. Tied I remain, and released you go From the amorous tether, whence your serene Face you show at the parting, and you do not languish; But since you have no pity for my pain, And your victory you attain, gaze at least, Barbarian, upon my death, then fly.34

Eminent literati esteemed Medaglia Faini's literary gifts and many enjoyed her friendship, as well. She engaged in an extended correspondence in prose and verse with the prominent historian and literary scholar Lucio Doglioni. The theatrical poet, librettist, and playwright Mattia Butturini, who immortalized her in Latin and Italian verse, became the typographical editor of her oeuvre. Medaglia Faini also exchanged letters with the poet Durante Duranti; her friendship and poetic skill were celebrated in verse by the improvisational poet Father Pier Francesco Lucca, as well as in a highly personal eulogy by Brescian literary historian Antonio Brognoli. She was elected to several academies because of her erudition: the Agiati of Rovereto in 1751 under the name of Dalinda, the Arditi of Brescia, the Orditi of Padua, the Arcadia in 1757 under the name Nisea Corcirense, and the Unanimi of Salo. Medaglia Faini's father came to oppose his daughter's poetic vocation and her growing publicity. The biography written by her contemporary Giuseppe Pontara to introduce her oeuvre indicates that Signer Medaglia arranged for Diamante's marriage at the age of twenty-four to a fellow physician, Pietro Faini, specifically to restrain her literary voice.35 Despite her father's efforts, in a poem addressed to an admirer who worried that she might now renounce her art, Medaglia Faini declared: 'Let not fear or suspicion breed within you, Sir, / That I might suddenly abandon the muses.' Once married, she did continue to compose poetry, but no longer professed her intimate feelings. In compliance with the social dictates governing the comportment of married women, she restricted her writing to occasional poems honouring the achievements of others. According to her contemporary biographer, Antonio Brognoli, 'It seems that if domestic duties and those responsibilities Cjc

80 The Century of Women owed the family did not distract her from her poetic reflections (both of which didn't perhaps show themselves to be great friends of the muses), at the very least they interrupted the free flow of poetry.'37 In a sonnet uniquely unlyrical for her, Medaglia Faini bluntly declares her resentment at having to reduce her poetry to a myriad of uninspired verses commemorating events of no personal relevance. In the first lines she declares: I, who until now, at others' behest, have written Sonnets, stanzas, and madrigals For doctors, the betrothed, lawyers, For those who take the veil and holy vestments, No more will rack my brain Without gain, and for such things waste my time.38 By the content and the inelegant form of her sonnet, Medaglia Faini implies that the world has effectively undone her poetic voice; indeed, Brognoli notes that she remained true to the vow she made in the sonnet and never wrote another poem. The poetry section of her opus concludes with this renunciation of the art. After abandoning her literary career, Medaglia Faini channelled her passion for poetry into a new intellectual ambition to learn the sciences and philosophy. She studied philosophy and history with a noted regional scholar, the Reverend Domenico Bonetti of Volciano, and, at nearly forty, began to study mathematics, astronomy, and physics under the direction of the Brescian mathematician Giovann Battista Suardi, author of two reputable mathematical studies: New Instruments for the Description of Diverse Ancient and Modern Curves ... (Brescia, 1752), and Mathematical Diversions (Brescia, 1764).39 In fact, she says in a letter that she lived for three months in Suardi's home in order to devote herself more fully to the study of mathematics.40 In consequence, her oration prescribes an academic program for women that directly contradicts her own intellectual trajectory. This implicit renunciation of her early education greatly perplexed her friends and biographers. Brognoli, in fact, several times suggests that her proposed curriculum was the result less of disillusionment with what she was allowed to write than of modesty, 'because, given her distinction as a poet, someone might perhaps suspect that by praising the poetry of women, in this way she would be praising herself.'41 By Medaglia Faini's own poetic testimony, however, the force of social convention dictated

Palliated Resistance

81

that she disappear from her lyrics, and that she write 'at others' behest' in the service of alien desires. While her dreams, her desires, and her subjectivity languished unexpressed, she was forced instead to narrate the life events of sundry remote protagonists - priests, nuns, political and cultural personalities, scholars, brides, elegant ladies, and honourable gentlemen. Her criticism of poetry in her ideal pedagogical program for women must be attributed, at least in part, to this prohibition on using verse to speak her self and to affirm her intimate world-view artistically. Her proposal that women pursue hard facts and master the 'weightier disciplines' like math and physics that methodically and transparently disclose the universal codes underpinning reality manifest her conviction that these codes would give women greater intellectual sustenance than poetry would, and, paradoxically, greater discursive pleasure and authority as well. But her virtual banishment of poetry from her curriculum was also undoubtedly informed by the widespread contemporary bias against poetry, and especially against the highly stylized, sentimental, neoclassical poetry institutionalized by the Arcadia Academy.42 Giuseppe Baretti's devastating parody of the precious and effete style of the leading Arcadian poet Giambattista Felice Zappi became a byword against this poetic movement: 'Oh how dear are his dainty, itsy, bitsy baby sonnets, gossamerly girly, bursting with little cherubs.'43 The Arcadian poetic program cast poetic composition as a 'noble otium,>44and called for the liberal induction of aspiring poets, including those with scant literary preparation, all of whom were to imitate strictly the conventions of the 'classics.' In practice, this often meant an indiscriminate emulation of variously gifted sixteenth-century Petrarchisti. In his judgment on the cultural import of the Arcadia, the twentieth-century literary critic Giuseppe Petronio articulates a key objection raised by Arcadia's opponents at the time: that 'it was nothing other than a mirror of the frivolous, sentimental and moral life that remained contained within drawing-rooms and salons, within palaces and gardens, without there ever palpitating a living reflection.'45 Criticizing the Arcadia was not, however, merely a matter of condemning its poetic style. The community of Arcadian poets included numerous women, another damning feature in the eyes of its critics: indeed, Medaglia Faini herself took her place among these lyrical shepherds and shepherdesses in 1757. As a result, contemporary poetry came to connote a trivial pastime practised by leisured ladies, as in Robbio di San Raffaele's satire The Disgraces of Lady Urania: 'Impatient to appear among the great poets ... she sullies

82 The Century of Women

much paper with the most abundant and the most trivial rhymes, and is able in a few months to add many dozens of mediocre sonnets to the hundreds and thousands that we already have.'46 Medaglia Faini's rejection of women's training in what was commonly perceived to be a deficient, and an essentially feminine, intellectual endeavour may thus be interpreted as both a rejection of her background and a pragmatic attempt to elevate women's stature in the intellectual community. How, then, does Medaglia Faini defend her unorthodox pedagogical program? She begins by recalling the best-known colloquium on women's education, held by the Academy of the Ricovrati forty years before, and quoting Antonio Vallisneri, Prince of the Ricovrati, at the conclusion of the debate: Let there be admitted to the study of the sciences and the liberal arts those women who are passionate about the same, whose hidden noble genius leads them to virtue, and in whom burns and sparkles a spirit above the norm, and an intellect superior to that of the masses. And let there be divided without the arrogance of tyranny the range of womanly duties. Divide the tasks such that the superior intellect is left free. Let some women attend to household tasks and to their honest and necessary works. Let others follow the muses most chaste where inclination transports them and, by means most necessary, let them be animated, guided, and filled with delight, so that unyielding to indolence, ignorance, and envy, they might enhance the sciences.47

Citing Vallisneri situates Medaglia Faini's discourse within a recognized academic tradition and bolsters the authority of her argument. Her endorsement of Vallisneri's distinction between exceptional women of 'noble genius' and the common run of women affiliates her ideologically with conservatives in the contemporary discourse at the same time that it justifies her own position within the academy. But the affiliation is ambivalent, since, after enthusiastically seconding Vallisneri's verdict that only affluent women of intellect be allowed an education, she immediately contradicts herself and asserts that all women 'who can obtain some utility or necessary advantage from these studies'48 should receive formal instruction. Most striking in Medaglia Faini's protracted reference to the Ricovrati debate is, however, what she leaves out. She makes no mention of the defence of women's education by the Sienese noblewoman Aretafila Savini De' Rossi, which appeared in the published proceedings of the

Palliated Resistance

83

debate, and widi which Medaglia Faini was obviously familiar. Why, we must ask, this glaring lacuna?49 Why does she condone Vallisneri's judgment by reiterating it and thus align herself with the Prince of the Academy, an official mouthpiece for and conservator of male privilege intellectual, social, and political? By her silence, why does she obliterate Savini De' Rossi's potent words, and forego a natural alliance with an authoritative female defender of women? The answer to all of these crucial questions is to be found in Medaglia Faini's 'divised resolution,' in her equivocal subversion of the dominant discourse. First, it is to be noted, Medaglia Faini addresses herself solely to men, and attempts to win over her male public by effacing herself and giving voice to her public's assumptions about women's essential inferiority. Rather than expose and censure unfounded prejudices against women, Medaglia Faini validates them. She consistently represents women as intellectually impaired, immodest, and corrupt. She exhorts her auditors to classify women, herself included, as intellectually inferior to themselves: 'As you well know, O Sirs, we women are, more than men, strangely subject to ... false judgments, I know not if because of the condition of our sex or because of some other reason.'50 She derides women and indulges in irony at their expense, as when she asks whether 'women (render justice unto what I say, most honoured Academicians) [have] perhaps never erred in their deductions? And from premises based on pure fantasy have they never derived results that they firmly believed to be more reliable than any calculated by Archimedes himself?'51 She assumes the smug tone and superior posture characteristic of the male academician in his evaluation of the weaker sex, hoping to transcend her sex by commiserating with her male listeners over women's inadequacies. But if she casts herself as her listeners' ally, Medaglia Faini also represents herself as an alien among them; in her braids and skirt she is a vivid example of the feminine Other. She shifts continually throughout her address from the acquiescent first-person singular female voice, to the impartial academic lecturer, finally to the self-inclusive first-person plural adversary of women. This problematic performance of collusion and alienation, of arrogance and self-deprecation, these calculated shifts in self-positioning from speaking subject to the object of her own discourse, are the linchpin of her rhetorical method. Medaglia Faini further accommodates the critical biases of her male public by relying solely on the authority of canonical male authors, past and present. Not only does she fail to cite Aretafila Savini De' Rossi's contemporary defence, she suppresses all of her female precursors,

84 The Century of Women including such potent voices as Arcangela Tarabotti and Moderata Fonte. Instead, she cites Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, and Cicero, and defends her curriculum's emphasis on science instead of literature with arguments taken from Guido Cesare Becelli's Trattato della divisione degli ingegni (Treatise on the Division of the Intellectual Faculties)52 and Ludovico Antonio Muratori's Della perfetta poesia italiana spiegata e dimostrata con vane osservazioni (On Perfect Italian Poetry, Explained and Demonstrated with Various Observations) ,53 She justifies her inclusion of classical philosophy in a curriculum for women by recalling the apologies for the study of pagan philosophers written by such eminent Church fathers as Jean Mabillon and St Basil the Great.54 Throughout, she evokes only those masculine voices that her male public is ready to hear. Medaglia Faini argues that her curriculum privileges disciplines that will enhance women's understanding of the world, their judgment and conduct, and their ability to manage their homes. Classical and moral philosophy are included in order to clear women's minds of prejudice, lead them to an understanding of universal truths, incite their virtuous behaviour, increase their respect for religion, and enable them better to govern their households. For their spiritual development, she would have them taught religious history. But, she avows, a scientific investigation of the physical world is required to teach women to recognize the universal laws of nature through which God's power reveals itself. It is the object of physics, she declares, 'to contemplate assiduously, one by one, each of the substances, and to investigate the nature of the principles by which these are composed. It directs us to note with what order and symmetry everything is arranged and each particular is set and maintained in the universe. In this way, science permits us to comprehend the intelligence and the invisible hands that support all things.'55 This description incorporates key terms from both the domestic and the Christian doctrines. The end of physics is said to be the recognition of order, balance, and arrangement as the visible manifestation of the transcendent principles governing the universe. Geometry is that 'truly divine study' that will most perfectly prepare women to perform their assigned duties. 'To mathematics, to mathematics direct women's thoughts,' she adjures, 'and no more will you see them subject to gross parologisms or to other errors to which even learned men are subject who lack mathematical training.'56 The vocative is directed at her male auditors, of course, and emphasizes not only their control over women's intellectual formation but also what they stand to gain from an educated female populace that will be inspired by learning to supplant the

Palliated Resistance

85

smudged looking-glass of their toilette with the pristine mirror ('terso specchio') of moral truth, and to exchange their fancy apparel and ornate accessories for simpler and more modest dress. Four times Medaglia Faini inveighs against women's current 'torpid indolence' ('molle ozio') and promises that, once educated, women will diligently meet their domestic responsibilities instead. The women who emerge from her academic program will be devoted mothers, obedient wives, and sage citizens reminiscent of Greek and Roman heroines: through their domestic service they will promote the public good as defined by male authority and desire. Threaded throughout this obsequious appeal for male approval, however, are powerful arguments for women's intellectual emancipation. In the midst of her catalogue of canonical male authors, Medaglia Faini interjects a forceful defence of women's right to express cogently their thoughts and desires: 'Now tell me - and heaven help you, Gentlemen shouldn't a woman be able to communicate her own ideas? Is she not endowed with a mind and a capacity for reason as is man? Is she utterly excluded from human discourse? Certainly not!'5 She goes on to insist that uneducated women are silenced by their ignorance and trapped in a perpetual state of infancy, although they 'do not let the tongues lie mute with which nature [has] armed them.'58 Uneducated women, she declares, are distinguished 'with great difficulty from children,' because they believe 'that by shrieking they can express what they think, feel, and desire inside.'59 Significantly, this is the only argument for the education of women that Medaglia Faini does not cull from the dominant discourse about woman or validate by invoking the authority of canonical texts. With the authority of her own voice, she defends women's right to self-expression. Furthermore, despite her claim that an education in science and philosophy would inspire women to lead peaceful, domestic lives wholly compliant with the will of their male overlords, her curriculum shrewdly undermines the conventional limits on women's cultural and intellectual development. Her science-based educational program would enable women to discover independently the truths around them. As she describes the unadorned results of women's intellectual inquiry, Medaglia Faini's academic prose becomes poetic. She declares that science 'penetrates the recesses of the earth and scrutinizes the marvellous processes that take place therein. It ascends to the heavens and seeks to know the movements of the stars and to observe the order and the regularity that reign there. It contemplates the waters and the creatures that wriggle

86 The Century of Women in them. And it explains marvellously the prodigious phenomena that occur there ... Natural philosophy ultimately allows us to comprehend how many objects below, above, and in every direction encompass man.'60 To the learned woman, the material universe is a boundless arena for intellectual discovery. Every seemingly insignificant aspect of the natural world represents a concrete manifestation of cosmic order, universal truth, and the divine. Although she does not cite him explicitly, this veneration of the natural sciences manifestly evokes Galileo, the primal authority of the 'new science and philosophy.' Her praise of natural philosophy's dynamic, sensuous embrace of the living world, of its measureless scope and efficacy in deciphering the laws (natural and divine) that order reality, echoes her forebear when he asserts that 'he who gazes highest is of highest quality; and the turning to the great volume of Nature, which is the proper object of philosophy, is the way to make one look high; in which book, although whatsoever we read, as being the work of Almighty God, is most proportionate: yet notwithstanding, that is more absolute and noble wherein most greatly is revealed his art and skill.'61 But she appropriates and redirects the Galilean world-view for new, proto-feminist ends. She places the 'great volume of Nature,' opened by Galileo's 'new scientific' exegesis, in the desiring hands of women. The renewed scientific inquiry advocated by Medaglia Faini explodes the walls of the domestic sphere. Scientific knowledge enables women to extend their sights from the highest heavens to the depths of the sea. It allows them to experience concurrently awe and authority before the immeasurable complexities of the universe. Medaglia Faini extends Galileo's subversion of the authority of traditional academic learning to include the authority of men over women. In her ideal schema, natural philosophy becomes a means to and a manifestation of women's intellectual autonomy. Medaglia Faini's praise of science grounds women's critical understanding and expression of the sublime in their recognition of its presence in the natural world. It is not surprising, therefore, that her lyrical celebration of the limitless prospects of scientific inquiry exemplifies an ideal consolidation of science and poetry, of reason and passion. Galileo referred to the Dialogue on the Great World Systems, his defence of the Copernican System and the new scientific method, as a poem.62 Medaglia Faini's defence of women's education, notwithstanding her renunciation of poetry, may also be deemed a poem in like vein, an argument eloquent and rational that induces its wary audience through transparent and surreptitious discursive means to reconceive their world.

chapter/our

For the Public Good: // Gaffe's 'Defence of Women'

/ make a covenant with you entirely at your expense, and for my benefit. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract

As the textual events discussed in previous chapters make clear, ambivalence and disjuncture mark the reformative discourse about women of the Italian Enlightenment. This ambiguity has its own potent and unique expression in the socio-political writings of the illuministi. Built upon a discordant integration of enlightened utilitarianism and conventional, androcentric notions of the polity, the Italian philosophes1 answer to the 'woman question' simultaneously contested and confirmed traditional constructions of femininity. By substituting the impartial touchstone of social utility for the unscientific moral precepts and social customs traditionally used to gauge women's virtue, the illuministi sought to establish a new egalitarian rationale for evaluating and enhancing women's impact on the public good. However, the ardent quest to promote women's utility within the modern state did not issue solely from newfound interest in the common good or in women's own well-being. Bound up with key contemporary concerns about the components and parameters of modern social life, the polemic about women offered the illuministi rich and sweeping terrain on which to establish their authority and their political agenda for the foundation of an enlightened state. By defining the ideal female citizen and by assigning her place and purpose within the social sphere, Italian Enlightenment thinkers conversely defined themselves and their intellectual and political domain. Indeed, woman served as an antithetical point of departure for a discourse by, to, and fundamentally about the ideal male citizen, as well as a means, symbolic and practical, for building a nation that suited his needs.

88 The Century of Women II Gaffe (1764—6), the most eminent and influential periodical of the Italian Enlightenment, epitomizes the Italian illuministi's fundamental ambivalence about the essential nature and social functions of women. In the twenty-second issue of the journal, Carlo Sebastiano Franci's anonymously published 'Defence of Women' seeks to delineate women's actual condition and social roles and to prescribe a pedagogical program to enhance their contribution to the public good. Representative of the progressive bloc in the debate waged across the peninsula about the essence and the end of womankind, the article advocates the reform of women from a social, intellectual, and moral point of view within and in the rational terms of the enlightened discursive space. By reformulating the 'woman question' according to the new standard of enlightened utilitarianism, the 'Defence' asks not what woman is, but what her use is to the social collectivity. 7? Caffe's equivocal, palimpsestic response to this question verifies the impossibility of absolute breaches between successive ideological movements and their modes of discourse. An amalgam of reformative and entrenched notions about women, the 'Defence' at once speaks through and against Enlightenment ethics. // Caffe defines and constitutes the rhetoric and the ideals of Illuminismo like no other periodical of the age. The thirteen young patricians who collaborated in the journal's creation were, as Franco Venturi has described them, 'a political class in nuce.jl Inspired by the foundational theories of Montesquieu, Condillac, Helvetius, Diderot, Locke, Hume, and Rousseau, the caffettisti joined in a self-conscious endeavour to promote among the current generation Enlightenment ideals that would give rise to a more rational and cosmopolitan Italian society. They conceived of their journal as a model of modern discourse, a primer for transparent, egalitarian, and practical exchange. After the dissolution of the journal, most of // Gaffes contributors attained substantive political authority in government positions that allowed them to implement the ideas proposed in the journal. II Caffe is therefore a key repository of the leitmotifs and the ideological and discursive designs of a preeminent society of illuministi. Given II Caffes cultural and historical significance, Franci's article defending women must not be viewed simply as the opinion of a single author. The formal structure of II Caffe in fact suggests that the contributors meant for it to be read as a unified expression of the ideals of the Rluminismo. The names of the authors never appeared. Instead, one or two identifying initials usually followed an article (for example, C. for Cesare Beccaria, F. for Sebastiano Franci, X.P. for Paolo Frisi), but read-

For the Public Good 89

ers did not have a decoding key.2 The lack of definitive attribution appears to have served the performative designs of the journal. Each article functions as a single voice within a choral exchange transpiring among this distinct assembly of illuministi. Significantly, the 'Defence of Women' was one of only four articles published without any attribution. While there may be more than one explanation for the article's anonymity (most obvious would be its controversial subject matter), Gianni Francioni, a foremost authority on II Caffe, offers the convincing argument that anonymous articles served as editorials, implicating all of the journal's contributors. It thus seems clear that this one article, which provides a paradigmatic representation of women and construction of femininity by the consolidated political class of Milanese illuministi, represents a summa of Italian Enlightenment discourse about women. Historical Context and Political Designs of II

Caffe

Explicitly modelled after the Spectator and the Encyclopedic, II Caffe was conceived as an open, non-academic forum for candid discussion of current issues of regional and international import. This journal manifests the dominant aims of Italian periodical literature of the second half of the eighteenth century: to fix Italy's place in the international intellectual arena and to stimulate and direct public discourse for the promotion of practical social reforms.5 The conversations of the young caffettisti are situated in the fictional cafe of the Greek national and lay political philosopher Demetrio, who provides his enlightened clientele with an ideal discursive space, a cosmopolitan enciclopedia d'occasione, complete with current issues of progressive Italian periodicals: 'in this shop, whoever wishes to read will find both the Giornale encidopedico and the Estratto delta letteratura europea, as well as other equally good collections of interesting narratives, which, with few exceptions, make men into Europeans who were previously Roman, Florentine, Genoese, and Lombard.'6 The literary frame and the journal's motto, 'things not words' ('cose non parole'), signified the rejection of the elitist, socially detached academy, which fostered abstract theories impervious to praxis. Indeed, prior to the publication of// Caffe most of the journal's contributors had collaborated as members of the Accademia de'Pugni (Academy of the Fists), which may best be described as an anti-academy organized by Pietro Verri in 1761. The Fists' defiant name reflects the group's intention to challenge and subvert the esoteric conventions of the traditional academy. The Pugni refused official sanction, and instead gathered infor-

90 The Century of Women

mally in Verri's home to discuss with candour and reason current questions of mutual concern. // Caffe is both a product and a literary rendition of the enlightened exchange established among the Pugni. As Franco Venturi has described in his study of the origins and impact of the periodical in mid-eighteenth-century Milan, II Caffe signified a climactic moment in a 'generational struggle.'7 With this publication, the caffettisti, most of whom were in their twenties and thirties, formally declared their independence not only from their patrician fathers' authoritarian politics of entitlement but also from the rigid discursive controls and cultural canon laid down by academic elites. In his prefatory letter to the reader, Pietro Verri defies the conventional parameters of intellectual exchange. He declares the caffettistfs commitment to a simple style, unambiguous terms, and varied topics of practical import in order that the journal appeal to the broadest assortment of readers, from the 'grave magistrate' to the 'spirited maiden,' and from 'rigorous, accomplished intellects' to 'tender, young minds.'8 However, while little is known about the actual demographics of the journal's subscribers, they were undoubtedly less eclectic than the ideal readership Verri describes. Given the content of the periodical and the levels of literacy in Italy at the time of its publication, it may be assumed that // Gaffe's readers were well educated, from the upper classes, and predominantly male. Jurgen Habermas's pathbreaking theory of the rise of the bourgeois public sphere and subsequent critiques of this theory provide a useful discursive frame for vetting the objectives of the Ecole de Milan.9 The Utopian, 'coffeehouse' society founded on human equality and the open, rational exchange promoted in II Caffe exemplify the ideal civil community and 'social intercourse' that Habermas considers characteristic of the eighteenth century. However, the caffettisti do not, in fact, practise a politics of universal equality and inclusion. Representative of what Habermas labels the 'public sphere in the world of letters,' II Caffe serves as a forum for an elite, private-interest group whose principal objects are to act as 'mouthpiece' and 'educator' of the general public, and to stipulate the common good for the ruling government.10 Viewing themselves not as the peers but as the guides of the public, the caffettisti thus omit from their notions of the public good the desires of other social and economic classes. Habermas explicitly recognizes the exclusionary practices of the eighteenth-century public sphere, in particular against women and the lower classes.11 However, like the authorities of the eighteenth-century public sphere he describes, Habermas's Utopian theoretical discourse fails to give fair consideration to the reality and desires of these other

For the Public Good 91 interest groups. As demonstrated in feminist critiques of Habermas's theory by Nancy Fraser and Joan Landes, the eighteenth-century public sphere was constructed on the suppression of women's subjectivity.12 // Gaffes 'Defence of Women' exposes this contest between the rhetoric of inclusion and the practice of exclusion at the core of Enlightenment discourse. The historical circumstances of the periodical also present a significant challenge to Habermas's characterization of the eighteenth-century public sphere as distinct from and essentially adversarial to the state.13 II Caffewas born not only of the combined efforts of the young reformists, but also of a highly favourable political and ideological climate. During Maria Theresa of Austria's reign (1742-71), Milan entered a period of significant economic, political, and social reform that began to culminate near the time of E Gaffes publication. For centuries, political and economic power in the state of Milan had been in the exclusive control of an urban patriciate. As Dino Carpanetto and Giuseppe Ricuperati have detailed in their analyses of Settecento Milan, some sixty wealthy Milanese families had, since the sixteenth century, ruled the political and economic life of the region, most obviously through their command of the supreme administrative bodies of the decurionato and the Milanese senate, and had thereby preserved their political and economic entitlement.14 The privileges of the Milanese patriciate went unchecked during the century and a half of Spanish dominion in the region and during the early reign of the Austrian Hapsburgs that began in 1707. It was not until 1746, when Maria Theresa appointed Count Gian Luca Pallavicini of Genoa, first as Minister of Finance and then as Governor of Milan, to oversee the reform of the political and financial administration of that city, that a true challenge was made to the hegemony of the patriciate. This challenge intensified steadily over the next twenty years with the formation of a rational and independent state bureaucracy. Among the reforms enacted under Maria Theresa's rule were a ban on the sale of political office; the merger of the two main administrative bodies of government (the Magistrate straordinario and the Magistrate ordinario) in order to centralize state power; the revision of the tax system to create more equitable distribution and to increase state revenues; the establishment of the Giunta Economak to oversee all Church holdings; the foundation of financial incentives to promote industry and small business; the establishment of a standard, science-based curriculum for secondary schools and the University of Pavia; and the suppression of the Tribunal of the Inquisition.

92 The Century of Women

The longest-lasting and most significant economic and social reform was, however, the completion of the census or land register (catasto), which had been initiated in 1718 only to languish in the face of the vigorous resistance from the Milanese aristocrats. The catasto, which was executed by the capable Florentine jurist Pompeo Neri, based taxation on an impartial assessment of land-holdings rather than on the owner's own estimation of his estate, and served as a check on the power of the patriciate by abolishing their unjust tax exemptions.15 Then in the early 1760s, a new campaign for reform began under the leadership of the imperial official Count Carlo di Firmian of Trent in 1759. He led an assault on ecclesiastical power and privileges, including Church tax immunities, land-holdings, the administration of educational institutions, and control of book censorship.16 Thus, while Maria Theresa did not break the hold of the Milanese patriciate and of the Church on the state political and economic apparatus, she did loosen it considerably through the institution of the 'bureaucratic state' by outside administrators like Pallavicini, Neri, and Firmian. Seeking direct involvement in the reorganization and reform of the Milanese state, the contributors to II Caffe fashioned their proposals for an enlightened polity with the Duchy of Milan and its Austrian sovereign in mind.17 As Giuseppe Ricuperati has noted, Pietro Verri, the leader of the caffettisti, viewed political engagement as requisite for the enlightened intellectual, 'who would use the machinery of power to carry out economic, institutional, cultural and moral reforms.'18 Indeed, as Giorgio Rovereto observed, the political involvement of the caffettisti did not succeed the publication of II Caffe, but was simultaneous with it.19 Verri's ideal was thus realized quite literally by the young Milanese illuministi. In her reorganization of the government and public institutions of the state of Milan, Maria Theresa granted official bureaucratic appointments to nearly all of // Gaffe's contributors: Pietro Verri was appointed to the Magistrate camerak for economic reform; Cesare Beccaria became chair of political economy to the Palatine Schools; Gian Rinaldo Carli became president of the Supremo Consiglio di economia; Paolo Frisi was appointed professor of physics and mathematics to the Palatine Schools; Alfonso Longo held the first chair of public ecclesiastical law; Gian Battista Biffi became a state-appointed censor; Luigi Lambertenghi helped to reform the University of Pavia and in 1770 became the Secretary of Italian Affairs in Vienna; Pietro Francesco Secchi-Comneno held administrative appointments during Maria Theresa's reign and became Royal Minister of Finance in 1771.20

For the Public Good 93

The recently discovered autograph of the 'Defence of Women,' attributed only in 1993 to the little-known Milanese economist Carlo Sebastiano Franci,21 plainly reveals that this article, more explicitly than any other in the journal, aimed to curry favour with Maria Theresa. Aside from the subject matter itself, which presumably would have been of special interest to the monarch, the manuscript concludes with an effusive panegyric of her, which constitutes nearly 25 per cent of the total length of the article.22 Although the editor, Pietro Verri, cut the tribute by nearly 60 per cent, undoubtedly to render it less obsequious, it remains extravagant. Finally, the relationship among Franci's original text, Verri's corrections, and the published version of the 'Defence' merits comment. Verri's corrections consist chiefly of deleting or synthesizing large portions of the original article ostensibly for the sake of brevity and clarity. However, he also unmistakably sought to delete the more polemical or antiquated terms and ideas from a text which was inherently controversial. Most noteworthy is his deletion of sections of the article referring to or celebrating women's chastity. He substitutes the generic term 'virtu' ('virtue') for Franci's sexually and morally charged term 'castita' ('chastity'), significantly a term and theme dominant in the outmoded discourse of the querelle des femmes. While an extensive analysis of the editorial corrections to the original 'Defence' falls outside the purview of this study, it is important to note that the edited autograph illuminates the strategies by which the caffettisti sought to renegotiate the controversy about women. 'Dif esa delle donne' The 'Defence' has a seemingly uncomplicated design. The author articulates the problem: women's social inefficacy. He identifies the cause as men's neglect and incompetent management of women's formation and education, and he proposes a solution: the intellectual and moral reedification of women based on the Enlightenment tenet of social utility. However, despite the logic and transparency of the primary theses, there is an underlying conflict between the 'Defence's' progressive method of inquiry and the conventional feminine ideal that it seeks to promote. Franci opens his argument with a hyperbolic account of the magnitude and severity of the contemporary 'woman problem.' The author's vitriolic preamble to his defence is at once simulation and genuine critique. Momentarily donning the mask of the archetypal modern-day misogynist, he enumerates standard complaints against women. He denounces

94 The Century of Women

their social and moral lethargy as among the gravest crises affecting the entire European community: 'Throughout Europe, infinite complaints are levelled against women; despised is their idle, indolent lifestyle of utter uselessness to human society.'23 This prefatory invective delineates women's systematic subversion of the domestic sphere. Noblewomen neglect their household duties and desert their husbands and children for parties, the theatre, card games, and the company of polite society. They squander their time and the family's resources on frivolous material pleasures and the enhancement of their appearance. The author does not limit his rebuke to aristocratic women; he censures lower-class women who similarly disregard their domestic chores, and who are also rude and immodest. After two pages dense with disparagement of the contemporary community of women, the author distances himself, albeit feebly, from the dominant view of women he has so expressively articulated: 'This is the portrait that is being produced of the sex; and in truth it bears quite a resemblance to the original.'24 Reassessing women's faults in quantitative utilitarian terms, Franci condemns conduct that jeopardizes the well-being of the modern state: wastefulness, indolence, and the mismanagement of the domestic sphere. The enlightened author finally emerges from his misogynist guise when he shifts the blame to men for women's transgressions and for the consequent disorder threatening the domestic and, by association, the public sphere. Speaking in the first-person plural voice, Franci designates men the real malefactors, and he simultaneously identifies them as his intended audience: 'To ourselves alone should we object, because we alone direct them down that shadowy road, and we compel them to beat this muddy path.'25 In an enlightened society, the metaphorical wandering from the straight and narrow no longer signifies individual immorality, but rather material extravagance and social indifference. And its consequence is no longer the loss of the soul but the weakening of the collective welfare. Franci details the specific ways in which he and his male contemporaries have transgressed against the modern utilitarian ethics by rendering women socially ineffectual. Each reproof he directs at men corresponds to a particular offence attributed to women in the opening invective. Women forsake their domestic duties and their children either as retaliation for their husbands' brutality or in imitation of their husbands' disregard for domestic life. Women devote themselves to their appearance and their comfort rather than to their intellectual or spiritual self-enhancement because they have been taught by men to prize ephemeral, physical beauty above, and often to

For the Public Good 95

the exclusion of, other more lasting values. Finally, and most important, men fail to provide women a fit academic and moral education although they possess the same human potential as men: 'And as if they were of a different species from that of men ... women are prohibited from studying the arts and sciences under threat of appearing ridiculous; and they are never given a lesson in virtue and in strength.'26 In characterizing the 'woman problem' and its root cause, Franci employs a rhetorical strategy aimed at articulating the progressive political agenda of the illuministi even as it reaffirms male dominance. He merges reformative notions with wholly conventional ones about women, human development, and gender relations. Franci's attempt at a disinterested analysis of the state of the contemporary domestic sphere and women's complex position within it reveals the underlying power structure of gender relations. He argues that what appears to be contempt by contemporary women for their traditional duties is, in fact, an acquiescence in the dominant male view of the domestic sphere and of women themselves and acknowledges men's too-frequent abuse of their power over women, culminating in the intellectual subjugation of their daughters and wives. Yet these opening pages of the 'Defence' also make plain the illuministi s apprehension at contemporary women's transgression of established social boundaries and the destabilizing effect of this transgression on conventional gender relations. The object of Franci's censure is not only women's uselessness but also their growing publicness. Defined against the traditional feminine ideal, who wants only 'to gather up with pleasure her children and to glorify herself by being surrounded with the precious fruits of their innocent love,'2 Franci's modern women endanger domestic and, by extension, public tranquillity when 'they go with an incessant movement, scurrying through every quarter of the city' out of fear that they might not be seen 'at every ball, at every visit, at every assembly.'28 In the author's ideal enlightened society, public happiness hinges on women's return to their traditional domestic duties and men's reassertion of their authority in and outside of the home. Indeed, the author directs his argument explicitly at his male contemporaries, indicting them for women's current state of corruption, precisely because he considers them to be properly invested with the custody of women and charged with the formation of the female character. The illuministi^ consternation at women's rising publicity was grounded in reality. As was discussed in the introduction to this book, during the Settecento an unprecedented number of women penetrated

96 The Century of Women

academic arenas historically dominated by men. As elsewhere in Europe, upper-class Italian women presided over salons, those liminal spaces where public power, intellectual prestige, and domesticity converged. But Italy was unique in the number of women who attained official positions of authority in centres for intellectual exchange. Women were excluded from the most prestigious academic institutions in England and France, but in Italy female intellectuals were inducted into the most eminent literary and scientific academies; a modest number also received university degrees and held prestigious positions in universities and scientific institutes. The discrete, institutional gains made by exceptional women were not, however, the primary source of anxiety for the illuministi. Indeed, enlightened social engineers commonly cited the intellectual achievements of illustrious women as evidence of contemporary social progress. As the opening pages of // Gaffe's 'Defence' make plain, the illuministi chiefly feared changes taking place in the mundane reality of women. Women of all classes and in ever greater numbers were straying beyond the security of the domestic space into the morally ambiguous public realm, that of the theatre, the gaming hall, the masquerade, the piazza, and the elite and popular assembly. Even Franci's most liberal arguments for women's enfranchisement in an enlightened civil society show his 'Defence' to be acutely concerned with the containment of this modern public woman. An enlightened social and moral education is the principal means for bringing about women's redomestication. Franci initiates a discussion of this reformative pedagogical program at the heart of his essay when he asserts that 'vices are of the individual and not of a sex.'29 Contradicting the Aristotelian axiom that woman is inherently flawed, the author avers that the human character, male as well as female, is, at least in part, learned and not inborn: 'This individual is formed to be the delight of society, and if we would take pains to instruct him, and to present him with the most beautiful ideas, to direct his heart and to elevate him above the humble conditions in which he dwells, he would perfectly match our desires, and he would realize that noble objective, toward which he has been directed.'30 He assumes that the formation of the individual is an essentially paternalistic act, authoritarian both in the sense of 'authority' and of 'authorship,' which strictly circumscribes the possibilities for self-determination. Franci's thesis is highly reminiscent of Rousseau's theory of the 'general will' in The Social Contract, with which Franci and his fellow caffettistiwere

For the Public Good 97

well acquainted.31 For Rousseau, society depends for its very existence on the acquiescence of each person and his private desires to the general will for the common good. Rousseau's ideal nation-state embodies the higher moral authority of the collective will, transforming the individual from a naturally 'solitary whole' into a citizen, who is 'part of a much greater whole, from which he in some measure receives his being and his life.'32 For Franci, the individual indeed functions as a product and a perfect reflection of 'our desires' ('i nostri desideri'). We must ask, however, who is entitled to be included in Franci's social 'we.' Although the speaking subject appears to be the social collectivity, the author's use here of the first-person plural voice recalls the collective male voice that spoke at the opening of the essay ('we alone direct them down that shadowy road ...') and that continues to speak through to the end. Despite what he frames as a gender-neutral, egalitarian conceptualization of human development, a close analysis of Franci's use of the term 'individual' and the grammatical construction of his argument reveals that although sex does not predetermine a person's moral constitution, moral agency resides strictly with men. In light of the implicitly male-sexed subject 'noi,' the object, although specifically defined by the author as sexually undetermined and potentially masculine or feminine, becomes feminized when Franci asserts that 'we' (male) form and educate the individual (female) in compliance with 'our desires,' which tacitly subjugates women to the collective will of men. Franci speaks to a self-inclusive body of unified, coherent male subjects responsible for the formation of an ideal citizenry, whose self-interested desire is indistinguishable from the 'public' good. In his ideal, enlightened state, women may be called 'citizens' and 'individuals,' but they are not among the members of society who shape 'citizens' and 'individuals.' How, then, should women be educated in order that they effectively serve the common good, as Franci defines it? In his most explicit response to the question, Franci argues for the cultivation of 'sound judgment' ('aggiustatezza di mente') in women that will teach them to conjoin outer beauty with inner virtue. He defines this latter attribute enigmatically as 'that inexpressible quality of wisdom and ability that knows all that is advantageous and that recognizes the proper balance one must maintain in all things.'33 This cloudy 'virtue,' derived from a vaguely defined education, will, however, have a precise effect on the behaviour and psyche of women. Franci professes that '[sound judgment] enabled many queens to govern immense realms, and this same [quality] can dictate to the whole of that fairer half of humanity an

98 The Century of Women

innocent and regular lifestyle marked by goodness toward their domestics, love for their neighbours, peace and harmony in the family, and solicitude for their children.'34 Despite his allusions to female sovereigns who attained greatness because of their 'sound judgment' (Maria Theresa is implicit here), Franci ignores the public duties of the queen and focuses squarely on women's compliant fulfilment of their wifely duties: 'Sound judgment will persuade women that the management of the household and the domestic economy is within their ability.'35 Franci conjures images of female authority but then subjugates them to the mundane reality of the domestic sphere. He employs a rhetorical strategy of bait and switch: he offers women a sage and powerful queen for their emulation, only to leave them with a servile housewife. In a clear effort to placate opponents of the formal instruction of women, Franci proffers an ill-defined pedagogical program whose loftiest aim is to teach women to exercise common sense ('aggiustatezza di mente') in the fulfilment of their assigned domestic duties. Yet, at its core, his response to the question of women's education redefines women's essential social functions in terms appropriate to the discourse on the new economy. '[T]oil being a universal necessity, it is appropriate for [women] regardless of their social position; the love for this preserves virtue and brings honour to that sex currently on the throne.'36 Franci thus equates feminine virtue with industry, productivity, and utility, and thereby establishes an objective, quantitative standard by which women may be universally rehabilitated and judged. He underscores the egalitarianism of this standard, which collapses distinctions between the female sovereign and the plebeian: a woman's worth correlates with her industriousness, not with her wealth or her name. The primary aim of education is therefore to transform the indolent women of his day into modest and dedicated domestic labourers. In the very midst of this laud to female domestic industry, Franci proposes what at first appears an incongruous and radically unorthodox argument for the expansion of women's presence in the public arena. Yet, his proposal is consistent with his utilitarian view of human virtue. He calls on women of all classes to become part of the productive workforce not only as managers of the domestic economy but also as labourers and even supervisors within the commercial marketplace: It is not beyond the scope of the well-regulated mind of a female citizen to manage a workshop and to sit at an exchange table in order to direct the appropriate exchanges. There are many arts compatible with female deli-

For the Public Good 99 cacy and modesty that may be commonly practised by plebeian women without any risk to their beauty. This custom would be of special benefit to the state because lower-class women could amass a dowry on their own; when necessary, they could maintain their husbands and families; and they could encourage men to contract marriages. (Emphases added)37 In a clear effort to undo the historically negative associations between women and the public marketplace, Franci adapts his representation of working women to the traditional feminine paradigm and to the Enlightenment doctrine of utility. He emphasizes the moral as well as the monetary capital women will gain by their labour. Work, he maintains, safeguards and enhances the honour of all women, including the Empress Maria Theresa. And that industriousness, whether in the home or the commercial arena, directly contributes to the social and economic well-being of the state. Franci conveys his radical proposal for the expansion of women's presence in the public marketplace in language that merits careful consideration. His antidote for women's epidemic social inconsequence is 'travaglio,' a richly connotative term that signifies 'toil' and 'travail' and, in the case of women, customarily refers to the labour of childbirth. Choosing 'travaglio' over 'lavoro,' a generic term for all categories of work, reveals a fundamental moral principle of Illuminismo: social utility is not measured solely in useful acts, but also in the struggle, self-sacrifice, and moral commitment that underlie those acts. Often coupled with 'industria' ('industry') in articles in // Caffe proposing enlightened economic reforms, 'travaglio' is a defining term of the modern work ethic. Its use here suggests that women must not only become more productive but also consciously, assiduously, and selflessly labour for the collective welfare. Franci identifies two classes of women as suited to the sphere of commodity exchange: the 'citizen' in possession of a 'well-regulated mind,' and the 'plebeian.' Although he never elucidates the meaning of this equivocal taxonomy, 'citizen' and 'plebeian' denote a separation by social class and education, both in themselves and by their juxtaposition in his proposal. In the new, enlightened economy, the 'female citizen,' whom we must presume to be a bourgeoise with adequate formal instruction, would qualify for managerial positions in the commercial sectors, at exchange tables and in workshops.38 Plebeian women would instead be trained for appropriate jobs outside the home as a pragmatic solution to a glaring social and economic problem. Franci explains that the employment of poor women would practically and effi-

100 The Century of Women

ciently resolve the myriad difficulties that arise in the state, in lower-class families, and, above all, in the lives of those women themselves who lack resources for a dowry and who are thus unable to contract marriages. Once again, Franci reconstitutes and rephrases the 'woman question' in Enlightenment utilitarian terms. He subordinates traditional social norms to the greater public good, and promotes women's financial independence for the economic well-being of both the domestic and the public spheres. By identifying women as 'citizens' ('cittadine'), he privileges their relationship to the state above all others. Yet, Enlighten ment tenets alone do not explain the exceptional position he assigns women when he advocates that educated and plebeian women alike contribute to the general welfare as actors in the socially instrumental arena of commercial trade. Although he carefully stresses that their occupations would be 'compatible with women's delicacy and reserve,' his proposal seems to urge a striking modification of the existing social order, in the areas of both class and gender. Indeed, although scant information exists about women's work in Italy before the nineteenth century, studies of the female labour force in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries attest to women's strictly limited authority in the commercial marketplace. According to the historians Domenico Sella, Anna Maria Mambelli, and Olwen Hufton, as many as 75 per cent of those employed in the textile industry were women.39 While some women worked in textile factories, most often a male supervisor distributed work to women who spun and wove in their homes or in small workshops with one or two looms. In rural areas, women served primarily as field hands or worked in the flourishing cottage industries, while in urban centres they worked as cooks, maids, seamstresses, laundresses, and frequently as assistants to their husbands in the management of small retail shops. However, beyond overseeing two to three other women at their looms in a spinning workshop or managing a family-owned bottega, women appear to have had little authority. Indeed, Mambelli's survey of the working conditions of women in eighteenth-century Italy documents the miserable life of the typical female labourer, who worked extremely long hours in isolation in her home with no protection from guilds or corporations and who generally earned at best 50 per cent of the wages male labourers received for the same work.40 Given the actual state of women's employment, Franci's proposal to assign women supervisory roles in workshops and at exchange tables is remarkable. Several of his articles in H Caffs, together with his book on

For the Public Good 101 the history and ideals of monetary policy, La moneta, soggetto istorico, civile e politico (Currency: A History of Civil, and Political Subject), explain his views on the functions and the authority of the market economy and aid in elucidating his proposal. There, he defends the commercial marketplace as a mainstay of the modern state, and treats it as a distinct sphere of human exchange. Although it is regulated by the state, it is neither defined and organized according to the state's established social compact nor ruled by the traditions and moral codes governing the domestic sphere. For the enlightened economist, the commercial arena is instead ruled by the disinterested directives of the market: supply, demand, industry, and utility. In his article 'Some Political Thoughts,'41 Franci contends that poverty, not foreign domination, poses the gravest threat to the state. He advocates a pragmatic policy of economic as opposed to military expansion that would maximize individual and thereby national productivity. In this new economy, the poor can be transformed from marginal to full-fledged participants in the commercial arena. In another article, 'On Whether Commerce Corrupts Manners,'42 Franci defends the marketplace as the realm within the modern state that most naturally and perfectly reflects the Enlightenment doctrine of utility by rewarding all productive, competent, and innovative workers, regardless of education or economic class. Countering the claims of anti-Enlightenment conservatives, Franci argues that, far from being a centre of moral decay, the sphere of market relations serves to transform all participants, and the poor and the dispossessed in particular, into 'great men' ('grandi uomini') and 'citizens of the world' ('cittadini del mondo'). The marketplace is, in fact, a site for the moral reform of the underclass: 'With the elimination of the surrounding afflictions of ignoble poverty, no obstacles prevent the human spirit from attaining noble sentiments of glory.'43 However, while the Milanese economist extols the pervasive benefits of commerce for society and the state, and the particular benefits for the poor, his economic model does preserve traditional social divisions based on class. In his book La moneta, for example, Franci awards the regulation and supervision of industry and agriculture to the upper classes and assigns the 'plebeians' lesser duties appropriate to their 'robustness' and 'diligence.'44 He advocates a universal but unequal participation in the marketplace: his ideal economy would maximize the circulation of wealth and would promote social and economic mobility, but would leave in place conventional class divisions.45 The new economy depends upon optimizing human industry and productivity, rather

102 The Century of Women

than uniform access. For this reason, he seeks to eliminate the socially and economically segregated spheres of existence of both the poor and the aristocracy. He supports the economic enfranchisement of the lower classes and the abrogation of the nobility's entitlement, in order to augment the economic utility of both. At the same time, however, he defends economic disparity among the citizens of the modern state not only as benign, but as economically advantageous: the lower classes provide vital unskilled and manual labour, even as the wealthy stimulate the economy by using their purchasing power, particularly to buy luxury goods: '[the aristocrat] loves to dress nobly, to inhabit a home that is sumptuously furnished, and to live in luxury, as required by the general utility of the nation.'46 The general economic design that emerges from Franci's writings taken as a whole has clear implications for his interpretation of women's roles in the commercial marketplace. His argument for the training and employment of specified classes of women is grounded in a series of interdependent assumptions. The marketplace is a distinct sphere of human exchange explicitly governed by the principle of utility. Through a transparent system of financial remuneration for productivity, it promotes personal industry and social accountability. Finally, it neither encroaches upon the traditional authority of the political or the domestic sphere, nor threatens to erode class distinctions. For these reasons, women may safely assume certain positions therein. Like the domestic sphere, the marketplace is a strictly circumscribed arena that can accommodate but also control women's precisely delimited authority. Just as the well-trained wife properly manages the domestic economy, so too may sufficiently trained women oversee financial transactions at exchange tables and manage the looms in a textile workshop. Moreover, employment, especially of lower-class women, would quantitatively augment women's contributions within the domestic sphere, enhancing both the security of the state economy and eighteenth-century 'family values.' Franci's arguments for the cultivation of an educated, productive, and socially responsible female citizenry yield in the end, however, to his reinstatement of the conventional feminine paradigm and the patriarchal order. Retreating to traditional constructions of feminine virtue at the conclusion of his tract, Franci exalts women's superior religious devotion, modesty, sensitivity, natural expressiveness, affection, and, most important, selflessness. As Luciano Guerci has observed, for the author, feminine virtue appears to achieve perfection in death.47 He invokes the memory of numerous women from European and Milanese

For the Public Good 103

history who valiantly gave their lives in order to protect their own, their husband's, or the nation's honour. He venerates canonical female paragons: the self-sacrificing patriot, the faithful wife, and the loving mother, all of whom converge in the person of Maria Theresa of Austria, whom he praises at the conclusion of the 'Defence' for her 'public virtues': her judicious command of the state, her strength, her magnanimity, and her incorruptible honesty. But above all, he venerates Maria Theresa's womanly virtues: her piety, sweetness, devotion to her husband, and tender love of her children. Once again, a potent figure of female authority is transformed from public personage to wife and mother of 'innocent and regular lifestyle.'48 Franci closes his 'Defence of Women' by exalting the Empress as a symbol of national honour and Christian virtue, as an inspiration to civic duty, and, most fittingly, from her assigned station in the domestic sphere, as a means for the general promotion of the public good. Thus, the domesticated feminine ideal Franci invokes at the conclusion of his thesis perfectly complements and extends his opening critique of the dangerously public, indolent contemporary society of women. // Gaffes 'Defence of Women' oscillates ambivalently between an 'objective' 'scientific' reconceptualization of gender relations, and a reinscription of the conventional feminine ideal. In place of the masculinist ontology of the early querelle desfemmes, the 'Defence' attempts an objective, rational analysis of the contemporary 'woman problem.' Asserting women's social, moral, and intellectual efficacy for the modern state, the enlightened author blames the corrupt condition of his female contemporaries on the deplorable education they receive from their male overlords. However, despite its pretext of enlightened egalitarianism, the 'Defence of Women' affirms, both overtly and covertly, women's essential difference, which necessitates their placement under male command, restricts their sphere of influence primarily to the home, and dictates different standards for their education and socialization from those prescribed for men. But the article is more than a general thesis on the social serviceability of women, since it introduces an unprecedented translation of women's utility into the explicit and quantifiable terms of the modern commercial economy: industry, production, profit and loss. Yet, women's labour and industry, both within and outside of the home, serve an economy not of their design. Ultimately, the 'Defence' renovates the traditional feminine paradigm in the new terms and tenets of the Enlightenment.

This page intentionally left blank

chapter five

Counter-Discourse: La donna galante ed erudita

'Enigma' I bear earthly vestments and an eternal spirit, and that most beautiful among the living is my making; The works of my hand I nourish and govern; and either by divine law or by nature I fell with blessed souls the heavenly sky and with the damned that darkest dwelling. My life is the cause of every life. I made man, I was born in the world, And I am not God.' Riddle from the Giornale dells Dame e delle mode di Francia, Milano, 31 October 1786 (n.VIII).

The second half of the eighteenth century gave birth to the first Italian women's magazines. A genre within the print media that burgeoned in Italy from the end of the seventeenth century, the women's magazine functioned as a public arena for discursive exchange and social and cultural production and critique no less than the emergent literary, political, and regional journals. Three principal traits distinguished this genre from other contemporary forms of periodical literature: the articulation and satisfaction of the interests of a female public, the authorization and commercialization of a specific notion of femininity, and the generation of a feminine mode of discourse alternative to the prevailing male models, including, for example, // Caffe. The eighteenth-century Italian women's magazine thus offers rich ter-

106 The Century of Women

rain for re-evaluating the relationship between hegemonic male discourse and women's texts.2 Yet, these magazines remain a fairly obscure literary and cultural phenomenon. Existing scholarship has traced with varying accuracy the historical development of specific magazines and has catalogued primary motifs, focusing on the growth and cultural significance of the fashion industry in Settecento Italy. Only meagre scholarly attention has been paid to the genre's construction of gender, and no study has examined the development and operation of the eighteenth-century Italian women's magazine as an alternative sphere of public discourse, as it is the purpose of this chapter to do. Outside the bounds of Jurgen Habermas's ideal eighteenth-century literary public sphere, with its private (male) citizens conjoined in a unified rational exchange about matters of common interest,3 the women's magazine served what Nancy Fraser has called a 'competing counterpublic' of women.4 Characterized by commercial interest, a focus on feminine desire, and ideological instability, the women's magazine proffered a new species of literary discourse not only momentary but disposable even for negotiating the modern world of production and consumption. An unorthodox subset of the conduct manual, it schooled women in the art of self-production and endless reproduction. 'Fashion' itself functions as the protagonist and the consummate authority for the genre. As the province of women, 'fashion' denoted for contemporaries, as it does today, a set of shifting and superficial values governing social interaction and public representation. The women's magazine authorized this pedagogy. Through word and image it represented to its readers multiple, often discrepant, ideal images of themselves, which they were to emulate if they wished to enter le monde. These variable paradigms of femininity gave women an apparent - and limited - means to control their public reception. Mimicry has been praised by feminist theorist Luce Irigaray in her analysis of primal ways women can violate the codes of hegemonic discourse and assert their difference. She suggests that to 'assume the feminine role deliberately' can 'convert a form of subordination into an affirmation.'5 The practice of mimicry was the overarching message women's magazines communicated to their female readers, suggesting that they could garner power and social prestige by simulating the prevailing feminine ideals in their dress and conduct. The Venetian women's magazine La donna galante ed erudita (The Gallant and Erudite Woman, henceforth to be referred to as Donna galante), published from 1786 to 1788,6 illustrates how this education in mimicry

Counter-Discourse 107 worked in practice. Donna galante embodies the new, feminine counterdiscursive tradition in the way it commodifies and models feminine 'duplicity,' which might perhaps more fittingly be termed feminine multiplicity. The construction of femininity in the pages of this originary fashion magazine intersects with the alternative literary culture discussed in previous chapters. Self-conscious, polyvalent, contradictory, and fundamentally performative, Donna galante and the discourse as a whole, mimic the amplified and variable female subjects they aim to construct. History of the Eighteenth-Century Italian Feminine Press The women's magazine, like all other genres of periodical literature that developed in Italy during the Settecento, was a markedly derivative literary form in its imitation of media and its compilation of news and information originating in foreign cultural centres, even as it served the project of cultural renewal at home. In the same way that such scientific periodicals as the Giornale d'ltalia spettante alia scienza naturale e principalmente all'agncoltura, alle arti ed al commercio (founded in 1764)7 and noted literary periodicals like the Europa letteraria (1768-73) and the Giornale enciclopedico (1774-82) translated, excerpted, summarized, and reviewed noteworthy contemporary texts published outside of Italy for the purposes of edifying the Italian intelligentsia and of revitalizing Italy's participation in the European Republic of Letters, so too the Italian women's magazine served to link elite Italian society, and women of means in particular, to the contemporary Republic of Fashion centred in France, and to modernize native standards of taste and comportment. The Italian periodical thus evolved not only as a channel for useful information, but also as a pedagogical instrument designed to stimulate Italy's cultural ascent. It was a conduit for native and transalpine ideas, literary innovations, and social practices that formed the core of the modern cultural canon. In his article 'On periodicals' published in 1766 in // Caffe, Cesare Beccaria asserted that the new media ideally served to promote 'the public utility, the spread of Enlightenment, the increase in the number of readers - readers disposed to the truth,'8 and women, he averred, were the most appropriate targets of this pedagogical campaign: 'Women then, the frivolous and distracted women ... are most disposed to profit from the pages of periodicals. While Beccaria certainly did not look to the women's magazine, with its emphasis on superficial, material social refinement, as the ideal literary venue for ushering Ital-

108 The Century of Women ian women into the age of Illuminismo, he did consider fashion ('moda') a potential civilizing force: 'How happy would humanity be if virtue became an accoutrement of fashion ... And why shouldn't we hope for this, given the eccentricity of Fashion that renews and destroys so many things? ... If there is hope of such a change, if writing can influence a change in social practices, this is possible through periodicals more than any other kind of writing.'10 Although the women's magazine was the periodical genre that advocated the most explicit, tangible refinements in social customs and practices, and it did, in fact, make 'virtue' an accoutrement of fashionable ladies, as will be discussed, it proffered a notion of virtue directly at odds with Enlightenment social ethics and political aspirations: one centred on material distinction and social advancement. With rare exception, Italian women's magazines reproduced articles and fashion prints originally published in contemporary French magazines and, at the very end of the century, in English magazines as well. The Parisian Gallerie des Modes et Costumes Franfais (1778-87), the Cabinet des Modes (1785-6), the Magasin des Modes Nouvelles Franfaises et Anglaises (1786-9), the Journal de la Mode et du Gout (1790-4), and the English Fashionable Magazine, founded in 1786, were primary fonts pillaged by Italian editors for fashion news and prints. The surge of the genre in Italy not surprisingly followed its rise in the European hubs of fashion, culminating in the final decades of the century. Milan, Florence, and Venice were the chief centres for the publication of women's magazines, which, as fashion historian Grazietta Butazzi explains, was no doubt due to the fact that they were centres for book and periodical publishing generally, and were subject to less stringent censorship controls.11 These cities were also commercial capitals intimately tied to France and engaged in a dynamic exchange of international fashion news and commodities. The predominance of these cities for the circulation in Italy of fashion news is clear from the catalogue of notable women's magazines published during the century: Foglio per le donne (Venice; there is no trace left of this journal, although references to it put its publication at the beginning of the 1760s);12 Toelette (Florence, 1770); Biblioteca galante (Florence, 1775-6); Recueil General des Modes d'Habillements des Femmes des Etats de Sa Majeste le Roi de Sardaigne (Turin, 1780); Giornale delleDame (Florence, 1781);13 La donna galante ed erudita. Giornale dedicato al bel sesso (Venice, 1786-8); Giornale delle Dame e delle mode diFranda (Milan, 1786-94); and Giornale delle mode (Florence, 1788-95).

Counter-Discourse 109 The rise of the women's magazine was also part of a dynamic trend toward more specialized media that took place in Italy during the second half of the Settecento. As Giuseppe Ricuperati has noted, there was a marked shift away from periodical literature produced mainly by and for a professional intellectual elite (a prime example of this genre is the Giornale de' letterati d'ltalia, founded in 1710 by Apostolo Zeno, Scipione Maffei, and Antonio Vallisneri), and the rise of both more eclectic (encyclopedic) and more particularized media for a broader reading public. Ricuperati states that 'In reality, the second half of the eighteenth century sees the emergence of specific periodicals for nearly every discipline or specialization - from astronomy to physics, to medicine, to chemistry - no longer directed at intellectuals in a generic sense, but at a professional class.'14 Compared to their predecessors from the first half of the Settecento, the creators and purveyors of these new media were also more worldly and diverse in terms of their social backgrounds and education: 'the protagonists of this [new culture] could not be the ancient clerics closed in their isolated institudons, but above all politicians, businessmen, and professionals who participated at various levels in the administration of public resources, affairs, and power.'15 What the historian fails to acknowledge, however, is that die women's magazine, as both a commercial and cultural venture created by professional editors and journalists - some of whom were women for a 'specialized,' female public, exemplifies key characteristics of these new media. The birth of the women's magazine reflects, in fact, a pivotal change in the status of women as a recognized interest-group. No previous literary genre had so directly solicited a female public or so clearly aimed to address women's specialized interests. As Butazzi has shown in her studies of the cultural history of the genre in Italy, the birth and expansion of the women's magazine coincided with the ascent of a wealthy commercial middle class desirous of luxury goods and services that would reflect and augment their social prestige. The creators of this genre sought to capitalize on the growing influence of the affluent bourgeois female consumers of both cultural and material goods by producing indispensable guides to the expanding world of commodity exchange.16 As Butazzi explains, this class sought to manifest new standards of social refinement equal to those of the aristocracy: 'To the prestige of tradition, [the new bourgeoisie] substituted that of novelty, inconstancy, evanescence, and illusion.'17 The women's magazine prescribed the sartorial signs of this new class distinction. Paradoxically, the rules of

110 The Century of Women

dress and comportment set down in these journals were as hierarchical as those of the aristocracy they were meant to supersede.18 When La donna galante ed erudita appeared in 1786, at the height of the eighteenth-century Venetian fashion trade, citizens of La Serenissima of nearly every rank were demanding the latest styles and fashion news. (The radical expansion of the fashion industry in Venice at this time is plainly manifested by the increase in the number of guild-registered tailors in the city from 322 in 1710 to 781 in 1773).19 The eighteenth-century Venetian playwright Carlo Goldoni, an expert 'observer and theatrical interpreter of the reality' of contemporary Venetian society,20 paints a nuanced portrait of the developing industry and its impact on the mundane life of his townspeople in his comedy Le Smanie per la vilkggiatura (The Craze for the Country Holiday, 1761). The play represents and critiques the fashion-crazed Venetian bourgeoisie, and provides a social and cultural frame for interpreting the development and authority of the fashion press. A dialogue between two young female rivals, Giacinta and Vittoria, illustrates the primacy of fashion ('la moda') among bourgeois women, and of French styles in particular: VITTORIA: GIACINTA: VITTORIA: GIACINTA: VITTORIA: GIACINTA: VITTORIA: GIACINTA: VITTORIA: GIACINTA: VITTORIA: GIACINTA: VITTORIA: GIACINTA: VITTORIA: GIACINTA: VITTORIA: GIACINTA:

This year I had a dress made for myself. Oh, I too had a beautiful one made. When you see mine, you won't be displeased. As far as that goes, you, too, will see something special. Mine has neither gold nor silver, but to tell the truth, it is stupendous. Oh! Fashion, fashion. It must be fashionable. Oh! With respect to fashion, no one could ever say mine is not a la mode. Yes, yes, I'm sure it's a la mode. (Sneering) You don't believe it? Yes, I believe it. (She'll die when she sees my manage.)^1 With respect to matters of fashion, I believe I have always been among the trend-setters. So, what is your new outfit? It is a manage. Mariagel (Surprised) Yes, certainly. Do you think it's not fashionable? How did you know that the manage had arrived from France? Probably the same way that you knew. Who made it for you?

Counter-Discourse

111

VITTORIA: The French tailor Monsieur de la Rejouissance. GIACINTA: Now I understand. The scoundrel! I will make him pay ...22 Goldoni's fictitious profile of bourgeois Venetian ladies a la mode illuminates the cultural milieu in which Donna galante emerged and thrived. For this increasingly affluent class of female consumers, authority and personal prestige derive from the acquisition of fashionable goods and services. Social status depends on the originality of what one owns and wears. Commodities from France, the recognized capital of European culture, confer superior prestige. And information about the latest styles is indeed the most valued commodity, and determines who wins the war of the wardrobe. Donna galante existed precisely to purvey that information and to feed the hunger for distinction. Although the demographics of its subscribers are unknown, it clearly served fashion-conscious Venete of means, and bourgeois social climbers like Goldoni's Vittoria and Giacinta, in particular. The journal, featuring in each issue two hand-painted colour fashion engravings, was in itself an elegant objet de mode. A virtual copy of the popular French fashion magazine Cabinet des Modes, Donna galante modelled French dress and sociability for its audience of Venetian Francophiles. The thirty-two-page journal was sold biweekly until the end of 1788 in the San Beneto bookstore owned by the renowned publisher Giovanbattista Albrizzi.23 Thirty-six issues were published over the twoyear period. In order to understand the development and design of the Venetian journal, we must briefly consider its textual genealogy, and in particular, its affiliation with the Cabinet des Modes, from which it took most of its material. It should be noted that the Venetian journal was not alone in plagiarizing the popular Cabinet des Modes. The Milanese Giornale delle dame e delle mode di Franda (Journal of Women and French Fashions} also copied the French journal over the course of its nine-year run,24 as did journals published in Germany and England.25 Edited by Jean Antoine Lebrun, the eight-page French magazine was printed every fifteen days in Paris from 1785 to 1793,26 and featured three colour fashion engravings and accompanying descriptive narrative in each issue. A modest selection of amusing tales, jokes, and verses, as well as some advertisements, filled out the remaining pages of the publication. As Jennifer Jones points out in her history of the journal, the ' Cabinet des Modes served not only the dame de qualitewho casually perused it while conducting her morning toilette but all those whose livelihood

112 The Century of Women

depended on French fashions; it was the first fashion trade journal.'2 Tailors, merchants, and shopkeepers mined it for detailed information about current fashion trends and the materials and designs needed to manufacture them; and readers found the names of the manufacturers and merchants from whom they could obtain the featured fashions.28 Indeed, the Cabinet des Modes represented the culmination of the new print media centred on fashion that had first begun to appear in France at the end of the previous century. The magazines that now pictured fashionable commodities to consumers replaced the once popular fashion dolls that had circulated among the European aristocracy for the same purpose. Formerly, fashionable women would buy wax, wooden, and porcelain dolls on which to pattern their dress. Now the Cabinet and its ilk could be said to make dolls of women by dictating proper dress in their fashion engravings, and by scripting women's roles in the accompanying narratives. Conceived especially for women, native and foreign, who lived outside of Paris, the Cabinet provided 'the word' on the latest styles manufactured in the hub of la mode.29 Deemed relevant 'pour toutes les classes' and 'pour tous les ages,'30 the Cabinet not only contributed to the democratization of fashion, it extended the authority of the fashion system beyond the public theatres of social exchange into those most intimate spaces of the domestic sphere.31 Its novel emphasis on fashions for the home and the family can hardly be read as the privatization of fashion, however, as Jones claims when she argues that ' la mode left behind the public world of court ritual and the pomp of class and privilege and entered the more private world of women, family and the home.'32 In fact, fashion's invasion of the domestic space signified the reverse: the new 'publicity' of private life. As fashion became ubiquitous, prescribing even the deportment appropriate to motherhood, marriage, and household management, the affluent bourgeoise entered a state of chronic self-consciousness, frantic to maintain the various feminine personae decreed for each room of the fashionable home - from the boudoir to the garden, the salon to the library. With the help of the new media, including the Cabinet des modes and later Donna galante, fashion could be said to have razed the protective walls that insulated private life from outside view and critique. Nonetheless, the Venetian journal differed in significant ways from its French progenitor. The Venetian periodical, for example, was not a trade journal explicitly developed to publicize fashion commodities, as was the French. Manufacturers of fashionable merchandise were never

Counter-Discourse

113

solicited or advertised in its text; its eclectic and expansive format was instead designed to appeal to affluent female subscribers. In addition, it averaged eight pages where the Cabinet des Modes averaged thirty-two.33 A representative issue of Donna galante, number 3 (1786), offered the following: - 'Methods for Preserving the Beauty of Women' (on the harmful effects of being too fat or too thin); - 'Letter on the Operation of the Fan' (from Addison and Steele's Spectator) ; - 'Pleasant Literature' (reviews of recent Italian and French publications devoted to fashion and society news); - 'Anecdotes and Tracts on Esprit \ - 'The Latest and Most Tasteful Costume Jewelry'; - 'Erudition' (review of interesting facts and information about fashion and Venice, including a synopsis of the Imperial Princess Maria of Constantinople's visit to Venice in 1005, together with an account of the deleterious effects on women's skin of bathing in milk as witnessed first-hand by the editor); - 'Cabinet of French Fashions' (which includes a rationale for economic inequality, and a history of fashion from primitive to contemporary times); and - two watercolour fashion engravings.34 Thus, in addition to its fashion engravings and the accompanying narrative descriptions, the journal included health and beauty advice, short stories about love and marriage, announcements of publications, poetry, fables, translations of French and English literature, riddles, and letters to the editor. Although innumerable references to contemporary French culture were made to satisfy Venetians' obsessive Francophilia, reviews of local plays and of books by native authors enhanced Donna galante's relevance to its Italian readers. Re-educating Women

History provides only a fragmentary portrait of Gioseffa Cornoldi Caminer, the Venetian woman who edited Donna galante. We know that she was a member of the Arcadia Academy, wrote various translations from French into Italian, and was married to Antonio Caminer, the editor of the Venetian periodical Nuovo postiglione, which provided extensive pub-

114 The Century of Women

licity for Donna galante. Her father-in-law Domenico Caminer and her sister-in-law Elisabetta Caminer Turra collaborated to produce the renowned literary journal Europa ktteraria. Elisabetta also directed the internationally celebrated Giornale enciclopedico?5 Although her exact dates are not known, Gioseffa was approximately twenty-eight years old when Donna galante first appeared in print.36 Even less is known about her exact role in the production of the journal. Whether Cornoldi Caminer collaborated with others to create the magazine, and whether she compiled, contributed, or translated articles herself, remains obscure. She does, however, provide a revealing statement of her own and the magazine's objectives in the 'Justification of the Female Editor' ('Giustificazione dell'editrice') that opens the first issue of the magazine. Ambiguity and paradox mark the 'Giustificazione,' stemming in large part from the editor's avowedly political determination to appropriate terms and ideas from hegemonic masculine discourse - and in particular, terms and ideas otherwise used to define women and public literary discourse. This is evident from the tide, The Gallant and Erudite Woman, which ascribes to women those conventionally masculine attributes, and so seeks to lessen the hold of dominant culture on women and the word. The tide inaugurates the journal's counter-pedagogy and new mode of discourse about the socialization of women, redefining such abstract virtues as 'gallantry' and 'erudition,' and opposing to them a pedagogy of masking and of such complicity with the dominant culture as would promote women's practical success in a male world. Appropriately, then, Cornoldi Caminer opens the 'Justification' by literally occupying the male subject position. Impersonating the pretentious, disdainful voice of a prototypical male adversary, she attacks an imagined male editor of Donna galante and disparages the presumed objectives of the journal that might be inferred from its title: 'Erudition! Gallantry! Here is an excellent sleeping draught, an indiscreet satire. My dear writer ... you want to instruct, you want to give delight, and you ignore the fact that the duties of women are anything but akin to erudition. You are trying to ridicule the fair sex. And it should not have escaped you that, on the contrary, one should respect and caress women. Cornoldi Caminer voices her critics' complaints in order to discredit them. She mocks the stereotypical male disdain for the cultivated woman and for the magazine designed to serve her by parroting misogynist notions of the delicate, susceptible feminine nature inimical to scholarly pursuits. The performance complete, Cornoldi Caminer promptly supplants

Counter-Discourse 115

the critic's masque with a more authentic persona, that of the sophisticated, ambitious letterata ('learned woman'). Having conjured up an offensive masculine foil, she can now construct herself as a more rational and authoritative speaking subject; she herself thus becomes the best defence of her underestimated sex. Declaring 'I am a woman' ('io sono una femmina') at the end of her role-play, and insisting repeatedly on her gender identity throughout the rest of the 'Justification,' Cornoldi Caminer defines her authority as expressly female, and predicates it on her own affirmation that 'My mirror tells me that I am not the ugliest of women; my own self-love persuades me that I am not lacking in talent; and my watch indicates to me that I am not making bad use of it. Finally, my pen whispers in my ear that I, too, am able to scribble.'38 The editor never directly refutes the imagined critic's assumptions that learning and chivalry are unnatural, even distasteful topics for the intellectually weaker sex. Instead, she lets her genius and literary talent indirectly speak in the magazine's, her female public's, and her own defence. Emphatic reference to the first-person, speaking subject - I, my, me underscores her thesis that she is self-determining, unbeholden to 'Mr. Critic Observer' ('signer critico osservatore') and the androcentric cultural heritage he represents. Cornoldi Caminer's right to the pen and a public forum is validated not by obsolete discursive conventions or by the literary canon, but by the impartial judgment of the mirror, the clock, and the pen, or in other words, beauty, age, and literary talent. A fundamental inconsistency, however, mars the editor's apology. While Cornoldi Caminer denies the power of the male critic to judge or manage her literary aspirations, she predicates her merit as a writer and her licence to a public voice on her desirability to men. On the one hand, Cornoldi Caminer denies men the authority to judge her: 'If I am beautiful or ugly, old or still deserving of men's merciful stares, if I am wise or flighty, you, Mr Critic Observer, are neither a sufficient judge, nor an expert';39 on the other, she identifies herself by her imagined critic's ideal and definition of feminine virtue: she avers implicitly that she is young, beautiful, and talented. Cornoldi Caminer's concurrent defence of her authority within the sphere of public discourse and her subscription to the feminine myth expose the magazine's underlying ethical compromise. The price of women's public authority is acquiescence to dominant constructions of femininity. An intricate weave of metaphors and puns discloses her journal's unorthodox pedagogical design. The editor declares that a film of silky cosmetic powder, 'polvere di Cipri,' ought to adorn and veil the woman

116 The Century of Women

of good taste, while the weighty scholarship of La Crusca should not: The chaff/Crusca is not for a woman of bon ton, but rather flour, Cyprian powder. The head, the face, the hair, and the hands, etc., etc., etc., must be covered by it. I am a scholar. Flour, powder that flies at the slightest breath.'40 Cornoldi Caminer plays on the contrast between the flour and the discarded wheat chaff from which it was culled in order to convey the superior refinement of female erudition; however, the reference is obviously to the Crusca Academy of Letters, a symbol of discursive orthodoxy during the eighteenth century. Founded in Florence in 1583, the Crusca Academy aimed to preserve the Italian language from internal and external corruption, efforts that culminated in the periodic publication of Italian lexicons. Jealous guardians of Tuscany's linguistic preeminence as established by the triumvirate of Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, the academicians of La Crusca rejected all but the Tuscan dialect, and condemned the use of foreign terms and neologisms. During the eighteenth century, various Italian philosophes severely attacked the Academy of the Crusca for its patriarchalism,41 on the grounds that, to members of the International Enlightenment Republic of Letters, the censure of innovative and foreign terms was tantamount to intellectual isolationism. The name 'La Crusca' ('the chaff) and the motto 'From Them It Gathers the Most Beautiful Flower' ('II piu bel fior ne coglie') indicated the Academy's objective to sort the degenerate words from the pure, as the chaff is separated from the seed in threshing grain for flour. The symbol of the academy, represented in the frontispiece of every edition of its published lexicons from 1612, was, appropriately, a wooden mill for grinding grain. In the fourth edition of the Vocabolario from 1729-38, four cherubs are shown respectively threshing wheat, pouring the seeds into a wooden mill, grinding them, and, finally, sacking the flour, in an allegory of La Crusca's own exhaustive refinement of the Italian language and literary tradition. Cornoldi Caminer's punning reference to the 'Crusca' thus embodies a complex subversion of the foundational principles of hegemonic culture, and the principles of learning and discourse in particular. To the pure and weighty linguistic 'flour' that results from La Crusca's meticulous sifting and classification of the language, she opposes cosmetic powder - superficially transfigurative and effortlessly erased - a mediation of a woman's public representation that alters neither her thinking nor her voice. The linguistic prank ridicules the logic and tradition of canon law and opposes to the academy's claim to an immutable stan-

Coun ter-D iscourse

117

dard of judgment that validates only certain modes of thought and discourse an acquiescence in the frivolous standard of fashion that 'flies at the slightest breath.' The fourth edition of La Crusca's Vocabolario (1729-38) defines 'erudition' as 'doctrine' ('dottrina'), and the illustrative text by fourteenth-century cleric Fr Giordano da Ripalto cited to demonstrate its use refers to 'erudition in the sacred texts.' Cornoldi Caminer replaces this 'outmoded' veneration of the canon of received knowledge with a more practical interpretation of the term that serves the interests of her chosen public: women. 'Erudition,' as Cornoldi Caminer defines it in the pages of her journal, signifies a knowledge of the world and a calculated acquiescence in its expectations. 'Erudition,' in effect, becomes a synonym for opportunism. In the midst of her playful apology for a new feminine mode of erudition that cultivates the surface and not the soul, Cornoldi Caminer surprisingly declares, 'I am a scholar' ('Io sono una letterata'). Her announcement is literally enclosed within her primary discourse prescribing to women the guise rather than the serious pursuit of learning. This abrupt reference to her own traditional erudition models the unorthodox pedagogy espoused by her magazine. Masked as it is by an acceptably 'feminine' discourse on fashion and manners, this assertion of learning does not put conventional constructions of femininity directly to the test. Instead, an intricate word game encodes a mockery of conventional masculine culture and discourse aimed at her female public. This joke shared between the editor and her readers is the covert manifestation of their superior wit and counter-model of erudition. Cornoldi Caminer's adroit but ultimately self-contradictory rhetoric in the 'Justification' demonstrates Kathryn Shevelow's point, in her investigation of early women's magazines, that economics was not the sole force driving their publishers: 'Attention to women was an integral part of the program of simultaneously disseminating learning, shaping behavior, and attracting a wide audience.'42 How was this accomplished? In a way not dissimilar to Cornoldi Caminer's technique in the 'Justification' - by revising the familiar discursive and didactic convention by which women and their appurtenances signify accessibility, and by placing that convention in the service of women themselves43 - throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, especially in texts devoted to the project of intellectual enlightenment, female protagonists had functioned as synedoches for a general, naive public. The noble interlocutresses of Fontenelle's Entretiens sur la pluralite des mondes (A Plurality of Worlds, 1686) and Algarotti's Newtonianism for Ladies (1736), for exam-

118 The Century of Women

pie, play the role of intellectual neophyte whose rudimentary instruction by a master of the 'new science' serves to facilitate the instruction of the broad reading public. Woman was the sign of accessibility. Her presence in the dialogic scientific tract guaranteed general admission and the mastery of a complex, specialized subject. In Newtonianism for Ladies, Algarotti explains Newton's philosophical and physical theories by analogies to the daily life of his aristocratic lady interlocutor. He compares prisms to emotions, likens scientific debate to rivalry between women, and introduces the subject of light reflection and refraction by having the Marchesa contemplate her reflection in the mirror of her toilette. In this and similar texts, woman and the objects of her world function as a means for broad dissemination of knowledge and scientific truth. In contrast to the female protagonist of academic discourse that facilitates comprehension of scientific truth and the sublime, the paradigmatic female subjects of the women's magazine instead facilitate the practical education of women in society's classroom. The cultural inverse of Newtonianism's stable truths, the women's magazine, a popular literary genre par excellence, is intentionally modish, socially expedient, and rhetorically facile; it promotes innovations - social, cultural, and commercial - for their own sake; it excites the fantasy of its readers by providing them vicarious escape through sentimental anecdotes, tales of scandal and tragedy; it evokes stereotypes over complex characters; it privileges image over substance; it is essentially visual, focusing in illustration and literary vignette on the surface attributes of the fashionable lady; and, most important, it is a potent 'instrument of socialization.'44 In a dialogue between the female or feminized editors of the women's magazine who channel the inviolable pronouncements of Moda ('fashion') and the ideal fashionable lady,45 a mass public of women is instructed in the science of the world and in the art of elite sociability. Fashioning Femininity

The ephemeral sartorial and social etiquette of the women's magazine was thus antithetical to the political and philosophical principles affirmed by the Enlightenment Republic of Letters.46 The project of fashionability clashed with the project of Enlightenment. Even though, as Erin Mackie notes, fashion, too, was 'a way of thinking about social reform, a way of expressing progressive desires for a better future,'47 the project of fashionability centred on the literal reform and restylization of the individual and the social bodies to accord with current standards

Counter-Discourse 119

of taste and sociability. Where the ideal (male) reader of such Enlightenment journals as // Caffe was engaged in a collective, egalitarian endeavour to know the truth in order to enhance the public good - a good he viewed as indistinguishable from his own - the reader of the women's magazine was consuming a discourse devoted to self-promotion, purchasing power, and manipulation of one's public self-image. In contrast to the community of rational (male) citizen-subjects possessed of inherent rights and governed by a common Enlightenment ethics, the women's magazine constructed a community made up of fractionalized and unstable female subjects. As Michael Warner notes, the male 'republican was to be the same as citizen and as man. He was to maintain continuity of value, judgment, and reputation from domestic economy to affairs of public nature.'48 By comparison, the fashionable woman needed the ability to transform herself continually in accordance with the rules of sociability, but those rules shifted endlessly in relation to the variables of time, space, and occasion. Indeed, it could be argued as Jennifer Jones does that fashion came to replace time itself as a superstructure in the life of the woman of bon ton, who regulated her dress and deportment not only according to the seasons, but also according to each hour of the day.49 In Italy, as elsewhere during the Settecento, fashion ('moda') thus became a means of social arbitration whose authority challenged the claims of those traditional arbiters of mores and manners: the Church, the State, the Academy, and the Republic of Letters. In her analysis of the destablizing influence the fashion industry exercised over established social controls and hierarchies during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Deborah Laycock notes that 'the politics of the state were intimately connected to the transformative economy of the body, and both were acted upon by the forces of fashion.'50 Dress, accoutrements, hair, hygiene, public as well as private comportment, speech and all forms of correspondence, home furnishings, social affiliations, education, even spouses and children, indeed everything that might signify an individual's social worth, came, to some degree, under the jurisdiction of fashion. The response to fashion's sway varied. Political reformers and conservatives alike saw it as both a corrupting and a civilizing force, making it a lightning-rod for public critique. Certainly, as Dena Goodman points out, fashion was central to the rules of sociability and polite society at the heart of the project of Enlightenment.51 Some Italian philosophes saw it as a catalyst for economic expansion.52 Fashion was also explicitly

120 The Century of Women

invoked as an organizing principle for modern education, especially the education and social formation of women. In the Gazzetta veneta (Venetian Gazette), for example, Gasparo Gozzi recurrently criticizes parents who subject their children, and especially their daughters, to an antiquated and austere education 'a dispetto della moda' [contrary to fashion], and advocates that children be schooled in current trends in dress and comportment instead in order to become more socially adept: 'Believe me, the world today subscribes to a new mode of living; and if we are in the world, we must act like those who dwell there.'53 In extended letters to their daughters on how to lead successful lives, Pietro Verri, the founder of II Caffe, and the Venetian playwright Pietro Chiari also urge conformity with various fashion trends, including the reading of contemporary novels.54 Chiari's primer for his daughter on the 'Science of the World' even defends the contemporary vogue of citisbeismo, which allowed a married woman to take a 'platonic' lover.55 Notwithstanding the occasional positive press, fashion came under recurrent and often vicious attack for propagating material excess, feminine vanity, and the dissolution of those moral values essential to the well-being and progress of society. In a detailed portrait of a day in the life of a woman a la mode, Pierdomenico Soresi expresses the dominant view that fashion corrupts contemporary society, and especially women: First, rising from bed quite late, as if the human life were not brief enough and the most salubrious air were not that of the morning, she grows anxious over how she will pass the day. She then wastes time at her Toilette. The belle receives some visits there; she discusses and then decides what attire she will select for that day. And now that the sun is nearly setting, she goes to eat. From here she engages in what they call a stroll, although it is thus only for the horses, and is, in fact, a pernicious exercise according to the sage Doctor of Geneva [Jean-Jacques Rousseau]. Then, at that hour, which for most is night but which these ladies call evening, she goes to call on those recommended by her Gallant, who is the keeper of her appointment book. Now, here they are at the theatre, even though the opera is well underway. She enters noisily; she offers a distracted greeting; she falls like lead onto the sofa; she turns her back to the spectacle; she disturbs those who would like to hear, even, I daresay, the actors themselves. She tries to ward off boredom, that faithful companion of the idle, by taking a refreshment or by playing some cards. And before the third act begins, with the same noisy commotion as before, she makes her retreat.56

Counter-Discourse 121

Soresi's depiction above is a prose recapitulation and regendering of key moments in the acclaimed satirical poem by Giuseppe Parini entitled The Day [Giorno, 1763-5], which traces the tedious, decadent rituals that mark the mundane life of a 'Young Gentleman' ('Giovin Signore'). Central to Parini's theme is the Rousseauian complaint that the worship of fashion disturbs the natural order of the world and of human relations; it privileges night over day, indolence over work, effeminate display over magnanimous acts, and image over truth and decorum. Despite the obvious exaggeration, the world Parini and Soresi depict is not far removed from the world of Donna galante, where all that pertains to a woman, from her shoes to her offspring, is to reflect her cultivation and taste, and where the culminating illustrations portray staged performances. The fine watercolour engravings depict elegant ladies draped in the most stylish European fashions and framed and focalized within an entire scene. In each, the model is shown striking a pose in clothing appropriate to the implied setting, plot, and role: the cultured lady cups her chin pensively while leaning over a book; the young noblewoman casually clad in a lacy bonnet and ruffled dress claps her hands and dances at a country gala; the robust gentlewoman grasps a crop in her gloved hand while sedately waiting to mount her horse; the prim young lady covered from head to toe in feathers, lace, crape roses and velvet bows stands 'holding a fan with dainty nonchalance.' Not only are accessories from fans to riding whips prescribed, so too are the number of curled locks that ought to grace a woman's bosom: 'You may carry a bouquet of flowers attached to the front of your corsette and have yourselves combed with a large tapet and three curls per part, one of which should hang over your bosom.'57 This is the new Commedia dell'arte, a literal comedy of artifice in which stock female characters plainly marked by costume, movement, and modes of behaviour act out their expected roles in the theatre of the world. Yet, as Sarah Cohen astutely notes in her analysis of the influence of the masquerade on early French fashion prints: 'While documenting signs of social identity, the prints also make sport with the very notion of fixed identification by continuously varying the visual content of their pictorial "performances."'58 Each occasion calls for a unique orchestration of attire, accessories, hair, posture, and mien. The possibilities are at once fixed, as Cohen observes, and simultaneously endless. Nor is the 'commedia' confined to posture, accessories, and dress. In some issues, illustrations of fashionable beds, carriages, watches, buckles, picture frames, candelabras, oil pitchers, and children's and men's

122 The Century of Women

clothing replace the usual fashion prints. Narratives designate fashionable dress, deportment, and the accoutrement required to live fashionably in the modern world, but they also dictate those most intimate roles and human relations. An article entitled 'Fashionable Husbands' ('Mariti alia Moda') commends enlightened married men who recognize that their interests are intimately bound to those of their wives. The husband a la mode acknowledges his wife's autonomy both because to do so is deemed appropriate and polite behaviour by contemporary society and because he thereby insures his own happiness and autonomy: 'Husbands are no longer absolute masters in their homes; wives are no longer subject to their obedience. An air of equality must reign between them. Each lives on his or her own, and chooses his or her diversions and conversations. To persecute one's wife, or contradict her, would be a hateful and generally condemned thing; and regardless of one's particular life circumstances, never should that mutual respect be lacking that we all must have.'60 The author maintains, with a barely perceptible smirk, that even when the 'fashionable husband' discovers that his wife has been unfaithful, he will act prudently. Fashion requires that he disgrace neither her nor himself by denouncing her publicly, but rather that he ask her to leave the city and compensate her sacrifice with an increase in her living allowance. Even more blatantly, a regular column entitled 'Cabinet of French Fashions' ('Gabinetto delle Mode di Francia') directs women in one issue to exploit their children as fashion accessories. As long as children are small and don't betray their mother's age, women are told to 'take them with you on your visits, walks, and to those most frequented places, giving them the glory of being seen as often as possible when they are beautiful, vivacious, slender, and pleasing, because your own regard will enjoy the same praises that are directed at them.'61 But when the children are older and less 'capable of catching everyone's eye,' they are best left at home. 'Moda' also rigorously mandates appropriate language, in particular the rhetoric and tone of social conversation, which is considered an arena central to women's worldly success. An article entitled 'The Elegant Ones' ('Gli Eleganti') itemizes the essential changes in discourse that correspond to the ethic of disinterestedness that marks the current Age of Reason. Women are told to affect an obvious understatement when conversing in public and to demonstrate a knowledge of science and philosophy, as conversational topics currently in vogue:

Counter-Discourse 123 Women ... no longer use the superlative, nor do they use the words 'delicious,' 'surprising,' or 'incomprehensible'; they speak with affected simplicity. No more do they expound on any possible subject; neither do they express their admiration or their passions. The most tragic events merit no more than a slight exclamation; the news of the day is told without reflection; and experiments in physics, chemistry and metaphysics, today's fashionable subjects, supply material for conversations.62

While modes of speech are potent signifiers of social and intellectual currency, the material signs of erudition are equally important for the 'ton.' An article entitled 'The Library of a Woman of Esprit' ('Biblioteca d'una Dama di Spirito') illustrates the extent to which knowledge and culture had come to be commodified during this age of expanding consumerism.63 The article is a translation of Joseph Addison's disparaging profile of a 'cultivated' English noblewoman from the 12 April 1711 issue of the Spectator^ However, the Italian version has taken such liberties with the original that it is effectively a new work. For example, the translator omits that central part of the article where Addison establishes a causal relationship between the woman's indulgence in romance novels and her sentimentality, her cloistered lifestyle, and the ostentatious decoration of her estate.65 Gone is the patronizing tone Addison employs to criticize Lady Leonora's preference for books to human relations, and her naive susceptibility to romance literature. Every detail in the original text that suggests the slightest disapproval of romantic indulgence by this or any other woman is removed from the translation. Indeed, in the Italian version, the noblewoman embodies cultivation and grace. Where Addison sees her home and library as the outward manifestations of her emotionalism and shallow erudition, the translator explicitly correlates the details of her external elegance with her inner goodness. The Italian translation in fact turns inside-out the values of the original and so exemplifies the counter-pedagogy of the women's magazine. Addison intends his disapproving portrait of Lady Leonora as a literary corrective to women's romantic inclinations, and to their commodification and consequent trivialization of culture. His pitiful, feeble-minded protagonist displays the dangers of an unbridled femininity with its creation of a world in which even a library functions as an ornament. By contrast, the Italian translation with its praise for the noblewoman's elegance and taste makes identity and social reputation congruent with the objects one possesses, instruction that is both practical and worldly.

124 The Century of Women At the heart of both the original English article and its Italian translation is a remarkable catalogue of the most noteworthy texts in the noblewoman's library, including works by Newton, Pembroke, Locke, and Malebranche; classical texts and dictionaries; and some miscellaneous books of particular interest to women, such as a treatise on childbirth, Culpepper's Midwifery, and The Fifteen Comforts of Matrimony. It is immediately made clear in both versions, however, that these erudite texts serve a chiefly ornamental function, since 'few of these books were found to be used by the Lady.'66 The noblewoman has chosen them not to read, but for the status conferred in the contemporary literary canon. They serve as emblems of her taste and style, much like the knick-knacks that line the bookshelves. As with the porcelain vases of varying sizes, the ornate tea cups, and the statuettes, which divide the shelves of books into sections of editions in 'foglio,' in 'quarto,' and in 'ottavo,' the books themselves mark the woman's taste and cultivation. Indeed, Leonora's library is proof of what Erin Mackie states about eighteenth-century collection: 'Through collection comes possession comes knowledge comes power.'67 'The Library of a Woman of Esprit,' perhaps more explicitly than any other article published in Donna galante, establishes the correlation between the outer and inner aspects of the individual. In the Italian translation, the woman's very soul is reflected in the order and refinement of her home: 'The nonchalance of the Library, the elegance of the furnishings, the disposition of the gardens, everything provided an image of the movement of the soul of this lovely recluse.'68 To have here is not only to know, but to be. Despite its apparent absolutism, Moda is a fundamentally ambivalent figure whose dictums shift and fade with time and social whim. Each precept of dress and deportment is usurped eventually by a new or competing rule of sociability. Numerous fashion narratives in Donna galante in fact begin with the statement that 'tutto e cambiato' ('everything has changed') in the fashion world. Not only styles of clothing vary, so do the fashionable topics of conversation, the modes of human deportment, and even the qualities of those previously discussed 'fashionable husbands,' who condone their wives' autonomy, but who are later redefined in a subsequent article as men possessed of 'goodness of heart.' This instability of Moda is perhaps best illustrated by Donna galante's inconsistent attitude toward fashion itself, which is extolled in the pages of the magazine, but is also the subject of frequent parodies and moral rebukes. The conventions of fashion are seen at once as the arbiter of

Counter-Discourse

125

social decorum and as a pernicious threat to social mores and women's virtue. Numerous articles, poems, fables, and short stories mock, satirize, or simply condemn the preoccupation of contemporary society, and especially of women, with fashion. An allegorical poem en tided 'La Moda' portrays fashion as a 'gallant little monkey' in ridiculous clothing who is venerated and 'aped' by all the women who encounter him.69 But the fable of 'The Goose and the Swan' ('L'oca ed il cigno') is perhaps the most telling example of the paradoxical critique of fashion by the fashion magazine.70 The article rebukes those women who use artificial means to 'present themselves ... as if they were spectacles for the universe,' when they should heed the dictates of nature alone. The 'vain,' 'silly,' 'affected,' 'raucous' goose, who tries to transcend the natural limits of her appearance and social station by counterfeiting the attributes of the more comely swan, becomes the object of collective ridicule. As a herd of swans cackles at her affectations, their elegant leader admonishes: 'Learn to act wisely; persuade yourself moreover that the obsession to become exceptional is but foolish pride, and the desire to improve upon nature is the same as displaying your own defects.' Yet this and die other articles that attack fashion and the women who surrender to its authority appear beside apologies for 'la Moda,' both tacit and overt. In the issue in which 'L'oca ed il cigno' appears, for example, another column extols the aesthetic benefits of beauty creams and scented powders, and the fashion prints celebrate billowy and ostentatious head coverings appropriately called poufs, which are embellished with violet pheasant feathers, bows, and strands of berries and which serve to hold up the mound of ringlets piled high on her ladyship's head. As Donna galante's treatment of fashion makes plain, the feminine press offered a spectrum of ideological viewpoints to satisfy the divergent inclinations of its readership. This political mobility permitted a wider range of readers to sift among the disparate assumptions and ideas and to appropriate those they preferred or that would best serve them.71 Indeed, the magazine's incongruous content and politics gave readers a unique opportunity to think and to be many (sometimes incompatible) things at once. This ideological inconsistency is most clearly seen in Donna galante's vacillating representation of marriage. Love and marriage are romanticized, satirized, and condemned, but also studied with scientific detachment. This shifting view of marriage reflects the myriad authorities, recognized and hidden, that govern women's lives: the dominant masculinist culture; the Church; social convention; canonical and popular

126 The Century of Women

literature; Enlightenment precepts; and, significantly, women's lived experience. Representations of marriage often embody the conventional wisdom, and treat marriage as the ideal state for women, but the occasional unorthodox depiction deconstructs the fairy-tale of marital bliss. The deceitful tactics men use to ruin gullible women are the subject of an article entitled 'What Is That Quality Essential for a Happy Marriage?' ('Qual e la qualita piu propria a rendere felice un matrimonio').72 Its author advises women to distrust their suitors' appearances and affectations, and to be especially wary of the 'reformed' libertines too often idealized in romantic novels. Describing the ideal husband in surprisingly unheroic terms, the author asserts that, above all, he must demonstrate 'goodness of heart' ('bonta del cuore'), which reveals itself in his kind treatment of those in his charge. But an inverse representation of the masculine paragon emerges from a highly ironic article, 'On Respect and the Modern Spirit' ('Delia riverenza e dello spirito moderno'). Here, the ideal man is defined not by the generosity of his heart, but by the size of his purse. The article concludes with a chart that explicitly correlates a man's virtue with his wealth: 1,000 Scudi make a man slightly better than a beast. 6,000 Scudi render his spirit detectable. 12,000 Scudi begin to purify his spirit. 30,000 Scudi merit the title of Man of Esprit. 50,000 Scudi indicate a somewhat superior spirit. 100,000 Scudi make for a grand spirit ...73

Although the articles present sharply contrasted versions of husbandly virtue, both reflect the expanding purview of consumer culture when they treat marriage as a site of commodity exchange. In contrast to customary conceptions of marriage as a transaction between men for the exchange of women, however, here women are the consumers, the discerning patrons who want good value for their investment. In effect, Donna galante functions as a shoppers' guide - in the first example, for those seeking an emotionally fruitful union, and in the second, for those seeking an economically fruitful one. But these two articles should not suggest that the misogynist model has been supplanted by an egalitarian paradigm of modern human exchange. Indeed, as another article makes plain, women's new authority in the sphere of intimate human relations remains primarily at the level of abstraction.

Counter-Discourse 127 Ironically titled The Exceptional Couple' ('Gli sposi singolarissimi'), the article subverts the conventional love story by showing the dissolution of an apparently ideal marital union. The tale begins as a typical romance - she is young, beautiful, and cultivated in keeping with her noble lineage; he, a worldly aristocrat, offers her his fortune and his love. But the fairy-tale union abruptly falls apart, underlining woman's traditional function as man's chattel: 'By his fate the husband became one of those for whom the fair sex has but one merit, and who consider their wives on par with a new piece of furniture, losing interest in her as soon as she no longer seems such. Having nearly come to the end of the first month since their union, all of the passions of the Cavaliere left him with nothing but coldness for his wife, followed immediately by disgust.'74 The comparison of the young bride to a piece of furniture is striking in its lack of ambiguity. Nonetheless, the husband's changeability and the ensuing description of the wife's futile attempts to please him articulate an essentially female perspective, and serve as a fierce critique of women's predicament in a man's world. Although the female protagonist in this story is mute and wholly subjugated to an absolute and inconstant masculine desire, the tale arms its female readers against the seduction of the romance, whether literal or fictional. The feminocentric venue of the women's magazine gives women social and economic agency - in a word, choice - pervasively denied them in the real world. At the same time, if more obliquely, this story, too, informs the female consumer in her purchase of those contemporary cultural constructs that would define her. Masking

The inherent and universal cultural and social value that the Republic of Letters attributed to the written text was necessarily undermined by the expedient and discontinuous discourse of the women's magazine. Maleauthored Enlightenment texts followed an unwavering narrative line centred on the education and duties of the enlightened citizen of the modern world and used a variety of literary styles and genres, from the fable to the editorial and the dialogue to the apologia, to address issues as varied as the history of coffee and the merits of Goldoni's theatre.75 In contrast, the women's magazine, with its indifference to ideological coherence, eschewed ideal protagonists and unifying linear narratives. Its underlying ideology, if any, was the denial of authenticity, the very quality most central to Enlightenment discourse. In the pages of the

128 The Century of Women

women's magazine all signs, but especially signs affiliated with fashion and femininity, ultimately collapsed, and were shown to be arbitrary and essentially situational. Like the female subjects represented in the women's magazine, words possessed only a precarious and accidental value bound by the arbitrary, relational parameters of time and space. Yet, I do not wish to imply here that the women's magazine of the Italian Settecento provides its readers the tools to be self-determining. The women's magazine did not issue calls for open revolt against androcentric social control, or even explicitly deconstruct contemporary notions of femininity. As the principal actors, the prime donne, in the theatre of social exchange, the female subjects of the women's magazine attain authority through their willingness to conform to the changing roles and mutating trends fashion decreed. As Roland Barthes observed in The Fashion System, 'Fashion is a rapid succession of absolute sites,'76 and the eighteenth-century Italian women's magazines literally designated and circulated these sites. As in the detailed and prescriptive colour fashion engravings already discussed, women were allowed a tightly circumscribed selection of prevailing paradigms of femininity from which to construct their public identities. While not an emancipatory discourse, the women's magazine did disclose the paradigmatic function and construction of femininity, and treat femininity as performance as opposed to a set of essential, feminine attributes. The agency women derived from their emulation of these paradigms of femininity was based on a species of deception, that of the masquerade - a fact that was both implied and explicitly articulated within the magazines themselves. Did the masks of femininity prescribed by the women's magazine serve to erase or surreptitiously to authorize the female subject? I maintain that they did both. The women's magazine advocated what Pamela Caughie has called a 'praxis of passing': the performance of an ascribed identity that simultaneously obscured the female subject and facilitated her social agency and even her resistance.77 The ideological conflicts manifest in the editor's 'Justification,' which opens Donna galante, and throughout its representations of 'Moda' and of marriage underlie its construction of femininity. Donna galante endeavours to empower women by teaching them absolute conformity to a conventional paradigm of femininity predicated on male authority and desire explicitly. In the women's magazine, femininity in its various forms, subtly contrived and artificially magnified, is the only tool by which women may influence their destinies. The journal explicitly and

Counter-Discourse 129 implicitly commands women to veil themselves in the myth and mystery of femininity in order to master their identities and thus their circumstances and relationships, particularly those with men. The genre circumscribes and develops a feminine paradigm and meticulously prescribes all the tangible and intangible details required to realize that ideal. At the same time, it demystifies that ideal, by breaking it down into its component parts - dress, demeanour, and expression - so that it may be more easily simulated by a compliant female public. In its attempt to mediate the most minuscule details of appearance, dress, bearing, speech, and self-expression in order to transform the individual woman into a facsimile of the feminine ideal, the women's journal can be seen as, preeminently, a primer for social masking. A mask both conceals and controls identity. It provides the freedom of anonymity, giving the wearer moral impunity; but it also restricts selfexpression by controlling the way the wearer will be perceived by others. In her study of organized masquerades during this same period in England, Terry Castle describes the social and psychological effects of masking, calling the mask 'a kind of stylized evasion - a formal sign of 7R resistance to full human exchange. If we substitute 'femininity' for 'mask' in that sentence, the meaning remains the same. Femininity, the socially constructed mask of sexual difference, mediates women's selfrepresentation and establishes the rules and boundaries that control their engagement with and reception by the world. The expansive and heightened influence of the mask during the age should be seen as an aspect of the extensive regulation of public deportment.79 The women's magazine contributes importantly to the acceptance of these conventions and reveals the unmistakable correlation between the carnival mask and the mask of femininity. Each mediates the public representation of the self, although they possess antithetical social functions. To the degree that the carnival mask serves to subvert the established social order and conventional codes of human interaction, the mask of femininity confirms and reinforces the approved social structures ordained by the dominant class. As the European centre of the 'perpetual Carnival,' Venice is an exemplary site for analysing of the function of the mask in the eighteenth-century project of socialization. According to Bakhtin's seminal study of the tradition of folk humour, Rabelais and His World,80 carnival forms suffered a transformation, during the eighteenth century, into more conventional vehicles of social interaction than they had been. In his view, the period saw the repression of the profane hilarity and trans-

130 The Century of Women

gressive spirit associated with the Carnival in previous centuries: 'The carnival spirit with its freedom, its Utopian character oriented toward the future, was gradually transformed into a mere holiday mood.'81 Nonetheless, as Danilo Reato's study of the history of the Carnival in Venice during the eighteenth century, Storia del Carnevale di Venezia (History of the Venetian Carnival), makes clear, the practice of masking permeated the public arena and received official sanction from the state. It also extended well beyond the limited Carnival period: 'The mask in Venice ... was tolerated for many months of the year. To this, in part, is owed the idea of a Carnival without end.'82 Masking was officially permitted during most religious holidays, at the coronation of the Doge, during the visits of dignitaries, at the theatre, and at official banquets. It was commonly practised at balls, in the game rooms of the Ridotti, at coffee houses, salons, academic assemblies, and even by the police when they worked undercover. Reato's revealing list of the laws regulating masking in eighteenth-century Venice illustrates the extent to which the practice had become an integral and even requisite part of public life. A sumptuary law enacted on 20 December 1776, indeed, even made masking obligatory for any woman attending the theatre: 'Let it not be permitted that ladies and other women of civil and honest condition enter the theatre except in masks, that is, with the tabaro bauta.'8^ Ironically, the age that had witnessed Goldoni's reform of the Italian theatre, with its unmasking and fleshing out of the stock characters of the Commedia dell'arte, made masking an integral part of the everyday world of human interaction. According to Reato, the influence of the carnival masquerade extended to all of the decorous, ceremonial, and rational spheres of social exchange: 'there do not exist distinctions of kind between actors and spectators, in fact, there is no need for an ideal stage ... every space is functional, and because there are no spatial restrictions, there are thus neither rules nor laws.'84 The elaborate and consciously affected dress and behaviour prescribed to women by women's magazines like Donna galante must be considered an aspect of this pervasive commingling of formally contrived identities with the self, and as a fusion of illusion and reality characteristic of the age. Donning the mask of femininity plays a complicated and ambiguous role in the lives of eighteenth-century women. It diminishes the risk of self-determination by providing a clear, ready-made identity. But femininity is also an obligatory veil for women for which there are no sanctioned alternatives, and beneath the mask always lurks the chaos of women's repressed identities, individualities, and unrecognized desires.

Counter-Discourse

131

In her article 'Female Grotesques: Carnival and Theory,' Mary Russo succinctly describes the essential relationship between masking and femininity: 'femininity is a mask which masks nonidentity.'85 In this regard, the Italian journals' instruction in the art of masking is explicit. The fashion illustrations in Donna galante depict living, albeit flawless, women wearing costumes appropriate to the scenes in which they have been cast, not disconnected, flat pieces of clothing. Apparel and fashion accessories thus serve to demarcate women's feminine person ae. Significantly, a marked conspiratorial tone characterizes many of the articles that deal with the slippery virtue of femininity and, surprisingly, clear distinction is made in the journal between abstract notions of femininity and women's actual natures, between the image and the self. Donna galante can strike the modern reader as acutely cynical precisely because it acknowledges and advises its readers to exploit the fantasy of femininity - and presupposes its readers' complicity. For example, the journal consistently treats feminine weakness as a fundamental way for women to achieve power and control. In the article 'The Offences of Lovers' ('Offese delle amanti'), the author tells women how to manipulate and punish an offending lover by feigning delicacy and infirmity. The author rejects all exhibitions of real weakness. Debilitating illness and frailty are humiliating defects to be concealed by the lady, yet, when artfully simulated in order to realize a self-serving end, weakness wins approval as a singular feminine strength: 'Swooning and convulsions are defects; they are bad when they are sincere. Why pay homage to women of esprit for their defects? One does not disapprove of a feigned swoon, but only in extremely relevant and decisive cases. In important affairs, one has to try everything.'86 The author makes no attempt to hide the pretence and, indeed, clearly assumes that the women reading the article are already proficient at manipulating men by affecting those weaknesses consistent with the traditional constructions of femininity. Women's power, here and throughout Donna galante, is firmly predicated on their ability to conceal their true nature and intentions behind a mask of feminine inferiority. The unique pedagogy of the women's magazine indeed hinges on the women's apparent acceptance of male ascendancy; it is clearly understood that power will be accorded only to those women who construct themselves as inferior to men. This is perhaps best expressed in the first line of an article ironically entitled 'Articolo sensibile' ('Sensitive Article') where the author candidly declares that women's circumstances

132 The Century of Women

and self-interest compel them to exploit their feminine weaknesses: 'Weakness is rightly of the fair sex; everyone knows this. A woman understands that it is unfortunately in her interest to appear a delicate being.'87 Significantly, 'weakness' is described here as a property women possess and over which they have supreme authority. Nowhere in these journals are women directed to challenge or to change their roles or the female condition. The most overtly proto-feminist article to appear in the journal, 'Brief Observation on the Fair Sex' ('Breve osservazione sul bel sesso'), celebrates eminent women, from the Amazons to Maria Theresa and Catherine the Great, but laments the weakness and subordination of the mass of contemporary women. Given the reference to contemporary female sovereigns, the last lines of the article express a paradoxical longing for what might have been had women attained power: 'If we had made the laws, things would have had looked differently. We would be affixed to the thrones, we would judge men, and perhaps the world would not fare so badly.'88 Ultimately, the women's journal advises its readers to exploit their subordinate status in order to attain their desired ends rather than to challenge overtly their subjugation to men and to established gender roles. The genre advocates a 'praxis of passing' that both erases and surreptitiously authorizes the female subject. As Pamela Caughie has eloquently observed, '"passing" names something that does not exist or for which a literal term cannot be substituted.'89 And herein lies the failure — and the subversive power — of the eighteenth-century Italian women's magazine. It assigns its female readers roles behind which there is only emptiness, a suffocating weight of ontological lack. The mask of femininity marks women as non-subjects, as objects meant to satisfy the needs of the dominant culture and whose subordination will sustain the subject position of men. Yet, at the same time, the insistence upon the performativity of femininity, the explicit and implicit representation of the feminine identity as masque, as costume, as burlesque, paradoxically exposes it as cultural fiction. Woman is instructed to act as confidence artist; she is told to seize power surreptitiously by consciously fulfilling and exploiting her (male) dupe's expectations, but in doing so she raises her own consciousness of the constructedness and essential instability of gender identities. By diminishing the authenticity of the feminine, the masculine, too, is shown to be made up and put on.

Conclusion

In 1797, Carolina Lattanzi, who later became an editor of the Milanese women's magazine Corriere delle Dame,1 faced the Academy of Public Instruction in Mantua to denounce 'The Slavery of Women' on the basis of post-revolutionary ideals: Brother Citizens, if you want to break the chains of kings, we too want to break our chains ... If men do not want to be slaves to one tyrant, even more do we not want to be the slaves of thousands. You hate one despot; we detest the aristocracy of men, under which we have suffered for so many centuries. And what! Are women somehow unfit to share with you the same rights and responsibilities? Are they not capable of the most magnanimous and decisive actions? ... If the resistance to oppression is a [human] right, men cannot deny it to us ... The day of redemption is coming for my sex as well, and then with more reason will you rightly call us the dearest part of humankind. 2

Lattanzi's radical protest, spoken during the first year of the Cisapline Republic and dedicated to 'citizen' Rose Josephine Bonaparte, 'la chere moitie du Liberateur de notre pays,' conveyed barely a trace of the dispassionate rhetoric, the analytic method, and the utilitarian aspirations characteristic of the formal controversy about women at the height of the Italian Enlightenment during the period from the 1760s through the 1780s. Her unflinching demand for women's equal juridical rights as citizens of the modern republican state represents a far bolder and more modern challenge to the misogynist tradition than the proposals for the formal education of women decorously argued by Aretafila Savini De' Rossi and Diamante Medaglia Faini. Her assertion of women's equal civil

134 The Century of Women

status and her call for political action to enfranchise female citizens places her fully within the feminist political tradition. Yet Lattanzi's defence of women, like those of her predecessors from earlier in the century, was shaped by distinct historical and cultural circumstance: the tumultuous and expectant political atmosphere following the French Revolution and Napoleon's overthrow of the forces of the ancien regime in Italy (1796), when politics overran the piazza. This new, albeit brief, era of political militancy witnessed women's active participation in constitutional assemblies, as well as the unprecedented rise, especially in the northern Italian states, of women's political clubs alongside patriotic male societies. Lattanzi, like her republican sisters Benoit Touzetti,3 Anna Vadori,4 'Cittadina' Mattei,5 and many anonymous others,6 capitalized on the radical political environment and the consequent licence granted women to champion the political emancipation of her sex. Women's daring presence in the public arena at the close of the century would not have been possible, however, without the subtler and more ambiguous presence of women as speaking subjects and principal objects of Italian Enlightenment discourse in which a nascent rationale for women's political enfranchisement may be discerned, especially in arguments for their formal education and their public utility. This study has sought to trace the contours of that presence and to define its consequences for Italian Enlightenment discursive practices. From women's admission into the noble ranks and the solemn polemics of the academy to their prominence as a leitmotif of Italian Enlightenment and 'new' scientific and philosophical discourse; from their direct, authoritative engagement in the formal controversy about women, to their solicitation and spectacular portrayal in the women's magazine, they occupied an unprecedented, critical, and unmistakably equivocal position in the realm of public discourse. Just as Carolina Lattanzi's revolutionary oration represents a new discursive tradition of militant feminist political protest that arose at the close of the eighteenth century, so too the debate about women's education in 1723 by the Academy of the Ricovrati, with which this study began, illustrates the shift away from the conventions of the querelle des femmes at the dawn of the Italian Enlightenment, when new relevance and authority were accorded women in the arena of elite academic exchange. The Ricovrati debate, waged in 1723 and revised in its published version of 1729 to include the divergent views of women, epitomizes the broad awakening to women's presence that occurred during the Settecento among the progressive intellectual class. It was an anx-

Conclusion 135 ious, partial awakening precipitated both by the illuministis recognition of women's practical influence on the health and welfare of modern society and the state and, more important, by women's insistence on being present. As the Prince of the Ricovrati, Antonio Vallisneri, recounted, the Paduan academicians took up the question of women's education in direct response to the exhortations of their female compatriots. The debate would serve, he maintained, as an explicit sign of the Academy's modern world-view and its commitment to practical, socially effective academic inquiry. In contrast to the tracts and catalogues of the traditional querelle des femmes, steeped in Church doctrine and so often fixed on those ideal feminine virtues of chastity, silence, and obedience,8 the Ricovrati considered the 'woman question' an essentially secular matter. For them, as for the illuministi in general living in 'so admirable and shrewd a century' in which 'nothing is held to be true that clear reason aligned with experience does not make manifest,'9 the crux of the controversy was no longer whether women were essentially good or evil, inferior or superior, but rather whether women, by their conduct and their social, moral, and intellectual formation, were useful for the common good and for the 'governments of every well-regulated Republic.'10 Not only did the Ricovrati reconceive the purpose and scope of the controversy about women, notwithstanding their reiteration of misogynist arguments and rhetorical structures standard to the querelle, they also broke with convention by acknowledging the 'other viewpoint' and the 'other voice' of women. They explicitly spoke to those women in attendance 'in marvellous numbers' at the debate, and included in the 1729 published version of the debate both retaliatory tracts in defence of women's education written by learned women and diverse apologies for the misogynist opinions expressed in the debate. By opening the dispute to the divergent views of their female public, the Ricovrati upset an ensconced tradition among accademid engaged in the querelle of silencing women by simultaneously exalting silence as a consummate feminine virtue and by speaking on women's behalf.11 This tradition is vividly immortalized in book 3 of Baldassarre Castiglione's II libra del cortigiano (1528),12 which depicts a discussion among courtiers, in the presence of aristocratic women, of the ideal attributes of the court lady when, as Valeria Finucci eloquently observes, 'Positioned as the subject of a discourse but not as the speaking "I," the court lady finds herself presiding mutely over the circuitous demise of her subjectivity.'13 While women were not permitted to intervene directly in the 1723 debate,

136 The Century of Women

within the narrow confines of the 1729 text they addressed the their opponents and vocalized their defence. As the Ricovrati debate makes manifest, revisions to the outmoded querelle were pressured from within during the Settecento by the selfconscious desire of the academicians to present a modern scientific figure adherent to objective, rational analysis in their treatment of this and all of the 'old questions.' And revisions were also pressured from without. This was the age, according to Vallisneri, when 'everything is put to the test with disinterested and dispassionate reason,'14 an age in which the Academy opened its discourse to the cultural and social changes taking place beyond its protective walls - in this case, changes involving women. The inclusion of Aretafila Savini De' Rossi's formal rebuttal to the Ricovrati disputation as well as her stinging footnotes to Volpi's argument against the education of women in the 1729 publication of the debate best illustrates the increased validity accorded women in the arena of intellectual exchange. With the appearance of her apology for women's education in the definitive published version of the debate, Savini De' Rossi occupies a position complementary to that of the grave academicians she disputes. Along with Maria Gaetana Agnesi, whose defence of woman also appeared in the 1729 text, she stands on equal footing with the Ricovrati as a citizen of the Republic of Letters and as a fellow participant in the formal controversy about women. Savini De' Rossi justifies her place among the academicians by skilfully adopting the critical method sanctioned by the modern academy. She expresses herself in the tono media appropriate to academic disputation and systematically invalidates her opponents' arguments by exposing them as illogical or unsubstantiated. Moreover, Savini De' Rossi conjoins in her defence the contemporary meanings of 'experience' ('esperienza') both as the personal events that make up the life of an individual or group and as empirical scientific proof, by substantiating her claims on the basis of the 'facts' of women's lives. The critical method, narrow scope, and official validation of Savini De' Rossi's defence sharply distinguish her from her fifteenth- and sixteenth-century precursors. As a relative insider, or at least an honoured guest, of the formal academic dispute about women waged by the Ricovrati, she has no need to conjure a separate Amazonian refuge for women, in the manner of Moderata Fonte, where women will be safe from chronic male abuse and extolled rather than scorned for their feminine qualities.15 She defends the formal education of women pri-

Conclusion 137 marily on the basis of practical, well-reasoned arguments drawn from the everyday life of the family and from contemporary exempla, including women scholars, poets, and patrons - a far cry from Christine de Pizan's allegorical Book of the City of Ladies (1405), which constructs a vast universal history of women to counter the authoritative misogynist catalogues and historical narratives prevalent in her day.16 Savini De' Rossi is not compelled, as was Lucrezia Marinella in her defence of women's virtue written in 1600, to rebut the vicious misogynist diatribes listing all manner of feminine vice with her own catalogue (thirty-five chapters) of the depravities of the male sex.17 She need not establish her Christian virtue and her exhaustive knowledge of scripture in the manner of her precursor Arcangela Tarabotti (1604-1652), by uncovering the heretical claims made by her opponent.18 Savini De' Rossi's task is limited to defending women's education against the arguments of a male opponent who explicitly acknowledges the eloquence and wisdom of her rebuttal, and who is openly ambivalent, apologetic even, for his antifeminist position. The restraint of her argument parallels her discursive authority within the dispute. While the Ricovrati debate illustrates the transformative effect of Enlightenment ethics and women's rising public prominence on the academic discourse about women of the Settecento, Antonio Conti's essay on women's essential inferiority reflects, by contrast, the renewal during the period of the misogynist tradition in the realm of the 'new' sciences. Refurbished by the relentless authority of epistemological science and philosophy, and translated into the scientific terms now used to describe the fabric of the human body, ancient humoralism and the Aristotelian male principle return in Conti's and other 'modern' arguments to once again define the female sex as universally cold, damp, and defective. Conti's materialist argument epitomizes the eighteenthcentury misogynist discourse that would master women's most essential, flesh and blood presence. Plunging to the depths of the anatomized female body, Coriti pursues the universal, material root of women's natural deficiency. He exploits a commanding 'rhetoric of bodily knowledge'19 that construes female inferiority and women's subjugation by men as underlying principles of the material cosmos. Women's actual corporeal presence signifies for Conti and like-minded contemporary philosophers an infinitely divisible and infinitely extensible substantiation of women's primary difference. Diamante Medaglia Faini counters with her own palpable presence before her fellow accademici of the Unanimi of Said the scientific misog-

138 The Century of Women

yny exemplified by Antonio Conti and literally embodies the new authority of learned women at the height of the Italian Enlightenment. Medaglia Faini's 1763 oration defending women's access to the truths of the 'new science and philosophy' marks women's ascent in the Academy and in the sphere of intellectual discourse generally. In contrast to the circumstances governing Aretafila Savini De' Rossi's apology thirty years earlier, the academy no longer denotes a site of entrenched male privilege to which women come by invitation only. Medaglia Faini argues from inside the academy and in the rational and dispassionate mode of a modern scientist for women's formal schooling, especially in mathematics and the natural sciences. Indeed, she makes room in women's lives for this new science-based curriculum by sweeping aside their traditional training in poetry. However, while Medaglia Faini exemplifies the great distances traversed by women in the sphere of intellectual exchange over the course of the eighteenth century in Italy, she also illustrates the great distances women had yet to go. In building her unorthodox apology for women's scientific education on traditional notions of women as intellectually and morally inferior, Medaglia Faini reveals the limits of women's authoritative presence and resistance within the sphere of academic exchange. Their gains in the literary republic often came at the cost of countenancing women's subaltern status. The 'Defence of Women' in // Caffeis the consummate expression of the illuministfs concepts and underlying ambivalence about women and their place and purpose in an enlightened society. Focusing with express impartiality on the collective welfare, the caffettisti deliberately look past the customs and myths that had established women's essential inferiority to envision instead women's essential relevance - social, economic, intellectual, and moral — for the enlightened state and the general public good. They view the ignorance and moral failings ascribed to contemporary women as the effects of women's perennial abuse by men, and they see the education of women as a benefit to the individual and the state. They even sanction women's limited presence in the public marketplace as an economic advantage for the family and the state. Yet, the caffettisti are no less agitated than their Paduan forerunners, the Ricovrati, by women's escalating intrusion into public arenas traditionally exclusive to men. They seek to restrain this disorderly female presence in the public arena by collapsing into a single ideal paradigm the enlightened female citizen and the maternal guardian of hearth and home.

Conclusion

139

In diametric opposition to the redomesticated feminine ideal promoted by Italian Enlightenment thinkers, the eighteenth-century Italian women's magazine celebrates and seeks to enhance women's expanding public presence. As La donna galante ed erudita has served to demonstrate, this feminocentric genre shows women standing in all of their finery at the centre of le monde. Even when depicted within the intimate confines of the home, the female protagonists of fashion prints and fictional essays see and are seen by the world. The women's magazine represents women as primary actors in the modern social sphere. It assigns its female public perpetually shifting feminine roles and costumes scripted by 'Moda' with the promise that successful performance is a means to power and social prestige. This marginalized genre of eighteenth-century Italian print media signifies a new, precariously protofeminist mode of discourse. Antithetical to the ideals of the Enlightenment Republic of Letters, it espouses duplicity, superficiality, self-promotion, inconstancy, and conspicuous consumption. Although the women's magazine prescribes to its readers absolute conformity to dominant constructions of femininity, paradigms invariably founded on masculine desire, this practice of acquiescence paradoxically represents for women a means of social agency. By wilfully simulating model feminine attributes, women surreptitiously control their public representation and, ideally, their circumstances in the world. The difference between women's subjugation and freedom thus becomes in the pages of the women's magazine a question of women's presence of mind. Women came into view in the public arena and the public discourse of the Italian Settecento as they had in no previous age. Yet, the character and scope of women's presence during 'The Century of Women' which has only recently begun to be understood, warrants much further research and analysis. In the hope that this study will be taken up, refined, and revised by others, I wish to identify some of the most pressing questions, those that obviously concern women's roles and condition during the age. Extensive archival research is needed, for example, to clarify and compare women's roles in the myriad scientific and literary academies of the Italian Settecento, and how these roles evolved over time. In addition to women's sway in official academic institutions, women's extensive unofficial authority as patrons and leaders of academic salons merits scrutiny for its effect on the Republic of Letters, and the broad social and discursive practices of the period. Among the most vexing questions is that of the actual education of women. While

140 The Century of Women

something is known about the formal instruction of upper-class Italian women, the kind and extent of education accorded middle- and lowerclass women in the various regions of Italy remain obscure. Regional differences with respect to the public discourse by and about women also require more complete documentation and interpretation. This study has focused on those regions for which primary and secondary documentation is most readily available. Archival research is needed to uncover the nature of the formal controversy about women throughout the peninsula, especially in the south. Finally, although several important biographical studies of eighteenth-century Italian women writers are currently underway, more scholarly attention needs to be paid to the cultural and literary influence of the Settecento's numerous and wellread women playwrights, novelists, poets, translators, journalists, and essayists.

Notes

Introduction 1 Chiari's epithet is found in Ilsecolo corrente (1783). On this epithet and certain of its cultural and literary implications, see Pamela Stewart, 'Le Femmes Savantes nelle Commedie del Goldoni,' in Yearbook of Italian Studies 1 (1988): 19-42.1 wish to acknowledge Pamela Stewart for providing information about this source. 2 My interpretation of the Italian Enlightenment Republic of Letters has been greatly influenced by Dena Goodman's study of the French Enlightenment in The Republic of Letters: A Cultural History of the French Enlightenment (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994). Italy of the Settecento was, of course, marked by deep political disunity not found in France, and therefore its Enlightenment Republic of Letters must be understood as evolving variously throughout the peninsula where, as Piero Del Negro has observed, 'independent monarchs were living side-by-side with foreign rulers, aristocratic republics, and even a theocracy, the Papal state.' See 'Italia,' in L'llluminismo: Dizionario Stonco, ed. Vincenzo Ferrone and Daniel Roche (Rome: Editori Laterza, 1998), 433. 3 Natalie Zemon Davis and Arlette Farge, 'Women as Historical Actors,' in A History of Women: Renaissance and Enlightenment Paradoxes, ed. Natalie Davis and Arlette Farge (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, Belknap Press, 1993), 1. 4 By illuministi I intend men of culture (women were, to some degree, always foreigners in the ideal Republic of Letters of the Illuminismo), variously joined in extending the method and tenets of the 'new' empirical science and philosophy to the scope of human experience, from the operations of the mind and body, to society, culture, and politics, for the purposes of rational critique and reform. This 'project' burgeoned early in the century with

142 Notes to pages 4-5 the writings of Muratori, C. Galiani, Conti, and others, culminating during the I760s-80s in the work of, among many others, the caffettisti, Genovesi, and Filangieri. 5 Melchiorre Delfico, 'Elogio del Marchese Grimaldi,' in Opere complete di Melchiorre Delfico, ed. Giacinto Panella and Luigi Savorini (Teramo: Editore Fabbri, 1901-4), 3:244: 'Se la virtu non e posta in azione, se le grandi idee non diventano di qualche uso, se la fiaccola s'asconde sotto il moggio, non solo si e di lesa umanita, colpa che meriterrebbe maggior castigo che il disprezzo e 1'oblio.' 6 See Mark 4:21 and parallels in Matthew 5:51, Luke 8:16, and John 11:33. 7 On Boccaccio's representation of women in this text, see Constance Jordan, 'Boccaccio's In-famous Women: Gender and Civic Virtue in the De mulieribus Claris,' in Ambiguous Realities: Women in the Middle Ages and Renaissance (Detroit: Wayne State University, 1987), 25-47. 8 Ruth Kelso, Doctrine far the Lady of the Renaissance (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1956); Marc Angenot, Les champions desfemmes (Montreal: Les Presses de 1'Universite de Quebec, 1977); Joan Kelly, 'Did Women Have a Renaissance?' in Women, History and Theory, The Essays of Joan Kelly, ed. Catharine R. Stimpson (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), 19-50; Linda Woodbridge, Women and the English Renaissance: Literature and the Nature of Womankind, 1540-1620 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1984). 9 Arcangela Tarabotti, Che le donne siano della spetie degli Huomini. Difesa deUe donne di Galerano Barcitotti [pseud] contra Horatio Plata (Nuremberg: Cherchenberger, 1651), a 3: 'E costume degli ingegni prosontuosi, e superbi il credere di giungere all'altissimo monte della Fama coll'ostentationi di quelle cose, che non havendo alcun fondamento, vengono sostentate dalle fragilissime basi de' Paradossi.' 10 Virginia Cox speaks of some fifty defences published in Italy between 1524 and 1632 in 'Moderata Fonte and The Worth of Women,' introduction to Moderata Fonte, The Worth of Women: Wherein Is Clearly Revealed Their Nobility and Their Superiority to Men, ed. and trans. Virginia Cox (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997), 12-13. 11 Cox, 'Moderata Fonte and The Worth of Women,' 15-16. 12 See especially Constance Jordan, Renaissance Feminism: Literary Texts and Political Models (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990); Albert Rabil, Jr, 'Agrippa and the Feminist Tradition: The Other Voice in Agrippa's Declamation on Women,' in Henricus Cornelius Agrippa, Declamation on the Nobility and Preeminence of the Female Sex, ed. and trans. Albert Rabil, Jr (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 3-34; Margaret L. King, Women of the Renaissance (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991); Margaret L. King and Albert Rabil, Jr, Her Immaculate Hand: Selected Works by and about the Women Humanists of

Notes to pages 5-8

13

14

15 16 17 18 19

20

21 22 23 24 25

26 27 28

143

Quattrocento Italy (Binghamton, NY: Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 1983); Margaret L. King, 'Book-Lined Cells: Women and Humanism in the Early Italian Renaissance,' in Beyond Their Sex: Learned Women of the European Past, ed. Patricia Labalme (New York: New York University Press, 1980), 66-90; Pamela Joseph Benson, The Invention of the Renaissance Woman: The Challenge of Female Independence in the Literature and Thought of Italy and England (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992). On the conventional traits of this discourse, see especially the 'Introduction' and first chapter, 'The Terms of the Debate,' in Jordan, Renaissance Feminism, 1-64. Ferdinando Galiani, Croquis d'un dialogue sur les femmes [1772] in Opere diFerdinando Galiani, ed. Furio Diaz and Luciano Guerci, vol 6 of Illuministi Italtani (Milan: Riccardo Ricciardi, 1975), 613-42. Furio Diaz, 'Introduzione,' in Opere di Ferdinando Galiani, Ix. Antoine Leonard Thomas, Essai sur le caractere, les maeurs et I'esprit des femmes dans les differens siecles (Paris: Chez Moutard, 1772). Franco Fido, 'Italian Contributions to the Eighteenth-Century Debate on Women,' Annali d'ltalianistica: Women's Voices in Italian Literature1! (1989), 219. Kelso, Doctrine, 5. Diunilgo Valdecio, Loscogliodell'umanitd, ossiaAwertimentosalutareallagioventu per cautelarsi contro le male qualitd delle donne cattive. Operetta lepido-critica-poeticamorale di Diunilgo Valdecio, pastor arcade, 2nd edition (Venice: Zatta, 1779). On this text see Luciano Guerci, La sposa obbediente. Donna e matrimonio nella discussione dell'Italia del Settecento (Turin: Tirrenia Stampatori, 1988), 140-1. Marchesa di Sanival [pseud.], La Difesa delle Donne o sia risposta apologetica al libro detto Lo Scoglio dell'Umanitd di Diunilgo Valdecio (Venice: Pietro Savioni, 1987). Pierdomenico Soresi, Saggio sopra la necessitd e lafacilitd di ammaestrare lefanciulle (Milan: Federico Agnelli, 1774), 32, 38. Melchiorre Delfico, Saggio filosofico sul matrimonio (Teramo, 1774), 128. Saverio Bettinelli, 'Lettere sui pregi delle donne,' in Opere edite e inedite in prosa ed in versi (Venice: Adolfo Cesare, 1799-1801), 13:261-2. Soresi, Saggio sopra la necessitd, 108. Carlo Sebastiano Franci, 'Difesa delle donne,' in II Caffe, 1764-1766, ed. Gianni Francioni and Sergio Romagnoli (Turin: Bollati Boringhieri, 1993), 245-56. Cesare Beccaria, 'Dello spirito di famiglia,' in Dei delitti edellepene [1764], ed. Franco Venturi (Milan: Mondadori, 1991), 68-70. On this generational battle see Franco Venturi, Settecento riformatore: Da Muratori a Beccaria (Turin: Giulio Einaudi, 1969), 645-747. Del Grille Borromeo helped found the Accademia Scientifica dei Vigilant!

144 Notes to pages 8-9

29

30 31

32

33

34

35

while Saibante Vanetti founded with her husband the Accademia degli Agiati of Rovereto. On Bassi see Paula Findlen, 'Science as a Career in Enlightenment Italy: The Strategies of Laura Bassi,' Isis 84 (1993): 441-69; Alberto Elena, 'In lode della filosofessa di Bologna: An Introduction to Laura Bassi,' Isis 82 (1991): 51018; and Elio Meli, 'Laura Bassi Verati: Ridiscussioni e nuovi spunti,' in Alma Mater Studiorum: La presenzafemminile dal XVIII al XX secolo (Bologna: CLUEB Editrice, 1988), 71-9. On Agnesi see Giovanna Tilche, Maria Gaetana Agnesi (Milan: Rizzoli, 1984). On Roccati see Findlen, 'A Forgotten Newtonian: Women and Science in the Italian Provinces,' in The Sciences in Enlightened Europe, ed. William Clark and Jan Golinski (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), 313-49. On Morandi see Rebecca Messbarger, 'Waxing Poetic: Anna Morandi Manzolini's Anatomical Sculptures,' in Configurations 9:1 (2001): 65-97. On Tambroni see Renzo Tosi, 'Clotilde Tambroni e il classicismo tra Parma e Bologna alia fine del XVIII secolo,' in Alma Mater Studiorum, 119-34. On Amoretti, Del Brillo Borromeo, Saibante Vanetti, and other female intellectuals of the eighteenth century see Maria Bandini Buti, Poetesse e scrittrici. Enciclopedia biografica e bibliografica italiana, vol. 6 (Rome: EBBI, 1942); Ginevra Canonici Fachini, Prospetto biografico delk donne italiane rinomate in letteratura dal secolo decimoquarto fino a'giorni nostri (Venice: Tipografia di Alvisopoli, 1824); andjolanda de Blasi, Antologia delle scrittrici italiane (Florence: Nemi, 1931). Elisabetta Graziosi, 'Arcadia Femminile: Presenze e Modelli,' Filologia e critica 17 (1992): 321-58. Paola Giuli, 'Tracing a Sisterhood: Gorilla Olimpica as Corinne's Unacknowledged Alter Ego,' in The Novel's Seductions: Stael's Corinne in Critical Inquiry, ed. Karyne Samurlo (Lewisburg, Penn.: Bucknell University Press, 1999), 165-84. On Barbapiccola see Rebecca Messbarger, 'Barbapiccola, Giuseppa Eleonora (Eighteenth Century),' in The Feminist Encyclopedia of Italian Literature, ed. Rinaldina Russell (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1997), 27-9. On Ardinghelli see Paula Findlen, 'Translating the New Science: Women and the Circulation of Knowledge in Enlightenment Italy,' Configurations 2 (1995): 167-206. On Bergalli see Le Stanze Ritrovate: Antologia di Scrittrici Venete dal Quattrocento al Novecento, ed. Antonia Arslan, Adriana Chemello, and Gilberto Pizzamiglio (Venice: Eidos, 1991), 128-33. On Caminer Turra see Rita Unfer Lukoschik, Elisabetta Caminer Turra (17511796): Una letterata veneta verso I'Europa (Verona: Essedue, 1998); Catherine Sama, 'Caminer Turra, Elisabetta (1751-1796),' in Feminist Encyclopedia,

Notes to pages 9-11 145

36

37 38

39 40 41

42

37-9; and Catherine Sama, 'Becoming Visible: A Biography of Elisabetta Caminer Turra (1751-1796) during Her Formative Years,' forthcoming in 2002 in Studi Veneziani. For a concise overview of the contributions of Michiel, Bergalli Gozzi, and Caminer Turra see Paola Giuli's article on the 'Enlightenment' in Feminist Encyclopedia, 77-82. On Lemaitre, Mengazzi, Serbelloni, and Franco see Bandini Buti, Poetesse e scrittrici. Lukoschik, 'Elisabetta Caminer Turra (1751-1796): Una letterata veneta verso 1'Europa,' in Elisabetta Caminer Turra (1751-1796), 37. Other women journalists of note included Eleonora Pimentel Fonseca (1752-1799), director of the Jacobin periodical Monitore Neapolitan, and Caterina Cracas (1691-1771) director of the Roman periodical // Caracas. King and Rabil,Jr, Her Immaculate Hand, 28. The poignant description is from Margaret L. King's previously cited essay of the same title. The most eminent pre-Enlightenment female apologists for women in Italy included Moderata Fonte, Lucrezia Marinella, and Arcangela Tarabotti, each of whom wrote powerful proto-feminist tracts. See Fonte, The Worth of Women; on Fonte see Beatrice Collina, 'Moderata Fonte e II merito delle donne,' Annali d'ltalianistical (1989): 142-64; and Paola Malpezzi Price, 'A Woman's Discourse in the Italian Renaissance: Moderata Fonte's // merito delle donne,' Annali d'ltalianistica 7 (1989): 165-81. See Arcangela Tarabotti, Cheledonne siano della spezie degli uomini (London: Institute of Romance Studies, 1994). On Tarabotti see Francesca Medioli, 'L'inferno monacale' di Arcangela Tarabotti (Turin: Rosenberg and Sellier, 1989); Nancy Canepa, 'The Writing behind the Wall: Arcangela Tarabotti's Inferno monacaleand Cloistral Autobiography in the Seventeenth Century,' Forum Italicum 30:1 (Spring 1996): 1—23; Elissa Weaver, 'Suor Arcangela Tarabotti (1604—1652),' in Italian Women Writers: A Bio-Bibliographical Sourcebook, ed. Rinaldina Russell (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1994), 414-22. See Lucrezia Marinella, The Nobility and Excellence of Women and the Defects and Vices of Men, ed. and trans. Anne Dunhill (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999). See also Ginevra Conti Odorisio, Donna esocietd: Lucrezia Marinella e Arcangela Tarabotti (Rome: Bulzoni, 1979). Pietro Verri, Ricordi a miafiglia, in Manoscritto per Teresa, ed. Gennaro Barbarisi (Milan: Serra E Riva, 1983), 153: 'L'uomo, o per la camera delle armi, o per Fecclesiastica, o per le scienze, o per le cariche civili, ha il mezzo di forzare le dicerie popolari a tacere, e va da conquistatore sottomettendo 1'opinione. Ma la donna manca di queste risorse. Debole, gracile, e timida per sua natura, non ha per mezzi che la dolcezza, la placida bonta, le virtu del cuore.'

146 Notes to pages 12-19 43 Nancy Eraser's phrase in 'Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy,' in The Phantom Public Sphere, ed. Bruce Robbins (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993), 1-32. 44 Benson, The Invention of the Renaissance Woman, 3. 45 Giovann Antonio Volpi, ed., Discorsi Accademici di vari autori viventi intorno agli Studi delle Donne (Padua: Giovanni Manfre, 1729). 46 Paraphrase of Antonio Vallisneri, 'Introduzione,' in Discorsi Accademici, 2. 47 Aretafila Savini De' Rossi, 'Apologia in favore degli Studi delle Donne, contra il precedente Discorso del signer Gio. Antonio Volpi,' in Discorsi Accademici, 50-65. 48 For texts, see Antonio Conti, Scritti filosofici, ed. Nicola Badaloni (Naples: Casa Editrice Fulvio Rossi, 1972), 349-427. 49 Antonio Conti, Lettera a Perelle [1721] in Prose e poesie del signor abate Antonio Conti, patrizio veneto (Venice: Giambattista Pasquali, 1756), l:lxv-lxxv. 50 Diamante Medaglia Faini, 'Quali studi convengono alle donne,' in Versi e prose con altri componimenti di diversi autori e colla vita dett'autrice, ed. Giuseppe Pontara (Salo: Bartolomeo Righetti, 1774), 167-80. 51 Goodman, The Republic of Letters; see especially 1-135. 52 Gioseffa Cornaldi Caminer, La donna galante ed erudita. Giornale dedicate al bel sesso [1786-88], ed. Cesare De Michelis (Venice: Marsilio Editori, 1983). 53 Giovanni Niccolo Bandiera, Trattato degli studi dette Donne in due parti diviso. Opera d'un Accademico Intronato, 2 vols. (Venice: Francesco Pitteri, 1740). 54 Delfico, Saggio filosofico sul matrimonio.

55 Carol Pateman, The Sexual Contract (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988). 56 Delfico, Saggio filosofico sul matrimonio, 57. 57 Giulio Natali, 'Gli studii delle donne,' in IlSettecento (Milan: Casa Editrice Dr. Francesco Vallardi, 1929; 6th edition, 1964), 1:119-70. 58 Luciano Guerci, La discussione sulla donna nell'Italia del Settecento (Turin: Tirrenia Stampatori, 1987), and La sposa obbediente. 59 Natali, 'Gli studii delle donne.' 60 See Guerci's summary of his scholarly objectives in Discussione, 12-33. 61 Findlen has produced the largest body of scholarship in English on scientific women of the Settecento. Aside from the previously cited studies, two books of hers are forthcoming: Women and Science: Gender and the Pursuit of Knowledge since the Middle Ages (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press) and The Women Who Understood Newton: Laura Bassi and Her World (New York: Knopf, forthcoming). 62 See the articles on eighteenth-century Bolognese women intellectuals in part 2, 'Donna tra citta e studium nei secoli XVIII e XIX,' Alma Mater Studiorum, 69-156. See also notes 29-36 to this Introduction for more information about recent and forthcoming publications on this subject.

Notes to pages 19-23 147 63 Rebecca Messbarger, editor and translator with Paula Findlen, The Contest for Knowledge: Debates over Women's Learning in Enlightenment Italy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, forthcoming). 1: The Debate 1 Diego Valeri, L'Accademia dei Ricovrati Alias Accademia Patavina di Scienze LettereedArti (Padua: Sede dell'Accademia, 1987), 10. 2 Vincenzo Ferrone, The Intellectual Roots of the Italian Enlightenment: Newtonian Science, Religion, and Politics in the Early Eighteenth Century, trans. Sue Botherton (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1995), 106-13. 3 Valeri, L'Accademia dei Ricovrati, 12: 'Dovendosi prowedere un Regno di Governo di donna quale sara piu desiderabile di Donna dedita alle Armi o alle Lettere.' 4 The story of Elena Cornaro Piscopia is complex. The daughter of the ambitious procurator of San Marco, Giovanni Battista Cornaro Piscopia, she successfully defended her thesis in philosophy before twenty thousand citizens and dignitaries of the Church and state. However, immediately after granting this unprecedented degree, the rectors of the university issued a directive prohibiting the award of further degrees to women. The directive was supported by Elena's father, who wanted his daughter to be the first and only woman in Europe to hold a university degree. On Cornaro Piscopia see Marta Cavazza, 'Dottrici e lettrici dell'Universita di Bologna nel Settecento,' Annali di storia delle universitd italiane 1 (1997): 109-26. 5 Attilio Maggiolo, 'Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia e le altre donne aggregate all'Accademia Patavina dei Ricovrati,' Padova e la suaprovinda 24:11-12 (1978): 34-5. 6 Shortly after the founding of the Academic Francaise, when its members were debating whether or not to admit women, Gilles Menage, author of Historia mulierum philosopharum, wrote in a note that the induction of women by Paduan academies was cited to bolster arguments by advocates for women's admission in the Academic. Londa Schiebinger provides a translation of this note in The Mind Has No Sex? Women in the Origins of Modern Science (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1989), 22. 7 Maggiolo, 'Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia,' 34-5. 8 Valeri, L'Accademia dei Ricovrati, 13: 'Se porti piu vantaggio nel cuor delle donne, a chi le serve, il sofferire le loro amorose ingiurie o '1 risentirsene'; 'Se fosse piu lodevole il costume d'escludere le donne dal Governo come i Romani oppure d'ammetterle come i Greci.' 9 Valeri, L'Accademia dei Ricovrati, 13: 'Se ciascun uomo, a bene di se medesimo, debba innamorarsi o no.'

148 Notes to pages 23-6 10 Linda Woodbridge provides a detailed historical and critical analysis of the literary genre she calls the 'formal controversy about women' as it developed up to and during the English Renaissance in Women and the English Renaissance: Literature and the Nature of Womankind 1540-1620 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1984). There she argues persuasively that the genre did not constitute a serious intellectual inquiry into the social function and nature of women and that by the sixteenth century it had become a conventional, tightly structured game that served mainly to showcase the discursive talent and originality of its male practitioners. Woodbridge's study provides a point of comparison for understanding the changes that took place in the formal controversy about women during the eighteenth century. Also see Joan Kelly, Women, History, and Theory: The Essays of Joan Kelly, ed. Catharine R. Stimpson (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), and Ruth Kelso, Doctrine for the Lady of the Renaissance (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1956). For a nuanced view of Italian 'pro-feminist' texts of the Renaissance see Pamela Joseph Benson, The Invention of the Renaissance Woman: The Challenge of Female Independence in the Literature and Thought of Italy and England (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992). 11 Lodovico Antonio Muratori, Carteggi con Ubaldini... Vannoni, vol. 44 of Edizione nazionale del carteggio di Locovico Antonio Muratori, ed. Michela L. Nichetti Panic (Florence: L.S. Olschki, 1978), 265-6.1 acknowledge Marco Callegari for indicating the existence of this letter. 12 Paraphrase of Rosi Braidotti, Patterns of Dissonance: A Study of Women in Contemporary Philosophy (New York: Routledge, 1991), 48. 13 Giornale delle adunanze, B, June 1723, Accademia De' Ricovrati, Padua, 273: 'Fattosi 1'apparecchio con solenne forma, si riempie la Sala di dame, che vi concorsero in numero maraviglioso.' 14 Giovann Antonio Volpi, 'Prefazione: Al Cortese e Dotto Lettore,' in Discorsi Accademici di vari autori viventi intorno agli Studi delle Donne (Padua: Giovanni Manfre, 1729),a8,v. 15 I am here paraphrasing the words of Biddy Martin, 'Feminism, Criticism, and Foucault,' in Feminism andFoucault: Reflections on Resistance, ed. Irene Diamond and Lee Quinby (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1988), 17. 16 Noted historian of the Settecento Giuseppe Ricuperati and his co-author Marina Roggero offer extensive analysis of the educational policies and reforms during the age in nearly every region of Italy in 'Education Policies in Eighteenth-Century Italy,' Studies in Voltaire and the Eighteenth-Century, vol. 167, Facets of Education in the Eighteenth Century, ed. James E. Leith (Oxford: Cheney and Sons, 1977), 223-69. However, the subject of women's education is wholly neglected in this history, as it is in Ricuperati's, Franco Venturi's, Stuart Woolf s, and Mario Fubini's scholarly ceuvre.

Notes to pages 26-8 149 17 Aldo De Maddalena, Ettore Rotelli, and Gennaro Barbarisi, eds., Economia, istituzioni, e cultura in Lombardia nell'etd di Maria Teresa, vol. 3 (Bologna: II Mulino, 1982), 1036. According to historian Giovanni Vittani, 'In the general organization of convents, the nuns were expected to administer the education not only of the daughters of the nobility or civil class, but also of the common classes that were without financial support. They were also expected to teach in public, private or trade schools. Instruction extended to the harpsichord, drawing, and later to religious and secular history, geography, physics, natural history, modern languages, along with sewing embroidery, stockings, and lace.' ('Nella sistemazione generale dei conventi femminili si stabilisce che le monache debbano curare 1'educazione non solo delle fanciulle nobili o di civile condizione, ma anche di quelle del popolo generalmente senza assistanza, e dedicarsi tutte o a scuole pubbliche, o a collegi d'educazione, o a laboratori; 1'insegnamento si estenda anche al cembalo, al disegno e piu tardi, alia storia sacra e profana, geografia, fisica, storia naturale e lingue moderne, curando insieme il cucito, il ricamo, le calze, i merletti.' Atti della Societd Storica Lombarda, 50, part 1, nos 1-2 [Milan, 1923], 264.) 18 Paul Grendler, Schooling in Renaissance Italy: Literacy and Learning (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989), 93-102. 19 Antonio Illibato, La donna a Napoli nel Settecento: Aspetti della condizione e dell'istruzione femminile (Naples: M. D'Auria Editore, 1985). 20 According to Carmela Covato in Sapere e pregiudizio: L'educazione delle donnefra '700 e '800 (Rome: Archivio Guido Izzi, 1991), 71-81, a law was passed in 1883 permitting women to attend the university. In 1877 a law was passed mandating elementary school education for girls, although the debate over granting girls secondary education was still on going through the end of the century. 21 On this limited curriculum see Luciano Guerci, La sposa obbediente: Donna e matrimonio nella discussione dell'Italia del Settecento (Turin: Tirrenia Stampatori, 1988), 235-6 and Covato, Sapere e pregiudizio, 226-41. 22 Harvey Graff, The Legacies of Literacy (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987), 191. 23 Maria Ines Bonatti, 'L'educazione femminile nel pensiero degli Illuministi e in Chiari,' Annah d 'Italianistica 7 (1989): 226-41. 24 Covato, Sapere e pregiudizio, 20. 25 Giuseppa Eleonora Barbapiccola, 'La traduttrice a' lettori' in IPrincipj della filosofia di Renato Des-Cartes (Turin: Gio. Francesco Mairesse, 1722), i: 'Catechismo, la cucitura, e diversi piccioli lavori, cantare, ballare, acconciarsi alia moda, far bene la riverenza, e parlar civilmente.' 26 Luciano Guerci, La discussione sulla donna nell'Italia del Settecento (Turin: Tirrenia Stampatori, 1987), 29. The complete citation reads: 'molte opere,

150 Notes to pages 29-32

27 28 29

30

31

32

33 34 35

sebbene non particolarmente originali e profonde, non sono di facile interpretazione, in quanto in esse convivono e si mescolano aspetti innovated e aspetti misogini, indulgenza e intransigenza. Ne nasce una configurazione ambigua in cui e difficile accertare quali siano gli elementi prevalenti. Certi autori sembrano ritirare con una mano cio che concedono con 1'altra, spingersi innanzi e ritornare sui propri passi, lanciare squillanti proclami e poi mettervi la sordina o dimenticarli. Talvolta 1'ambiguita sfocia addirittura in incoerenza.' Luce Irigaray, This Sex Which Is Not One, trans. Catherine Porter (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985), 27. Giovanni Antonio Volpi, 'Dedicatoria,' in Discorsi Accademici, a6, v: 'la bellezza, la leggiadria, il portamento, il senno, 1'affabilita.' Volpi, 'Dedicatoria,' a7, r: 'la religione verso Dio, 1'amor del marito, la fermezza di spirito ne'prosperi e ne'contrarj awenimenti, la prudenza, il decoro.' Volpi, 'Prefazione: Al Cortese, e Dotto Lettore,' in Discorsi Accademici, a8, r-v: 'Tocco a me per mia disawentura (cosi ordinando 1'Accademia alle cui leggi mi convenne ubbidire) il sostenere la parte negativa; e percio veggendomi arrivato, come suol dirsi, ad un mal passo, cercai di temperare in guisa le mie parole, ch'io non venissi ad offendere o le Nobili Ascoltatrici presenti al mio ragionare, o alcun'altra del gentil sesso; non uscendo in cio dal mio costume, che sempre giudicai doversi alle donne rispetto, e stima.' Volpi, 'Prefazione,' a8, v: 'E quantunque, per 1'artificio da me usato, il mio Discorso operasse il contrario di quello ch'io non senza ragione temeva, e mi acquistasse allora presso 1'universale anzi lode, che biasmo.' Antonio Vallisneri, 'Introduzione,' Discorsi Accademici, 1: 'Se amare doglianze, crudi rimbrotti, e infino agre dispute contra degli Uomini non avessi io stesso udito da illustri Donne, di nobilita, di spirito, e di ogni piu bella dote guarnite, e adorne, per non esser' elleno generalmente ammesse allo Studio delle Arti belle, e delle Scienze, non ardirei in un giorno cosi solenne, in un contesso cosi venerando, e in una Citta, per Lettere, e per Armi, ad ogni piu alto segno riputatissima, non ardirei dico proporre un Problema, che parera appresso alcuni soverchio, e forse ridevole.' Vivian Jones, Women in the Eighteenth Century: Constructions of Femininity (London: Routledge, 1990), 8. Vallisneri, 'Introduzione,' 2: 'd'ogni opinione, d'ogni sentenza, d'ogni storia, d'ogni azione, e d'ogni costume.' Vallisneri, 'Introduzione,' 4: 'La Causa dunque, o Nobilissimi Uditori, e grave, e della vostra attenzione degnissima: al governo di ogni piu ben regolata Repubblica spettante, e che seco porta conseguenze di molto peso.'

Notes to pages 32-5 151 36 De Maddalena, Rotelli, and Barbarisi, eds., Economia, istituzioni, e cultura, 1036. 37 Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality, Volume I: An Introduction, trans. Robert Hurley (New York: Pantheon, 1978), 82. 38 On female membership in the Academy of the Ricovrati near the time of the debate see Attilio Maggiolo, 'Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia,' 33-6. 39 Guglielmo Camposanpiero, 'Che debbono ammettersi le Donne allo Studio delle Scienze e delle belle Arti,' in Discorsi Accademici, 9: 'cosi per questo ammettere si vorra intendere, a giudizio mio, abilitarle; cioe addestrarle coll'educazione primiera allo studio delle scienze, e delle belle arti.' 40 Guerci, Discussione, 133. 41 Camposanpiero, 'Che debbono ammettersi,' 9: 'nessuno, tratto in falso opinione, si venisse a credere, che per costume lodevole si volesse oggi proporre 1'ammettere tutte le donne, e di qualsivoglia condizione allo studio delle scienze; che ella troppo vana cosa sarebbe; come vanissima dovrebbe dirsi quella di dover' ammettere indistintamente gli uomini tutti: mold de' quali dalla perspicacissima Prowidenza destinati sono alia coltivazione, per mieter biade ne' fertili campi.' 42 For an account of class divisions during the age see Dino Carpanetto and Giuseppe Ricuperati, Italy in the Age of Reason 1685-1789, trans. Caroline Higgit (New York: Longman, 1987), 54-75. 43 During the Settecento, however, there was a notable rise in the number of women from the bourgeoisie who attained recognition and institutional authority for their learning. Diamante Medaglia Faini, Elisabetta Caminer Turra, Rosalba Carriera, and Luisa Bergalli Gozzi are prime examples of this important cultural and social change. 44 Camposanpiero, 'Che debbono ammettersi,' 16: 'intendendo essi [gli uomini] che 1'ignoranza costituisce altrui servo del sapiente, tirannicamente awiliscono le Donne, a tutt'altro incamminandole da principio che ad apparar lettere: ed in questo modo si assicurano di non poter avere opposizione alcuna dalle medesime al desiderio loro volto sempre ad indebita signoria e per non rimanersi dalla presa ingiustissima forma di trattare, s'argomentano di far credere, che le sante leggi della pubblica onesta ripugnino; cossiche non si possa senza un'evidente pericolo ammettere le Donne alle Scienze.' 45 Camposanpiero, 'Che debbono ammettersi,' 17: 'debbono dar leggi alia famiglia, ed allevare i figliuoli, spargendo in essi i primi semi, ed insinuendo ne' loro animi un vivo desiderio di virtu.' 46 For examples of this argument see Giovanni Bandiera, Trattato degli studi delle Donne in due parti diviso (Venice: Francesco Pitteri, 1740), 1:1-96; Carlo Sebastiano Franci, 'Difesa delle donne,' II Caffe 1764-1766, ed. Gianni Fran-

152 Notes to pages 35-8

47

48

49

50 51 52

53

54

cioni and Sergio Romagnoli (Turin: Bollati Boringhieri, 1993), 245-56; Melchiorre Delflco, Saggio filosofico sul matrimonio (Teramo, 1774), 60-3; Pierdomenico Soresi, Saggio sopra la necessita e lafacilitd di ammaestrare kfanciulle (Milan: Federico Agnelli, 1774), 10-21; and Antonio Revese, L'impossibik, owero la riforma delle donne nella loro educazione (Venice: Giovanni Zatta, 1799), a2-a5. Camposanpiero, 'Che debbono ammettersi,' 18: 'quanto grande sarebbe il vantaggio al mondo tutto dal saper delle Donne, le quali dilettandosi di tutt'altro, che di vanita, non ricercherebbero negli Uomini i vestiti piu gai, ed affettati, non certe graziosita insulse, e sdilinquite; ma si compiacerebbero in vederli adorni di rare, ed utili dottrine, in belle, e pellegrine arti disciplinati.' Volpi, 'Che non debbono ammettersi le Donne allo Studio delle Scienze, e delle belle Arti,' in Discorsi Accademici, 28-9: 'E tan to piu, che essendo le Illustri Donne che ora mi ascoltano, e per isplendore di sangue e per fortuna di educazione, e per grandezza d'animo e d'ingegno, sopra il comune dell'altre Donne altamente distinte, non dovranno in veruna maniera applicare a lor medesime cio che io del vulgo donnesco intendo di dover dire.' Volpi, 'Che non debbono ammettersi,' 28: 'il non ammettere le Donne alia cognizione delle scienze, e delle arti liberali, non solamente e cosa utile alia Repubblica, ma di gran giovamento alle Donne stesse.' Volpi, 'Che non debbono ammettersi,' 33: 'Quegli dee saper ben parlare, giucare, armeggiare, danzare, starsi a cavallo; e cento altre cose.' Volpi, 'Che non debbono ammettersi,' 30: Tusanza ... tien le veci di strettissima legge.' Volpi, 'Che non debbono ammettersi,' 31: 'e dove [il corpo] abbia in se soverchia umidita, di maniera che le fibre ne riescano fievoli, e in certo modo rilassate, ivi altresi la mente priva rimanga di gagliardia sufficiente per darsi alia speculazione delle sublimi cose.' Volpi, 'Che non debbono ammettersi,' 33: 'senza far motto, standosi anche mutola, con una semplice occhiata, e talvolta con un sogghigno, con un vezzo, con un sospiretto tratto a tempo dal petto, tanto puo, quanto molte fiate non possono eloquentissimi dicitori.' Volpi, 'Che non debbono ammettersi,' 35: 'E quanto al primo stato di vita; chi non intende, la natura a questo solo fine aver prodotta la Donna, perche col mezzo di essa venissero a conservarsi le schiatte [sic] destinandola a concepire in se stessa la prole, a nutrirla della proprio sostanza, sopportando (in pena dell'originale peccato) il tedio ben lungo di nove mesi di gravidanza, ne' quali e lassezza di membra, e languori di stomaco, e sfinimenti, noja e fastidio le arrecano; poscia a partorirla con atroci dolori, e con rischio evi-

Notes to pages 39-42 153 dente di morte; indi a cibarla del proprio latte, e ad averne cura fin tan to ch'ella esca degli anni della fanciullezza; pesi tutti ed incomodi presso che intollerabili, e in riguardo a' quali la congiunzione dell'Uomo, e della Donna piuttosto da questa, che da quello, chiamata fu Matrimonio.' 55 Volpi, 'Che non debbono ammettersi,' 39: 'Fu creata da principle la Donna, non solamente perche servisse d'aiuto aH'Uomo, ma di ricreazione altresi, e d'innocente delizia; il quale tornando a casa tutto affaticato o da' pubblici, o da' privati maneggj, avesse un conforto per cui potesse deporre i fastidiosi pensieri, e ristorarsi dalle sofferte noje.' 56 Antonio Vallisneri, 'Decisione del Problema Fatta da sudetto Signer Antonio Vallisneri,' in Discorsi Accademici, 48: 'S'ammettano allo studio delle Scienze, e delle Arti liberali solamente quelle, che innamorate sono delle medesime, e che da un nobile occulto genio alia virtu, e alia gloria sono portate, nelle quali scorre per le vene un chiaro illustre sangue, e serve, e sfavilla uno spirito fuor dell'usato, e superante il comune del vulgo, quale appunto in Voi scorgo, o nobili e per mold titoli riguardevolissime Donne, che con tanta benignita mi ascoltate.' 57 Among those who rose to speak on the subject were Matteo Bordegato, Alvise Antonio Camposanpiero, Giuseppe Salio, Giovanni Francesco Pivati, Gabriele Dalla Porta, Francesco Cogrossi, Pietro Morari, Antonio Zeno, Father Pagani, Gregorio Camposanpiero, Nicola Rolandis, Giovanni Battista Rossi, De Culan (a Frenchman who was not a member of the Academy). Giornale delle adunanze, B, 273.1 acknowledge Marco Callegari for providing this information. 58 Giornale delle adunanze, B, 275. 59 On the writings about women by Salvini and their influence on Savini De' Rossi see Guerci, Discussione, 147-50. 60 On Savini De' Rossi see Antonella Giordano, Letterate toscane del Settecento (Florence: All'Insegna del Giglio, 1994), 146-8; and Maria Bandini Bud, Poetesse e scrittnci. Enciclopedia biografeca e bibliografica italiana (Rome: EBBI, 1942), 6:219-20. 61 Pier Jacopo Martello, 'A Madama Aretafila Savini De' Rossi L'Autore,' in Teatro, ed. Hannibal S. Noce (Rome: Laterza, 1980), 320-4. 62 Volpi, Trefazione,' 4. 63 I intend here the period before the establishment of a self-conscious, organized political movement for the explicit promotion of women's enfranchisement, which occurred roughly at the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth. 64 Savini De' Rossi, notes to Volpi, 'Che non debbono ammettersi,' 28n3: 'Adulazione troppo caricata, e che distrugge 1'Argomento.'

154 Notes to pages 42-5 65 Volpi, 'Che non debbono ammettersi,' 37: 'gli studi rendono di lor natura le persone circa gli affari domestici, negligenti e trasandate.' 66 Savini De' Rossi, notes to Volpi, 'Che non debbono ammettersi,' 37nl8: 'Sciocca stoicita, il piu delle volte affettata.' 67 Aretafila Savini De' Rossi, 'Apologia in favore degli Studi delle Donne, contra il precedente Discorso del signer Gio. Antonio Volpi,' in Discorsi accademici, 50: 'Piacesse pure a Iddio, che non mi fusse stato barbaramente impedito di seguire il mio genio per gli Studj: forse che in questa occasione non mi mancherebbe materia di appagare la vostra aspettazione, e da sostenere la giustizia della nostra Causa; ma con tutto che io sappia quanto poco possa compromettermi del mio pover talento, non vi tacero quel tanto, che mi e paruto di potere addurre in nostra difesa.' 68 Edward Said, Orientalism, quoted in A Critical and Cultural Theory Reader, ed. Anthony Easthope and Kate McGowan (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992), 64. 69 Savini De' Rossi, 'Apologia,' 51: 'non per arte, ne per ingegno, ma per avere osservato, che in quelle cose, dove abbiamo qualche interesse, si pensa, e si sminuzza finissimamente ogni bagatella.' 70 See, for example, Giuseppa Eleonora Barbapiccola, 'La Traduttrice a' Lettori'; Rosa Califronia, Breve difesa dei diritti delle donne (Assisi, 1794); Diamante Medaglia Faini, 'Quali studi convengono alle donne,' in Versi e prose con altri componimenti di diversi autori e colla vita deU'autrice, ed. Giuseppe Pontara (Said: B. Righetti, 1774), 167-80. 71 Savini De' Rossi, 'Apologia,' 51: 'a esaminar bene le cose, come veramente stanno, accade loro di trovarsi vinti da Noi, e signoreggiati, non per violenza, o tirannia nostra, ma per non sapere essi signoreggiar le proprie passioni.' 72 Savini De' Rossi, 'Apologia,' 53: 'Ben miserabili saremmo Noi, se il nostro pregio maggiore consistesse nella bellezza, che presto manca, e di cui poche furono dotate. Ma qualunque siasi questo privilegio, quanto riceverebbe d'accrescimento, e di perfezione per mezzo degli Studi! Assai piu senza dubbio, che dal dispendioso lusso delle mode, degli abbigliamenti, e del trattamento, dietro le quali cose veggiamo perdersi la maggior parte delle Femmine, con rovina talvolta delle Case, condannate a soccombere a spese eccedenti le loro forze.' 73 Savini De' Rossi, 'Apologia,' 53-4: 'Grande non solo, ma onesto divertimento sarebbe per le Donne 1'essere ammesse agli Studi, a misura della complessione di ciascheduna, delle comodita, e sopra tutto del talento.' 74 Savini De' Rossi, 'Apologia,' 54: 'La natura poi nel distribuire i suoi doni, non dimostra parzialita piu col povero, che col ricco, col nobile, o col plebeo, essendosi veduti sempre de' rari talenti sollevarsi sopra la loro bassa fortuna.'

Notes to pages 45-50 155 75 Savini De' Rossi, 'Apologia,' 55: 'Studino dunque tutte quelle, a cui il Cielo ha dato in sorte volonta, ed ingegno, senza sprezzare un tanto dono per vano timore: le Nobili, e Civili, per utile, e decoro proprio; le vulgari, non solo per se stesse ma per insegnare alle Fanciulle volonterose di apprendere le Scienze.' 76 Savini De' Rossi, 'Apologia,' 55: 'ove le Donne si ammetterssero a filosofare, seguirebbe ne piu, ne meno, come siegue addesso negli Uomini.' 77 Savini De' Rossi, 'Apologia,' 52: 'Ne vi e fondamento adattato a persuadere, che per mezzo degli Studj, alle Donne, incivilta nel tratto, rozzezza nel costume, non curanza nelle cose spettanti al loro uffizio ne dovesse risultare, con infinite danno, non solo proprio, ma del corpo della Repubblica; nell'economia domestica, noja pe' Mariti, carico delle Conversazioni, e finalmente misantrope.' 78 Savini De' Rossi, 'Apologia,' 56: Tanciulla serve al Padre; moglie serve al Marito; Vedova al suo decoro; e muor, che ha sol servito.' 79 Joan Wallach Scott, Gender and the Politics of History (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988), 49. 2: The Very Fibre of Their Being 1 Ludmilla Jordanova, Sexual Visions: Images of Gender in Science and Medicine between the Eighteenth and the Twentieth Centuries (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989), 20. 2 Thomas Laqueur, Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1990), 149. 3 Laqueur, Making Sex, 149. 4 Laqueur, Making Sex, vii-24. 5 On this subject see Christopher Fox, Roy S. Porter, and Robert Wokler, eds., Inventing Human Science: Eighteenth-Century Domains (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995). 6 On the 'science of women' see Roger Smith, 'The Language of Human Nature,' in Fox et al., Inventing Human Science, 105. 7 Londa Schiebinger, The Mind Has No Sex? Women in the Origins of Modern Science (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1989), 160. 8 For a detailed analysis of this cosmology, its history, and its displacement during the rise of modern science see Schiebinger, The Mind Has No Sex, 160-88. 9 Laqueur, Making Sex, 25-62. 10 John Sawday, The Body Emblazoned: Dissection and the Human Body in Renaissance Culture (New York: Routledge, 1995), 29.

156 Notes to pages 51-3 11 Francois Poullain de la Barre, The Equality of the Two Sexes, trans. A. Daniel Franforter and Paul J. Morman (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1989), 85. 12 Luciano Guerci, La discussione sulla donna nell'Italia del Settecento (Turin: Tirrenia Stampatori, 1987), 125. 13 The original version of Conti's letter in French was published in Antonio Conti, Prose epoesie del signor abate Antonio Conti, patrizio veneto (Venice: Giambattista Pasquali, 1756), 2:lxv-lxxv, and appeared as an appendix in Lodovico Antonio Loschi's Italian translation of Antoine Leonard Thomas, Saggio sopra il carattere, il costume e lo spirito delle donne ne'varii secoli, del sig. Thomas dell'Accademia Francese. Traduzione italiana corredata di annotazioni storico critiche; ed accresciuta di una kttera dall'abate Conti P. V. intorno lo stesso argomento (Venice: Giovanni Vitto, 1773), 203-29. On the publication history of Conti's letter see Guerci, Discussione, 126. 14 Lodovico Antonio Loschi, 'Awertimento del Traduttore,' in Antoine Leonard Thomas, Saggio, 197-202. 15 Vincenzo Ferrone, The Intellectual Roots of the Italian Enlightenment: Newtonian Science, Religion, and Politics in the Early Eighteenth Century, trans. Sue Botherton (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1995), 89-121. 16 Michele Melillo, L'Opera filosofica di Antonio Conti, Patrizio Veneto (Venice: Istituto Veneto di Arti Grafiche, 1911), 15. 17 On Conti's life and contemporary influence, apart from texts listed elsewhere, see Giuseppe Toaldo, 'Notizie intorno la vita e gli studj del Sig. Abate Conti,' in Conti, Prose epoesie, 2:1-108. See alsojonathon I. Israel, Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity 1650—1750 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 678-79. 18 Ferrone characterizes the bookstore run by Bernardo Zendrini as a meeting place for Cartesians in Intellectual Roots, 93. 19 Conti, Prose epoesie, 2:3. 'II suo discorso fece molta impressione suH'animo mio impaziente del vero, e cercato 1'Abate Fardella, ch'era allora in Venezia, gli parlai del Cartesio con tal fervore di spirito, ch'egli senza altro rispondermi mi esibi di spiegarmi le meditazioni metafisiche dello stesso Filosofo.' 20 Nicola Badaloni, Antonio Conti: Un abate libero pensatore tra Newton e Voltaire (Milan: Feltrinelli, 1968), 226nl. 21 Giovanna Gronda, 'Antonio Conti,' in Dizionario Biografico degli italiani 28 (1983), 352-3. 22 Conti, Prose e poesie, 2:4: 'Ben m'accorsi, che il cominciar da' sensi a filosofare, era diversissimo dal cominciar da Dio.' 23 Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) taught mathematics for fifteen years at the Uni-

Notes to pages 53-7 157 versity of Padua (1592-1607), where he elaborated many of his methodological principles. 24 Bernoulli's theory of indeterminate forms is found in L'Hospital's study Analyse des infiniment petits peur I'intelligence des lignes courbes, first published in Paris in 1696. 25 Badaloni, Antonio Conti, 33. 26 Conti quoted in Badaloni, Antonio Conti, 30: 'contiene in se altrettante, infinite parti, ed ognuna di queste parti altre parti infinte senza fine.' 27 Ferrone, Intellectual Roots, 107. 28 On Conti's theory of 'Chinese boxes,' see Ferrone, Intellectual Roots, 105-7. 29 Conti translated by Sue Botherton and quoted in Ferrone, Intellectual Roots, 139. The Italian text is quoted by Nicola Badaloni in the 'Introduzione' to the volume he edited of Antonio Conti, Scritti filosofid (Naples: F. Rossi, 1972), 24: 'La materia nella sua coesione dipende affato dalla forza e ... la forza stessa non avrebbe coesione se non fosse appoggiata alia materia.' 30 Ferrone, Intellectual Roots, 100. 31 Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle's letter from 14June 1713 is quoted in Conti, Prose e poesie, 2:18-19. 32 Conti, Prose e poesie, 2:21. 33 On Malebranche see Frederick Copleston, SJ, Modern Philosophy from Descartes to Leibniz, vol. 4 of A History of Philosophy (Westminster: Newman Press, 1961), 180-204. 34 Badaloni, Antonio Conti, 10. 'filosofia delfactum.' 35 Ferrone, Intellectual Roots, 106-8. 36 Conti, quoted by Badaloni, Antonio Conti, 63: 'non si cura affatto delle possibilita; essa va al fatto, e non decide che in rapporto alle osservazioni ed alle esperienze.' 37 In this correspondence, Conti also attempted to mediate the controversy between Newton and Leibniz concerning which of them had first invented the calculus. 38 Antonio Conti to Antonio Vallisneri, Venice, 21 January 1726, in Conti, Scritti filosofia, 402-3. 39 Conti to Vallisneri, Venice, 21 January 1726, in Conti, Scritti filosofid, 402-3: 'In una lettera io provo fisicamente che le donne hanno men disposizione che gli uomeni dello stesso temperamento e che hanno avuto la stessa educazione, non gia per le scienze e per le arti in generale, ma per le scienze troppo astratte e che dimandano grande proffondita, grande sottigliezza e grande complessione di mente.' 40 Conti to Vallisneri, Venice, 31 January 1726, in Conti, Scritti filosofid, 406. 41 Vallisneri to Conti, undated, in Conti, Scritti filosofid, 408: 'Se 1'aveste

158 Notes to pages 57-61 onorato [il nostro libretto] della V. Noblissima dissertazione gli avreste dato tutto il lustro e tutto il decoro.' 42 On the Club de 1'Entresol see Nick Childs, A Political Academy in Paris, 17241731: The Entresol and Its Members (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2000). 43 On Perelle see Childs, A Political Academy in Paris, 117-18, 120-1, 210, and E.R. Briggs, 'Incredulite et la pensee anglaise en France au debut du dixhuitieme siecle,' Revue d'Histoire litterairede la France 41 (October-December 1994): 497-538. 44 Badaloni, Antonio Conti, 53. 45 Ferrone, Intellectual Roots, 133. 46 Conti, 'Lettera dell'Abate Conti P.V. sopra lo stesso argomento' in Thomas, Saggio sopra il carattere, i costumi e lo spirito delle donne ne'varii secoli, 203: 'Egli e il vero, o Signore, la questione, se le donne siano atte cosi come gli uomini al governo, alle scienze e alia guerra, e dibattuta assai; ma dov'e 1'Autore che 1'abbia ridotta a genovino suo aspetto e nel trattarla sia disceso da principii?' 47 Nicolas Malebranche, The Search after Truth, trans. Thomas M. Lennon and PaulJ. Olscamp (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1980), 130. 48 Malebranche, The Search after Truth, 130-1. 49 Conti, 'Lettera,' 204: 'II governo, le scienze e la guerra sono occupazioni, che dipendono dal vigore dello spirito e del corpo. Che non pud mai intraprendere un corpo robusto? e di qual arte non e capace uno spirito sode esteso e penetrante? Tutta la questione riducesi dunque a paragonare il vigore del corpo e dello sprito dell'uomo e della donna.' 50 Malebranche, The Search after Truth, 131. 51 Conti, 'Lettera,' 205: 'La consistenza delle fibre nasce dalla loro coesione, dalla densita loro e dalla loro solidita: 1'elasticita loro, qualunque ne sia la cagione, ha principio colla vita dell'animale, e dura fino alia morte.' 52 Conti, 'Lettera,' 206: 'La donna non e fatta per lei sola. Ella dee mettere a luce un fanciullo, onde per alimentarlo la natura le ha dato piu fluido che a noi.' 53 Judith Butler, Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of'Sex' (New York: Routledge, 1993), 31. 54 Butler, Bodies That Matter, 31. 55 Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York: Routledge, 1990), 18. 56 Isaac Newton, Principia, quoted in Eighteenth-Century Philosophy, ed. Lewis White Beck (New York: Free Press, 1966), 15. 57 Conti, 'Lettera,' 207: 'la carne della femmina e piu spugnosa di quella del maschio.' 58 Conti, 'Lettera,' 207: 'La quale esperienza prova tanto piu la nostra proposiz-

Notes to pages 62-4 159

59 60

61

62 63

64 65

66 67 68 69

70

71

72

ione, perche gli uccelli e i polli hanno tutti la stessa educazione e lo stesso esercizio.' Conti, 'Lettera,' 222: 'Se 1'anima ha pure una sede, non puo averla che nel centre ovale del cerebro.' Conti, 'Lettera,' 208: 'Dall'essere meno veementi le pulsazioni dell'arteria inferisco, che il cuore caccia il sangue con minor impeto nelle arterie; dunque il sangue sale piu lentamente al cervello delle donne.' Conti, 'Lettera,' 223: 'se un sistema di cronologia e di critica e superiore alia capacita delle fibre delle donne, che diremo poi di un sistema di metafisica o di matematica?' Conti, 'Lettera,' 209: 'Se si sparasse un cane e una cagna, si sentirebbe ... una pressione maggiore nel cuore dell'uno che dell'altra.' Conti, 'Lettera,' 212: 'hanno i capelli quasi altrettanto fini che quelli dei fanciulli!'; 212-13: 'le fibre della loro trachea e dei muscoli che servono alia espirazione, sono tan to sottili che non vagliono a resistere alia grande quantita e all'impeto dell'aria, che dilatar dee la trachea senza lacerarla'; 214: 'Si possono mai paragonare ne in vigore e ne pure in isveltezza le saltatrici della fiera di S. Germano agli atleti de' Greci e ai Gladiatori dei Romani?' Conti, 'Lettera,' 216: 'In quale Citta o in qual secolo si videro mai donne tagliar marmi e metalli, scavar miniere, fabbricare, e fortificar piazze?' Conti, 'Lettera,' 217: 'Gli esercizii ordinarii delle donne furono sempre la conocchia il telajo ed il ricamo, esercizii che non richieggono se non destrezza e pazienza.' Newton quoted in Eighteenth-Century Philosophy, 21. In a letter to Leibniz quoted in Badaloni, Antonio Conti, 57: 'il concorso delle leggi naturali.' Conti, Scritti filosofici, 13-36. Conti, Scritti filosofici, 18: 'II nostro stesso modo di sentire le cose, di amare ecc., e imposto a noi dalla nostra materialita e fattualita e ne e anzi la prima espressione.' Conti takes from Leibniz the notion that God has created all things necessary to maintain the maximum degree of harmony in the universe. See John Cottingham, The Rationalists (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), 109. Conti, quoted by Badaloni in Conti, Scrittifilosofici,345: 'lo sviluppo del piu vile e spregevole animaletto e necessario per equilibrare tutte le agitazioni della materia.' Conti, 'Lettera,' 225: 'le proporzioni delle loro vibrazioni leggiere del loro cerebro, ad esse comunicano la vivacita e 1'allegria; e quindi la vezzosa imaginazione, le fine beffe, e tutte le gentilezze della loro conversazione ... che rendon il favellar si dolce e si lusinghiero.'

160 Notes to pages 64-6 73 Conti's theory of attraction and repulsion underpins his conception of the material and sentimental forces which bind men to women. For an explanation of these concepts see his 'Dialogue sur la nature de 1'amour,' in Prose e poesie, l:lxxxvi-lxxiv. 74 Conti, 'Lettera,' 226. 75 Giovann Antonio Volpi, 'Che non debbono ammettersi le Donne allo studio delle Scienze, e delle belle Arti,' in Discorsi Accademici di van autori viventi intorno agli Studi delleDonne (Padua: Giovanni Manfre, 1729), 31: 'E non sia chi mi replichi, 1'ingegno alia forza congiunto dover di necessita prevalere all'ingegno da quella scompagnato; e percio appunto le Donne essere state sopraffatte ingiustamente dagli uomini, comeche ad essi nulla credessere di prudenza, e di senno; perche noi osserviamo, nella umana spezie il piu delle volte awenire, che il vigor della mente a maragivlia s'accorda colla temperatura del corpo; e dove questo abbia in se soverchia umidita, di maniera che le fibre ne riescano fievoli, e in certo modo rilassate, ivi altresi la mente priva rimanga di gagliardia sufficiente per darsi alia speculazione delle sublimi cose; di che non mi lasceranno mentire i teneri fanciulli, che sono per umido sovrabbondante, nello intendere difettuosi. La qual cosa se nelle Donne parimente awenir soglia, coloro il giudicheranno in mia vece che molto avanti sentono nella scienza naturale.' 76 Ferdinando Galiani, Croquis d'un dialogue sur les femmes [1772], in Operedi Ferdinando Galiani, ed. Furio Diaz and Luciano Guerci, vol. 6 of Illuministi Italiani (Milan: Riccardo Ricciardi, 1975), 613-42. 77 Sawday, The Body Emblazoned, 231. 78 Galiani, Croquis, 636: 'la femme est foible dans 1'organisation de ses muscles: et de la sa vie retiree; son attachement au male de son espece qui fait son soutien, son habillement leger, ses occupations, ses metiers etc.' 79 Galiani, Croquis, 635: 'Compares les coqs aux poules, les taureaux aux vaches etc. La femme est d'un cinquieme plus petite que l'homme, et elle est presque d'un tiers moins forte.' 80 Luciano Guerci, '"Croquis d'un dialogue sur les femmes" di Ferdinando Galiani,' in Galiani, Opere di Ferdinando Galiani, 625. 81 Petronio Ignazio Zecchini, Di geniali: Della dialettica delle donne ridotta al suo vero principle (Bologna: A.S. Tommaso d'Aquino, 1771). I wish to acknowledge Christian Dupont, curator for Special Collections at the University Libraries of Notre Dame, for kindly sending me a reproduction of this text. I also wish to acknowledge Marta Cavazza for sharing with me her early and more recent forthcoming work on this subject, which helped to elucidate Zecchini's tract. 82 Zecchini, Di geniali, 45-6: 'caricata e soggetta alle azioni di due contrarie

Notes to pages 67-9

83 84 85 86

87

88 89 90

161

potenze spirituali e material!.' This is cited and discussed by Marta Cavazza in 'Women's Dialectics, or the Thinking Uterus: An Eighteenth-Century Controversy on Gender and Education,' forthcoming in Nature Embodied, ed. Gianna Pomata and Lorraine Daston (Berlin-.Verlag, 2002). Zecchini, Digeniali, 91: 'II comune consenso de' filosofi.' Zecchini, Di geniali, 92: 'da ogni parte del corpo almeno nervosa recevere le impressioni, e formare le sue idee.' Zecchini, Di geniali, 111:'continue necessario irritamento.' Zecchini, Di geniali, 114—15: 'da un viscere predominante impedita, limitata, confusa, convien che nel mondo lontano vi stiate dall'intraprender cose, che dimandano un criterio puro, e un sistema costante.' Zecchini, Di geniali, 114-15: 'voi donne dovete facilmente agli uomini assoggettarvi, che possono col loro consiglio frenar 1'instabilita vostra e la vostra concupiscenza.' Zecchini, Di geniali, 102: 'del vostro pensare egli e 1'assoluto padrone, e ... lo e perche fa pensarvi a suo modo.' Zecchini, Di geniali, 107. This is a summary paraphrase of his paragraph on the subject. Cavazza, 'Women's Dialectics, or the Thinking Uterus, 5-9. This article not only provides a historical overview and an astute analysis of Zecchini's misogynist argument but also studies the controversy sparked by Zecchini's tract a controversy to which Germano Azzoguidi and Giacomo Casanova enthusiastically contributed.

3: Palliated Resistance 1 Linda Woodbridge, Women and the English Renaissance: Literature and the Nature of Womankind 1540-1620 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1984), 17. 2 Ferdinando Galiani, Croquis d'un dialogue sur lesfemmes [1772] in OperediFerdinando Galiani, ed. Furio Diaz and Luciano Guerci, vol. 6 of Illuministi Italiani (Milan: Riccardo Ricciardi, 1975), 615-33; Carlo Maria Chiaraviglio (published under the pseudonym Diunilgo Valdecio), Lo scoglio dell'umanitd, ossia Awertimento salutare alia gioventu per cautelarsi contro le male qualitd delle donne cattive (Venice: Zatta, 1779). Fausto Salvani's LaDifesa delleDonne o sia risposta apologetica al libra detto Lo Scoglio dell'Umanitd di Diunilgo Valdecio (Venice: Pietro Savioni, 1787) was also published under the female pseudonym Marchesa di Sanival. The frequent use of pseudonyms and assumed female identities is another indication of the high level of pretence among these tracts.

162 Notes to pages 69-72 3 For a document-based account of the pervasive illiteracy among women during the Italian Settecento, see Antonio Illibato, La donna a NapoU nel Settecento: Aspetti delta condizione e dett'istruzionefemminile (Naples: M. D'Auria Editore, 1985), especially 7-14. 4 On Lattanzi and her feminist oration see Gilberto Zacche's introduction, 'Aspetti della questione femminile in Italia nel secolo XVIII,' in his edition of Carolina Lattanzi's Schiavitu delle donne (Mantua: Edizioni Lombarde, 1976), 9-28. 5 After the French Revolution women joined political circles throughout Italy and formed clubs to discuss the ideas and the results of the Revolution as they pertained to the Italian situation. See Luciano Guerci, La discussione sulla donna nell'Italia del Settecento (Turin: Tirrenia Stampatori, 1987), 18-19. 6 Diamante Medaglia Faini, 'Quali studi convengono alle donne,' in Versi e prose con altri componimenti di diversi autori e colla vita dell'autnce, ed. Giuseppe Pontara (Salo: Bartolomeo Righetti, 1774), 167: 'Strano sembrera in fatti a ciascheduno di voi, valorosi, ed onorandi Accademici, che io qual mi sono in treccie, e in gonna, ardisca in oggi di comparire fra questa scelta gentile adunanza.' 7 Biblioteca dell'Ateneo, Salo, ms. 101 (c. 23), n. 4 (Registri de'Ragionamenti recitati nell'Accademia delta de'Discordi di Said, ed ora de'Pescatori Benacensi). See entries for 7 May 1761, 11 March 1762, 18 April 1763, and 5 May 1763.1 acknowledge Paula Findlen for this information, which she cites in her article 'Becoming a Scientist: Gender and Knowledge in Eighteenth-Century Italy,' forthcoming in Science and Context. 8 Susan Bordo, 'The Body and the Reproduction of Femininity: A Feminist Appropriation of Foucault,' in Gender/Body/Knowledge, ed. Alison M. Jaggar and Susan Bordo (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1989), 25. 9 See Paula Findlen, 'Translating the New Science: Women and the Circulation of Knowledge in Enlightenment Italy,' Configurations'?. (1995): 181-2, for a discussion of the Neapolitan philosopher Giuseppa Eleonora Barbapiccola's ambivalent defence of women's education in 'La tradutrice a' lettori' that serves as preface to her translation of Descartes's Principles of Philosophy (IPrincipi della filosofia di Renato Des-Cartes tradotti dalfrancese col confronto del latino in cui I'autore gli scrisse [Turin, Mairesse, 1722], sig. ++4r). See also Messbarger's analysis of Rosa Califronia's Brief Defence of the Rights of Women Breve difesa dei diritti delk donne [Assisi, 1794] in 'Woman Disputed: The Representation of Women in Eighteenth-Century Italian Public Discourse' (Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 1994), 218-37. 101 wish to acknowledge classicist George Pepe's assistance in identifying the rhetorical style of the oration.

Notes to pages 74-6 163 11 See for example the article 'Gli Eleganti' in Gioseffa Cornaldi Caminer, La donna galante ed erudita. Giornale dedicate al bel sesso [Venice, 1786-8], ed. Cesare De Michelis (Venice: Marsilio Editori, 1983), 244-5. For a detailed treatment of La donna galante, see chapter 5. 12 On the role of women in the 'domestication' of the 'new science,' see Findlen, 'Translating the New Science,' 167-206, from the full title of which the phrase 'circulation of knowledge' derives. 13 Francesco Algarotti, II Newtonianismo per le dame (Naples: Giambatista Pasquali, 1739), 6: 'O dell'aurata / Luce settemplice / I varioardenti, e misti almi colori.' 14 Paula Findlen, 'Science as a Career in Enlightenment Italy: The Strategies of Laura Bassi,' his 84 (1993), 448. 15 Findlen argues that 'Bologna was no longer the splendid center that it once had been. Thus the university, the academy, and the city needed Bassi as much as she needed them. Publicizing Bassi's accomplishments, and enhancing them beyond anything achieved by earlier learned women, would add luster to the reputation of Bologna.' See 'Science as a Career,' 448. 16 Findlen, 'Translating the New Science.' 17 Benvenuto Robbio di San Raffaele, Disgrazie di Donna Urania, owero degli studj femminili (Parma: Bodini, 1793), 27-9: 'Ma le scienze naturali eran lo studio suo prediletto. Ella vi si ingolfo di tal guisa, che 1'appartamento suo non meno in villa, che in citta si empie tra poco di macchine, di stromenti, d'ordigni per gire in traccia de' piu gelosi arcani della Natura ... La Colombaja, dove il suo Nonno educava i piccion torraiuoli, decorata del titolo di osservatorio, servira d'ora in poi alia Dama per prendere, spiando le stelle, flussioni, e reumi astronomici. In un angolo del giardino spunta un abbozzo d'orto botanico. Cinque o sei macchine difettose, ma ricche di fogliami di bronzo indorato, ne aspettano quaranta altre per meritare alfin il nome di Gabinetto di Fisica ... Perfin la cucina sarebbe stata vittima dell'invasione, se con rara presenza di spirito il cuoco non si fosse opposto con dire, che questa era una scuola teorico-pratica de' sapori, ed egli stesso un bravo Fisico. Ma la retrocucina non ebbe mezzo a salvarla. Vi fu piantato a suo dispetto il laboratorio chimico, dove la Dama non ch'esser semplice spettatrice, fu non di rado pur vista a far 1'uffizio di Ciclopessa.' 18 Pietro Verri, Ricordi a miafiglia [1777], ed. Gennaro Barbarisi (Milan: Sera e Riva, 1983), 166. 19 Verri, Rtcardi, 190-3. 20 Giovanni Bandiera, Trattato degli studi delle Donne in due parti diviso. Opera d'un Accademico Intronato, vol. 1 (Venice: Francesco Pitteri, 1740). 21 Bandiera, Trattato, 81.

164 Notes to pages 76-9 22 On the evolution in scientific and philosophical discourse of this argument see Londa Schiebinger's study of the same name, The Mind Has No Sex? Women in the Origins of Modern Science (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1989). 23 Bandiera, Trattato, 1:332: 'a' soli Studi che alia famiglia giovano.' 24 Luciano Guerci, Discussione, 133. 25 Pierdomenico Soresi, Saggio sopra la necessitd e lafadlitd di ammaestrare lefanciulle (Milan: Federico Agnelli, 1774), 13: 'Abbandonata la vostra infanzia ad una rozza Balia, e quindi a tale, cui forse i genitori vostri non avrebbero affidate le stoviglie, la vostra adolescenza viene per awentura raccomandata ad altre Donne, che merito piu distinto non hanno, se non d'essere state per sempre rinchiuse in luogo, ove sono dianzi entrate cosi sprovedute di sapere, di esperienza, di buon discernimento, come le innocenti allieve, che loro si consegnano, Dio sa con qual mira. E appena voi sapete leggere e cantacchiare un latino che non intedete, lavorar un merletto, far un ricamo, vi credete bastevolmente educate.' 26 Soresi, Saggio, 90: 'Una donna che abbandonasse i doveri del suo stato per coltivar le scienze, sarebbe condannabile, anche facendovi la piu luminosa riuscita.' 27 Michael Suozzi, 'The Enlightenment in Italy: Gaetano Filangieri's Scienza della Legislazione' (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1972), 50. 28 Quoted and translated by Suozzi in 'Enlightenment,' 146. 29 Gaetano Filangieri, La Scienza della Legislazione, ed. Vittorio Frosini, vol. 1 (Rome: Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato, 1984), 304: 'le donne non han luogo in questo piano di pubblica educazione.' 30 Filangieri, La Scienza, 304: Teducazione domestica e la sola che loro convenga' 31 Filangieri, La Scienza, 304: 'cattive madri di famiglia'; 'Formando gli uomini, la legge verrebbe a formare anche le donne.' 32 For an exceptional analysis of this issue, see Guerci, Sposa obbediente, especially 231-58. 33 Diamante Medaglia Faini, 'Quali studi,' 171:' [la poetica facolta] a Donna servire non potra giammia di ornamento, ma anzi la rendera meno accetta a chi ha fior di senno per giudicare de' letterati, o perche stucchevole, e della necessaria erudizione sfornite le di lei composizioni.' 34 Medaglia Faini, 'Tu parti, almo mio Sol' in Versi e prose, 2: 'Tu parti almo mio Sol, tu parti, ed io / Lassa! Qui resto abbandonata, e sola,/Priva del cor, perche teco sen vola,/E teco di restar sempre ha desio./Ahi! questo colpo dispietato, e rio/Ogni allegrezza, ogni piacer m'invola,/ E lo spirto mi manca, e la parola,/Adorato mio ben, nel dirti: addio./Legata io resto, e tu sciolto ten

Notes to pages 79-81

35

36

37

38

39

40 41

42 43

44 45

165

vai/Dall 'amoroso laccio, onde sereno/volto mostri al partir, e non ti struggi; / Ma poiche del mio duol pieta non hai,/Tua vittoria compisci, e mira almeno,/Barbara, la mia morte, e poscia fuggi.' Giuseppe Pontara, in Medaglia Faini, Versi e prose, xiv: 'Vero e che le deliberazioni del Genitore furono opposte al genio di lei. Vedevala egli crescere in eta, e penso a collecarla in matrimonio, siccome fece ... Ella riverente agli ordini del Padre vi acconsenti.' Medaglia Faini, 'Sonnet 104,' Versi e prose, 141. This sonnet is also cited in the biography of Medaglia Faini by Antonio Brognoli, Elogi di Bresciani per dottrinaeccellenti delsecoloXVIII[1775] (Bologna: Forni Editore, 1972), 265: 'Non nasca in te, Signor, tema, o sospetto / Che io possa abbandonar le muse unquanco.' Brognoli, Elogi di Bresciani, 265: 'Sembra che i domestici impieghi, ed i riguardi dovuti in una famiglia, in cui taluno forse non si mostrava troppo amico delle muse, 1'awessero se non distratta dal pensiero, interrotta almeno nel libero esercizio della poesia.' Medaglia Faini, 'Sonnet 122,' Versi e prose, 163: 'Io che fin or tanti ad altrui richiesta / Fatti ho Sonetti, Stanze, e Madrigali / Per Medici, per Sposi, per Legali, / E per chi cinse velo, e sagra vesta; / No' piu non voglio rompermi la testa / Senza profitto, e dietro a cose tali / Gettar il tempo ... ' Giovann Battista Suardi, Nuovi istromenti per la descrizione di diverse curve antiche e moderne, e di molte altre, che servirpossono alia speculazione de' Geometri, ed all'uso de' Pratici. Colprogetto di due nuove macchineper la nautica, ed una per la meccanica, e con alcune Osservazioni sopra de'Poligoni rettilinei regolari (Brescia: Gianmaria Rizzardi, 1752), and Trattenimenti matematici (Bresia: Giambatista Bossini, 1764). Medaglia Faini to Lucio Doglioni, Soiano, 14July 1765, Versi e prose, 188-9. Brognoli, Elogi di Bresciani, 271: 'Io credo, che la Faini abbia cosi favellato o per la noja ... o per modestia, perche essendosi ella tanto nel poetare distinta, alcuno forse non sospettasse, che lodando la Poesia nelle Donne ella cosi venisse a lodare se stessa.' Antonio Piromalli, L'Arcadia (Palermo: Palumbo, 1975), 41. Giuseppe Baretti, quoted in Piromalli, L'Arcadia, 41: 'Oh cari que' suoi smascolinati sonettini, pargoletti piccinini, mollemente femminini, tutti pieni d'amorini.' Calogero Colicchi, Lepolemiche contro I 'Arcadia (Messina: Peloritana, 1972), 10. Giuseppe Petronio, L'illuminismo lombardo (Milan: Feltrinelli, 1961), 44-5: 'non fu che Io specchio di una frivola vita sentimentale e morale, resto chiusa tra salotti e saloni, tra regge e giardini, senza che in essa palpitasse mai un riflesso vivo.'

166 Notes to pages 82-4 46 Benvento Robbio di San Raffaele, Disgraziedi Donna Urania, 5-6: 'Impaziente di comparire fra i Cigni... le rime piu abbondanti, e piu trivial! ella imbratto molta carta, e le venne fatto in pochi mesi di aggiugnere parecchie dozzine di Sonetti mediocri alle tante centinaja e migliaja, che ne abbiamo.' 47 Antonio Vallisneri, 'Introduzione,' in Discorsi Accademici di van autori viventi intorno agli Studi Delk Donne (Padua: Giovanni Manfre, 1729), quoted in Medaglia Faini, 'Quali studi,' 167-8: 'S'ammettano allo studio delle scienze, e dell'arti liberali quelle, che innamorate sono delle medesime, e che da un nobile occulto genio alia virtu sono portate, nelle quali ferve, e sfavilla uno spirito fuor dell'usato, e superante il comune del vulgo, e che si divida senza baldanza di tirannia I'imperio de' commandi, si dividano gli uffizj, e si lasci la liberta al genio dominatore. Attendano altre agli economici impieghi, ed a' suoi onesti necessarj lavori: altre seguano le muse piu caste, alle quali 1'inclinazion le trasporta, e co' dovuti mezzi si animino, si ajutino, infervorate si rendano accioche contrastante 1'ozio, 1'ignoranza, 1'invidia, s'aumentano le scienze.' See chapter 1 for an extensive analysis of the Ricovrati debate. 48 Medaglia Faini, 'Quali studi,' 168: 'che qualche utilita e vantaggio maggiore recar li possan ... ' 49 See chapter 1 for an extensive discussion of Savini De' Rossi's argument. 50 Medaglia Faini, 'Quali studi,' 173: 'Giudizi falsi, come voi ben vedete, o Signori, sono questi, a' quali non so se per condizione del sesso, o per qual siasi altra cagione, in strana guisa noi Donne piu degli uomini soggette siamo.' 51 Medaglia Faini, 'Quali studi,' 175: 'Le Donne (fate giustizia voi al mio dire, Accademici onoratissimi) non vanno elleno mai errate nelle lor deduzioni, e qualche fiata da premesse di pura chimera non traggono conseguenze, che da esse aver si vogliono per le piu sode, che mai cavate si sieno dallo stesso Archimede?' 52 Guido Cesare Becelli (1686-1750) was a poet, critic, playwright, and translator. He translated Locke's Aphorisms, reinserting the discourse on women's education which Locke had written but omitted from the published text. His Trattato delta divisione degli ingegni (Verona, 1738) privileges science over poetry. 53 Ludovico Antonio Muratori (1672-1750), Delia perfetta poesia italiana spiegata e dimostrata con vane osservazioni (Modena: B. Soliani, 1706). 54 Dom. Jean Mabillon, Traite desEstudes Monastique (Paris: Charles Robustel, 1691). St Basil the Great (330-79 AD), Bishop of Caesarea, defended the study of pagan philosophy in his famous sermon, 'Address to Young Men on Reading Greek Literature,' in St Basil, The Letters, trans. RoyJ. Deffarari (London: W. Heinemann, 1926), 4:363-435.

Notes to pages 84-9 167 55 Medaglia Faini, 'Quali studi,' 174: 'di minutamente contemplare ad uno ad uno li corpi, d'investigare la natura de' principj, onde sono composti, di farci rimarcare con qual ordine, con qual simmetria tutto sia collocate nell'Universe, con qual uniformita 1'ordine generate, e particolare si osservi, e mantenga; e con questo ci da a conoscere 1'intelligenza, e le mani invisibili, che reggono il tutto.' 56 Medaglia Faini, 'Quali studi,' 176: 'prestino 1'opera loro le Donne, e non piu cader si vedranno ne' crassi paralogismi.' 57 Medaglia Faini, 'Quali studi,' 169: 'Or ditemi, se il ciel vi salvi, o Signori, non deve ella la Donna comunicare i sensi proprj? non e ella dotata di mente, e di ragione al pari dell'uomo? e ella esclusa affatto dall'umano commercio? certo che no.' 58 Medaglia Faini, 'Quali studi,' 169-70: 'ne fanno gia che mutola si giaccia quella lingua, di cui le ha armate natura.' 59 Medaglia Faini, 'Quali studi,' 170: 'a gran pena si distingueranno da fanciulli, i quali anch'essi co' loro urli di spiegare si credono cio, che pensano internamente, e che internamente provano, e desiderano.' 60 Medaglia Faini, 'Quali studi,' 174: 'penetra nelle viscere della terra, e ne specula le mirabili produzioni, che la entro si operano; si solleva fino a' cieli, e tenta di conoscere i movimenti degli astri, e di osservare 1'ordine, e la regolarita, che lassuso regna; si volge all'acque, ed agli animali, che in esse guizzano, ed a meraviglia ne spiega i prodigiosi effetti, che vi occorrono; se riguarda il fuoco, scopre la sua gravita, attivita, e natura; se 1'aere, qual corpo greve ce la presenta, ed avente una somma elastica forza ... ella per fine ci fa comprendere quanti oggetti e sotto, e sopra, e per ogni verso circondano 1'uomo.' 61 Galileo Galilei, Dialogue on the Great World Systems in the [Thomas] Salusbury Translation, ed. Giorgio De Santillana (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953), 3. 62 Galilei, Dialogue, 176. 4: For the Public Good 1 Franco Venturi, Settecento riformatore: Da Muratori a Beccaria (Turin: Giulio Einaudi, 1969), 673. 2 For a detailed account of the method by which II Gaffes contributors were identified, see Gianni Francioni, 'Storia Editoriale del Caffe,' in // Caffe, 1764-1766, ed. Gianni Francioni and Sergio Romagnoli (Turin: Bollati Boringhieri, 1993), cxxiv-cxxviii. 3 Francioni, 'Storia Editoriale del Caffe,' cxvii-cxxviii.

168 Notes to pages 89-92 4 Sergio Romagnoli,'// Caffe tra Milano e 1'Europa,' in // Gaffe, 1764-1766, xvi. 5 See Giuseppe Ricuperati, 'Giornali dalle origini a meta Ottocento,' in Letteratura italiana, ed. Alberto Asor Rosa (Turin: Giulio Einaudi, 1982), 1:921-43; and Giuseppe Ricuperati, The Renewal of the Dialogue between Italy and Europe: Intellectual and Cultural Institutions from the End of the Seventeenth Century to the First Half of the Eighteenth Century,' in Italy in the Age of Reason 1685-1789, ed. Dino Carpanetto and Giuseppe Ricuperati, trans. Caroline Higgitt (New York: Longman, 1987), 78-95. 6 II Caffe, 1764-1766, 12 (this and all further citations are to this edition): 'in essa bottega chi vuol leggere trova per suo uso e il Giornale encidopedico e I'Estrattodelta letteraturaeuropeae simili buone raccolte di novelle interessanti, le quali fanno che gli uomini che in prima erano Romani, Fiorentini, Genovesi o Lombardi, ora sieno tutti presso a poco Europe!.' 7 Venturi, Settecento riformatore, 647. 8 // Caffe, 1764-1766, 5: 'Essi hanno mosso gli autori a cercare di piacere e di variare in tal guisa i soggetti e gli stili che potessero esser letti e dal grave magistrato e dalla vivace donzella, e dagli intelletti incaliti e prevenuti e dalle menti tenere e nuove.' 9 Jurgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society, trans. Thomas Burger and Frederick Lawrence (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1989). 10 Habermas, Structural Transformation, 51-7. 11 Habermas, Structural Transformation, especially 35—7, 54—6, 68, 85. 12 Nancy Fraser, 'Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy,' in The Phantom Public Sphere, ed. Bruce Robbins (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993), 1-32; Joan Landes, Women and the Public Sphere in the Age of the French Revolution (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988). 13 Habermas, Structural Transformation, 25-7. 14 Carpanetto and Ricuperati, Italy in the Age of Reason 1685-1789, especially 5761, 158-67, 259-72. 15 On the economic and social impact of the catasto administered by Pompeo Neri under Maria Theresa see, Carpanetto and Ricuperati, Italy in the Age of Reason 1685-1789, 158-63. 16 Carpanetto and Ricuperati, Italy in the Age of Reason 1685-1789, 57-61. 17 On Maria Theresa's reforms, see Richard Schober, 'Gli effetti delle riforme di Maria Teresa sulla Lombardia,' in Economia, istituzioni e cultura in Lombardia nell'etd di Maria Teresa, ed. Aldo De Maddalena, Ettore Rotelli, and Gennaro Barbarisi (Milan: Societa Editrice II Mulino, 1982), 201-14. 18 Carpanetto and Ricuperati, Italy in the Age of Reason 1685-1789, 260.

Notes to pages 92-6

169

19 Giorgio Rovereto, 'Introduzione,' in // Caffe (Treviso: Edizioni Canova, 1975), 16-17. 20 On the bureaucratic positions filled by the caffettisti, see Romagnoli, 'II Caffe tra Milano e 1'Europa,' Ivi-lxxi; and Indro Montanelli and Roberto Gervaso, L'ltalia delSettecento (Milan: Rizzoli, 1971), 461-6; Rovereto, 'Introduzione,' 9-34. 21 Scant biographical information exists about Franci. He was a learned prelate from an aristocratic Milanese family who was intellectually aligned with Pietro Verri. Aside from the 'Defence of Women,' he contributed several articles on economic policy and reform to // Caffe. His most important work, La moneta, oggetto istorico, civile e politico (Milan: Giuseppe Galeazzi, 1769), discusses the history and future reform of the monetary system. 22 The manuscript is divided into two running columns with Franci's text on the right and Verri's editorial corrections on the left and between the lines. 23 Carlo Sebastiano Franci, 'Difesa delle donne,' in // Caffe, 1764-1766, 245: 'Infinite doglianze si fanno in Europa contro le donne; si de testa la loro vita oziosa, molle ed affatto inutile all'umana societa.' 24 Franci, 'Difesa,' 246: 'Questo e il ritratto che si va producendo del sesso; ed in verita egli e ben somigliante all'originale.' 25 Franci, 'Difesa,' 246: 'Con noi stessi bisogna lagnarsene, perche noi stessi loro additiamo questa tenebrosa strada, e le costringiamo a battere questo fangoso sentiere.' 26 Franci, 'Difesa,' 247: 'e come se queste fossero di una spezie diversa da quella degli uomini ... si proibisce loro lo studio delle scienze e delle belle arti sotto pena d'essere ridicole; ne giammai si da loro una lezione al cuore di virtu e di forza.' 27 Franci, 'Difesa,' 246: 'accogliere con piacere i propri figliuoli e gloriarsi d'essere circondate da questi preziosi frutti del loro innocente amore.' 28 Franci, 'Difesa,' 246: 'vanno con un moto incessante scorrendo per tutti i quartieri della citta e si crederebbero vergognosamente dimenticate s'elleno ... non fossero vedute a tutti i balli, a tutte le visile, a tutte le assemblee.' 29 Franci, 'Difesa,' 247: 'I vizi sono degli individui e non del sesso.' 30 Franci, 'Difesa,' 247-8: 'Questo [individuo] e fatto per essere la delizia della societa, e se noi ci prendessimo la pena d'istruirgli la mente, e presentargli idee piu belle, di dirigergli il cuore ed elevarlo al di sopra dell'umile rango in cui giace, corrisponderebbe egli perfettamente ai nostri desideri e perverebbe a quella nobile meta alia quale fosse indirizzato.' It is important to note that in Italian the term 'individual' is masculine in gender, and singular in number. The pronouns used throughout the passage to substitute for this

170 Notes to pages 97-9 noun are also masculine, singular. I have chosen to follow this grammatical pattern in my translation, not merely for the sake of consistency, but because the masculine form traditionally connotes (false) universality. 31 The Social Contract first appeared in Italy in 1762, two years before the publication of II Caffe. According to Romagnoli in 'II Caffeira. Milano' (xxiv), although the Milanese philosophes never explicitly mention the controversial Rousseau because of the likelihood of censorship, 'his views permeate the pages of the periodical.' 32 Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract: An Eighteenth-Century Translation, ed. and trans. Charles Frankel (New York: Hafner Press, 1947), 36. According to Rousseau, the individual's education should be wholly directed by an educator without any appearance of intervention or manipulation. For a meticulous analysis of Rousseau's notion of the individual, see Thomas Kavanagh, Writing the Truth: Authority and Desire in Rousseau (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), 91, 141. 33 Franci, 'Difesa,' 248: 'un non so che di saggio e di abile, che conosce tutto cio che gli conviene e che fa sentire in ciascheduna cosa la misura che si deve tenere.' 34 Franci, 'Difesa,' 249: 'Questa ha rese capaci tante regine di governare vastissimi regni e questa stessa puo dettare a tutta la piu bella meta dell'umano genere un tenore di vita innocente e regolare, piena di virtu per i loro domestici, di amorevolezza per i loro prossimi, di pace e concordia nella famiglia e di sollecitudine per i loro figlioli.' 35 Franci, 'Difesa,' 249: 'L'aggiustatezza di mente persuadera alle donne che il maneggio e 1'economia domestica sia di loro ragione.' 36 Franci, 'Difesa,' 249: 'il travaglio essendo una necessita universale, conviene anche ad esse, di qualunque rango siano; che 1'amore al medesimo mantiene tutte le virtu e fa onore al sesso ancor sul trono.' 37 Franci, 'Difesa,' 249: 'II sedere ad un banco di cambio per dirigere le opportune corrispondenze ed il presedere ad una manifattura non e fuori della sfera d'una mente ben regolata d'una cittadina. Vi sono molte arti le quali, essendo compatibili colla delicatezza e ritiratezza delle femmine, potrebbero essere comunemente esercitate dalle plebee senza pericolo che soffra alcun intacco la loro belta. Questo costume sarebbe d'un utile insigne allo Stato, perche si formerebbero esse da se la loro dote, soccorrerebbero nelle occasioni il marito e la famiglia, e darebbero coraggio agli uomini di contrarre matrimoni.' 38 Women of the lower classes would not have had access to a suitable education; women of the upper classes would have had no need to work outside of their homes.

Notes to pages 100-6

171

39 Anna Maria Mambelli, // Settecento e donna: Indagine sulla condizione femminik (Ravenna: Mario Lapucci, 1985); Olwen Hufton, 'Women, Work, and Family,' in History of Women: Renaissance and Enlightenment Paradoxes, ed. Natalie Zemon Davis and Arlette Farge (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 1993), 15-45; and Domenico Sella, Crisis and Continuity: The Economy of Spanish Lombardy in the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1979). 40 Mambelli, II Settecento e donna, 75. 41 Carlo Sebastiano Franci, 'Alcuni pensieri politic!,' in // Caffe, 1764-1766, 143-50. 42 Carlo Sebastiano Franci, 'Osservazioni sulla questione se il commercio corrompa i costumi,' in II Caffe, 1774-1766, 655-61. 43 Franci, 'Osservazioni sulla questione se il commercio corrompa i costumi,' 658: 'Told d'intorno gl'incomodi d'una vergognosa poverta, non ha lo spirito umano ostacoli ad avere nobili sentimenti della gloria.' 44 Franci, Moneta, 175-6. 45 Venturi, Settecento riformatore, 729. 46 Franci, 'Del lusso delle manifatture d'oro e d'argento,' in // Caffe, 1764-1766, 497: 'Egli ama di vestire nobilmente, di abitare una casa sontuosamente mobigliata e di vivere con lusso, come richiede 1'utile generate della nazione.' 47 Luciano Guerci, La sposa obbediente: Donna e matrimonio nella discussions delVItalia del Settecento (Turin: Tirrenia Stampatori, 1988), 104-5. 48 Franci, 'Difesa,' 249: 'un tenore di vita innocente e regolare.' 5: Counter-Discourse 1 The answer to the riddle is 'woman,' which appears in the subsequent issue. 2 There is expansive scholarship on French and English women's magazines of the eighteenth century, studies that have informed my analysis of the more neglected Italian feminine press of the same age. See, for example, Ros Ballaster, Margaret Beetham, Elizabeth Frazer, and Sandra Hebron, eds., Women's Worlds: Ideology, Femininity and the Woman's Magazine (London: Macmillan, 1991); Sarah R. Cohen, 'Masquerade as Mode in the French Fashion Print,' in The Clothes That Wear Us, ed. Jessica Munns and Penny Richards (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1999), 174-207; Jennifer Michelle Jones, "The Taste for Fashion and Frivolity": Gender, Clothing, and the Commercial Culture of the Old Regime' (Ph.D. diss., Princeton University, 1991); Deborah Laycock, 'Shape-Shifting: Fashion, Gender, and Metamorphosis in Eighteenth-Century England,' in Textual Bodies: Changing Boundaries of Literary Representation, ed. Lori Hope Lefkovitz (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997), 127-60.

172 Notes to pages 106-9 3 Jurgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society, trans. Thomas Burger and Frederick Lawrence (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1989). 4 Nancy Fraser, 'Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy,' in The Phantom Public Sphere, ed. Bruce Robbins (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993), 14. 5 Luce Irigaray, 'The Power of Discourse and the Subordination of the Feminine,' in The Irigaray Reader, ed. Margaret Whitford, trans. David Macey (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991), 124. 6 Subsequent citations to La donna galante ed erudita, which was edited by Gioseffa Cornoldi Caminer, are taken from the incomplete facsimile of the journal edited by Cesare De Michelis and published in 1983 in Venice by Marsilio Editori. 7 According to historian Marino Berengo, the object of the scientific periodical of the Italian Enlightenment was 'to inform Italian doctors and natural philosophers about the research and studies undertaken in other countries.' Marino Berengo, Giornali veneziani del Settecento (Milan: Feltrinelli, 1962), xliv. 8 Cesare Beccaria, 'De' fogli periodic!,' in 77 Caffe, 1764-1766, ed. Gianni Francioni and Sergio Romagnoli (Turin: Bollati Boringhieri, 1993), 418. 9 Cesare Beccaria, 'De' fogli periodici,' 412: 'Le donne poi, le leggieri e distratte donne ... sono dispotissime a trarre profitto da' fogli periodici.' 10 Cesare Beccaria, 'De' fogli periodici,' 413: 'Felice 1'umanita se la virtu divenisse un ornamento alia moda ... E perche non potiamo sperarlo nella bizzaria della moda, che tante cose rinovella e distrugge? ... Se vi e speranza di una simile mutazione, se le cose scritte possono cangiare le direzioni del costume, cio devesi sperare da' fogli periodici piuttosto che da ogni altra sorta di scritto.' 11 Buttazzi, 'Mode e modelli culturali,' in Giornale delle Nuove Mode di Francia e d'Inghilterra, ed. Grazietta Butazzi (Turin: Alberto Allemandi, 1988), cxviii. I wish to acknowledge Umberto Allemandi for providing me copies of this facsimile. 12 For a brief discussion of the history of this journal and eighteenth-century references to it, see the introduction by Cesare De Michelis, 'Un giornale dedicate al bel sesso,' in La donna galante ed erudita (Venice: Marsilio Editori, 1983),vii-xxi. 13 There are only two extant volumes of this journal, which include a total of six issues dating from July to December. 14 Giuseppe Ricuperati, 'Periodici eruditi, riviste e giornali di varia umanita dalle origini a meta Ottocento,' in Letteratura italiana, vol. 1, ed. Alberto Asor Rosa (Turin: Giulio Einaudi, 1982), 931: 'In realta la seconda meta del Sette-

Notes to pages 109-11

15

16

17 18 19

20 21

22

173

cento vede emergere per quasi ogni disciplina o specializzazione, dall'astronomia, alia fisica, alia medicina, alia chimica, un periodico specifico, rivolto non piu agli intellettuali in senso generico, ma alia categoria professionale.' Giusppe Ricuperati, Teriodici eruditi, riviste e giornali di varia umanita dalle origin! a meta Ottocento,' 928: 'protagonist! di questa non potevano essere gli antichi chierici chiusi nelle loro istituzioni separanti, ma soprattutto i politici, gli uomini d'affari, i professionisti, quanti partecipavano a diversi livelli alia gestione delle ricchezze, della cosa pubblica, del potere.' Ballaster et al., eds., Women's Worlds, 46. This book has greatly informed my study of the eighteenth-century Italian fashion magazines. Although limited to the English experience, the authors' careful reconstruction of the social, economic, literary and cultural circumstances from which this feminine genre emerged provides important analogies for the history and function of Italian feminine periodical literature of this age. It should be noted that the content of eighteenth-century Italian, French, and English fashion magazines was often identical. Many magazines shared or plagiarized their materials, which suggests that certain interests and representations of women and their daily lives transcended cultural boundaries. Butazzi, 'Mode e modelli cultural!,' cxix: 'Al prestigio della tradizione si sostituisce quello "della novita, dell'inconstanza, deU'effimero, deirillusione."' Butazzi, 'Mode e modelli cultural!,' cxxiii-cxxvii. Grazietta Butazzi, "Le Scandalose licenze de sartori e sartore: Considerazioni sul mestiere del sarto nella Repubblica di Venezia,' in IMestieri della moda a Venezia dal XIII al XVIII Secolo (Venice: I Mestieri della Moda a Venezia, Edizione del Cavallino, 1988). Franco Fido, Guida a Goldoni: Teatro e societd nel Settecento (Turin: Einaudi, 1977), 18. In his Memorie (Milan: Mondadori, 1993), Goldoni explains in chapter 26 that the name 'mariage' was a Frenchism that described the use of intertwined colourful ribbons to ornament dresses. Carlo Goldoni, Le Smanieper la villeggiatura (1761), in Trilogia della villeggiatura (Milan: Rizzoli, 1982), 113: 'Vitt. Quest'anno mi ho fatto un abito. Giac. Oh! lo me ne ho fatto un bello. Vitt. Vedrete il mio, che non vi dispiacera. Giac. In materia di questo, vedrete qualche cosa di particolare. Vitt. Nel mio non vi e ne oro, ne argento, ma per dir la verita, e stupendo. Giac. Oh! Moda, moda. Vuol esser moda. Vitt. Oh! Circa la moda, il mio non si puo dir che non sia alia moda. Giac. Si, si, sara alia moda. (Sogghignando) Vitt. Non lo credete? Giac. Si, lo credo. (Vuol restare quando vede il mio mariage.} Vitt. In materia di mode poi, credo di essere stata sempre io delle prime. Giac. E che cos e il vostro abito? Vitt. E un mariage. Giac. Mariage! (Maravigliandosi) Vitt.

174 Notes to page 111 Si, certo. Vi par che non sia alia moda? Giac. Come avete voi saputo, che sia venuta di Francia la moda del mariagefVitt. Probabilmente, come 1'avrete saputo anche voi. Giac. Chi ve 1'ha fatto? Vitt. II sarto francese monsieur de la Rejouissance. Giac. Ora ho capito. Briccone! Me la paghera ... ' 23 Cesare De Michelis, 'Un giornale dedicato al bel sesso,' La donna galante ed erudita, viii-ix. 24 In their introductions to the three-volume 1988 edition of Giornale delle NuoveMode di Francia e d'Inghilterra, historians Stefania De Stefanis Ciccone and Grazietta Butazzi provide the most accurate and detailed account available of the history of the Milanese journal and its intimate affiliations with Donna galante. The Milanese fashion magazine was compiled by an unidentified editor and published by the Pirola brothers every fifteen days from 15 July 1786 until 21 December 1794. Although Donna galante provides only the year and not a precise date of publication, historians have established that it succeeded Giornale delle dameby nearly six months. The Milanese journal, which regularly attributed its material to a French source, began its publication in July of 1786, whereas the Venetian journal did not go into print until the fall of that year. According to De Stefanis Ciccone, 'The first issue of Giornale delle Dame e delle Mode di Francia was from 15 July 1786, while Donna galante ed erudita began probably in the middle of September. And this additional two months would have permitted the indiscriminate use of materials coming from France already chosen and translated in Milan. The prints would also have had the same fate and would have been copied two times, the first time in Milan and the second in Venice.' In De Stefanis Ciccone, Ixv and nl. 'II primo numero del Giornale delkDame e delle Mode di Francia e del 15 luglio 1786, mentre la Donna galante ed erudita comincia probabilmente a meta settembre. E questo scarto di due mesi permettera 1'uso indiscriminato del materiale provieniente dalla Francia gia scelto e tradotto a Milano. Anche le incisioni subiranno la stessa sorte e verranno copiate due volte, la prima a Milano, la seconda a Venezia.' 25 Daniel Roche indicates that the English Fashionable Magazine, which began publication in November 1786, was a copy of Cabinet des Modes, ed. Jean Antoine Brun [Lebrun-Tossa] (Paris, 1785-6). See 'Stampa, Moda, Lumi nel Secolo XVIII,' in Giornale delle Nuove Mode, xxxv and n47. The German version of Cabinet des Modes was entitled Journal der moden and published in Weimar from 1786 to 1788, as indicated by Doretta Davanzo Poli, 'La Moda nella Venezia del Settecento,' in Donna galante, 335. 26 Jennifer Michelle Jones, "The Taste for Fashion and Frivolity": Gender, Clothing, and the Commercial Culture of the Old Regime' (Ph.D. diss., Princeton University, 1991), 216-58.

Notes to pages 112-14

175

27 Jones, "Taste for Fashion and Frivolity,"' 220. 28 The Cabinet changed format and thematic focus three times in response to shifts in the political and cultural landscape. From November 1786 to December 1789, under new direction by Louis Edme. Billardon de Sauvigny, the name changed to Magasin des Modes Nouvelks Franfaises et Anglaises to reflect an expanded purview, which included English fashions increasingly popular in France. Restored in 1790 as editor, Lebruri changed the title to Journal de la Mode et du Gout and sought during its last four years of life to translate the themes of the revolution into the mundane material reality of fabric, colour, and sartorial style. See Roche, 'Stampa, Moda, Lumi nel Seccolo XVIII,' for details. 29 Jones, "Taste for Fashion and Frivolity,"' 219. 30 Quoted in Jones, "Taste for Fashion and Frivolity,"' 222. 31 Jones, "Taste for Fashion and Frivolity,"' 222-3. 32 Jones, "Taste for Fashion and Frivolity,"' 223. 33 It must be noted that the lengthy Italian publications nevertheless copied most of their material from Cabinet des Modes, whose previously published issues they compiled into single numbers. 34 Donna galante, 350. (I am again citing page numbers from the 1983 facsimile of the magazine and will do so throughout except in those cases where the facsimile does not include a particular article. In the latter situation, I will indicate the volume, issue number, and pages from the original.) 'Altri mezzi per conservare la bellezza delle donne; Lettera sopra 1'esercizio del ventalgio [dallo Spectator}; Aneddoti e tratti di spirito; Amena letteratura; Bijoux di nuova moda e del miglior gusto; Erudizione; Gabinetto delle mode di Francia.' 35 See Cesare De Michelis in his introduction to the 1983 edition Donna galante, viii-ix. 36 I wish to acknowledge the generous assistance of Catherine Sama in locating and sharing with me information on Gioseffa Cornoldi Caminer found in the Registro anagrafe generals, 1805. The entry states that Gioseffa was fortyseven in 1805, that she was married to Antonio Caminer, who was forty-eight at the time, and that the couple had four children: Anna, age eighteen; Teresa, age sixteen; Elisabetta, age fourteen; and Maria, age ten. The entry also states that the couple's address was Sestiere S. Marco a S. Angelo, corte dell'Albero 2954. There is no mention of Gioseffa's work. 37 Gioseffa Cornoldi Caminer, 'Giustificazione dell'editrice,' in Donna galante, 3: 'Erudizione! Galanteria! Ecco un eccellente sonnifero, una indiscreta satira. Scrittore mio ... tu vuoi istruire, tu vuoi recar diletto, ed ignori che i doveri della femmina sono tutt'altro che analoghi alia erudizione; tenti

176 Notes to pages 115-19 d'inveire contro il bel sesso, e non dev'esserti ignoto, che anzi deesi rispettarlo ed accarezzarlo.' 38 Cornoldi Caminer, 'Giustificazione,' 3: 'II mio specchio dice che non sono la piu brutta delle femmine, il mio amor proprio mi persuade che di talento non sono mancante, ed il mio oriuolo mi annota che non ne faccio mal'uso. Infine, la mia penna mi dice all'orecchio che posso anch'io scarabocchiare.' 39 Cornoldi Caminer, 'Giustificazione,' 3: 'Se sono bella, or brutta, vecchia o ancor degna degli umani dementi sguardi, se sono saggia o svolazzante, lei signer critico osservatore non e sufficiente ne giudice, ne conoscitore.' 40 Cornoldi Caminer, 'Giustificazione,' 4: 'La Crusca non e per una femmina del bon ton, ma bensi il fiore della farina, la polvere di Cipri. La testa, la faccia, il capo, le mani ec. ec. ec. devono esserne ricoperte. lo sono una letterata. Fior di farina dunque, farina che vola al primo soffio.' 41 See, for example, the article published anonymously by Pietro Verri, 'Su i parolai,' in // Caffe 1764-1766, ed. Gianni Francioni and Sergio Romagnoli (Turin: Bollati Boringhieri, 1993), 472-5. 42 Kathryn Shevelow, Women and Print Culture: The Construction of Femininity in the Early Periodical (London: Routledge, 1989), 64. Shevelow speaks at length about the didactic design of the periodical. See especially 1-33. 43 On this subject see Paula Findlen, 'Translating the New Science: Women and the Circulation of Knowledge in Enlightenment Italy,' in Configurations 3:2 (1995): 167-206. 44 Leo Lowenthal, 'Historical Perspectives on Popular Culture,' in Critical Theory and Society: A Reader, ed. Stephen Eric Bonner and Douglas Kellner (New York: Routledge, 1989), 185. 45 I have sought to preserve the usage of the term 'Moda' in eighteenth-century fashion magazines, wherein it is capitilized when personified and lowercased when used to refer to fashion trends generally. 46 To repeat what I have stated in previous chapters, my concept of the dominant characteristics of the Republic of Letters in Italy during the eighteenth century has been much influenced by Dena Goodman's original and compelling analysis in The Republic of Letters: A Cultural History of the French Enlightenment (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994), especially chapter 1, 12-52. 47 Erin Mackie, Market a la Mode: Fashion, Commodity and Gender in The Taller' and 'The Spectator' (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), xiv. 48 Michael Warner, 'The Mass Public and the Mass Subject,' in The Phantom Public Sphere, ed. Bruce Robbins (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993), 235. 49 Jones, "Taste for Fashion and Frivolity,"' 218-23. 50 Laycock, 'Shape-Shifting,' 128.

Notes to pages 119-22

177

51 Goodman, Republic of Letters, 1-9, and chapter 2, 'Philosophies and Salonnieres: A Critique of Enlightenment Historiography,' 53-89. 52 See chapter 4 of this book for a discussion of how fashion and the desire for luxury fit within the Enlightenment project for economic reform. 53 Gasparo Gozzi, Gazzetta veneta [1760-2] (Florence: Sansoni, 1957), 336: 'Credetemi, il mondo e oggidi ad un'altra foggia, e se noi siamo al mondo, abbiamo a fare come quelli che ci vivono dentro.' 54 Pietro Verri, 'Ricordi a mia figlia Teresa' in Manoscritto per Teresa, ed. Gennaro Barbarisi (Milan: Serra e Riva, 1983), 145-201; Pietro Chiari, Lettere d 'un solitario a sua figlia performarle il cuore, e lo spirito nella scuola del mondo pubblicato dall'abate Pietro Chiari (Venice: Battifoco, 1777). It should be noted that, in Chiari's case, the daughter was fictional. 55 See Luciano Guerci's analysis in La discussione sulla donna nell'Italia del Settecento (Turin: Tirrenia Stampatori, 1987), 117-18. 56 Pierdomenico Soresi, Saggio sopra la necessitd e lafacilitd di ammaestrare lefanciulle (Milan: Federico Agnelli, 1774), 10-11: 'In primo luogo alzando da letto assai tardi, come se 1'umana vita non fosse abbastanza breve, e la piu salubre aria non fosse l'antimeridiana, cominciano a prendesi fastidio come passeran la giornata? Si perde quindi un discrete tempo alia Toilette. La bella vi riceve qualche visita: vi si disputa e decide qual veste s'ha a prescegliere per quel giorno: e poiche il Sole e verso il tramontare, si passa al pranzo. Di la si va a far quello che esse chiamano una passeggiata, benche tale non sia se non pe' loro cavalli, e che il saggio Medico di Genevra chiamerebbe un pernicioso esercizio. Si fa poi qualche visita, a suggerimento del Cavalier servente, che ne dene il calendario, nell'ora che agli altri e notte, ed elleno chiaman sera. Eccole finalmente al Teatro allorche 1'Opera e gia di molto awanzata. S'entra con rumore, si saluta con distrazione, si cade a piombo sul soffa, si volta il dorso allo spettacolo, si disturba chi vorrebbe star attento, e sto per dire gli stessi Attori. Si previene la noja, fedele seguace degli sfaccendati, con prendere un rinfresco, con giucare alquanto: e prima che cominci il terz'atto, rinnovato lo strepito si batte la ritirata.' 57 Donna galante, 21: 'Voi potete portare un mazzetto di fiori attaccato davanti al vostro corsetto, farvi pettinare con un largo tapet e tre ricci per parte, uno del quali deve pendere sul seno; ma e necessario, ve lo ripeto, un bel portamento.' 58 Sarah R. Cohen, 'Masquerade as Mode in the French Fashion Print,' in The Clothes That Wear Us, ed. Jessica Munns and Penny Richards (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1999), 175. 59 Cohen, 'Masquerade as Mode,' 174. 60 Donna galante, 274—5: 'I mariti non sono ora piu padroni assoluti in casa loro;

178 Notes to pages 122-7 le mogli non sono piu soggette alia loro obbedienza: deve regnare tra di essi un'aria di eguaglianza: ciascuno vive da se, e sceglie i suoi divertimenti e le sue conversazioni. Perseguitare la moglie, contraddirla, sarebbe una cosa odiosa e generalmente condannata, ma qualunque sia la vita particolare, mai non si manca ai riguardi che riciprocamente si devono avere.' 61 Donna galante, Tom. I, Num. VII [1786], 218: 'li conducete nelle adunanze, al passeggio, e nei luoghi piu frequentati, facendoli gloria di farli vedere massimamente quando sono belli, vivaci, svelti, faced, perche il vostro amor proprio gode gli elogi medesimi che vengono loro diretti.' 62 Donna galante, 244-5: 'Le donne ... non usano piu i superlativi, piu non impiegano le parole di delizioso, di sorprendente, d'' incomprensibile; parlano con affettata semplicita; ne piu esprimono sopra cosa alcuna, ne la loro ammirazione, ne i loro trasporti: I piu funesti awenimenti non meritano che una leggiera esclamazione; le notizie del giorno sono narrate senza riflessione; e la fisica, le chimiche sperienze, e la metafisica, oggetti di odierna moda, somministrano materia alia conversazione.' 63 Donna galante, Tom. I, Num. VI [1786], 170-2. 64 Joseph Addison, first published in the 12 April 1711 issue of the Spectator (n37). See the edition by G. Gregory Smith (London: J.M. Dent, [1909]), 1:135-9. 65 Spectator, 138n37: 'As her reading has lain very much among romances, it has given her a very particular turn of thinking, and discovers itself even in her house, her gardens, and her furniture.' 66 Donna galante, Tom. I, Num. VI [1786], 171. 'pochi di questi libri trovavansi ad uso della Dama.' 67 Mackie, Market d la Mode, 99. 68 Donna galante, Tom I, Num. VI [1786], 172: 'II disordine della Biblioteca, 1'eleganza dei Mobili, le disposizioni dei Giardini, tutto offre l'immagine dei mod dell'anima di quest'amabile solitaria.' 69 Donna galante, Tom. II, Num. XIX [1787], 202-10. 70 Donna galante, Tom. I, Num. V [1786], 150-3. 71 Ballaster et al., Women's Worlds: Ideology, Femininity and the Woman's Magazine, 4. 72 Donna galante, Tom. I, Num. II [1786], 35-40. 73 Donna galante, 39. 74 Donna galante, Tom. I, Num. VII [1786], 195: 'Ma il marito divenne per sua fatalita uno di quelli per cui il sesso non ha che un merito solo, e che non fanno conto della sposa che per un mobile nuovo, e che cessano di fame caso semprecche loro non sembra piu tale. Passato appena il primo mese della loro unione, tutti i trasporti del Cavaliere non lasciarongli per sua moglie che una freddezza, alia quale succedette subito il disgusto.'

Notes to pages 127-32 179 75 In, for example, // Gaffe, discussed at length in chapter 4. 76 Roland Barthes, The Fashion System, trans. Matthew Ward and Richard Howard (London: Jonathan Cape, 1985), 252. 77 Pamela Caughie, Passing and Pedagogy: The Dynamics of Responsibility (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1999), 13. 78 Terry Castle, Masquerade and Civilization: The Carnivalesque in Eighteenth-CenturEnglish Culture (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1986), 39. 79 Castle's account of the unprecedented sway the masquerade attained in the eighteenth century does not, however, adequately consider the function of contemporary social conventions in the institutionalization and proliferation of the mask. 80 Mikhail Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World, trans. Helene Iswolsky (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1968), 40. 81 Bakhtin, Rabelais, 33. 82 Danilo Reato, Storia del Carnevale di Venezia (Venice: Tipografia Commerciale Venezia, 1988), 14: 'La maschera a Venezia ... era tollerata per molti mesi all'anno. A questo in parte si deve 1'idea di un Carnevale senza fine.' 83 Reato, Storia del Carnevale, 89: 'non sia permesso alle dame ne ad altre fernmine di civil ed onesta condizione 1'intervenir nei teatri se non in maschera cioe con tabaro bauta.' A tabaro bautawas a traditional carnival mask with a black hood and cape popular during the eighteenth century. 84 Reato, Storia del Carnevale, 10: 'non esistono distinzioni di sorta fra attori e spettatori, infatti non c'e bisogno di un palcoscenico ideale ... ogni luogo puo andar bene e, come non esistono confini spazionali, cosi non ci sono ne regole, ne leggi.' 85 Mary Russo, 'Female Grotesques: Carnival and Theory,' in Feminist Studies, Critical Studies, ed. Teresa De Lauretis (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986), 213. 86 Donna galante, 196: 'Gli sfinimenti, le convulsioni sono difetti, sono mali quando sieno sinceri; perche farsi gloria una donna di spirito dei suoi difetti? Non si disapprova uno sfinimento ad arte, ma in un caso rilevantissimo, e decisive. Negli affari d'importanza si ha a tentar tutto.' 87 Donna galante, 251: 'La debolezza e propria del bel sesso: questi lo sa; la donna senti pur troppo che vieppiu ella interessa col comparire un ente dilicato.' 88 Donna galante, 130: 'Se noi avessimo fatto le leggi, le cose avrebbero preso un altro aspetto. Saremmo affisse sul trono, giudicheremmo gli uomini, e forse il mondo non anderebbe si male.' 89 Caughie, Passing and Pedagogy, 13.

180 Notes to pages 133-5 Conclusion 1 Gilberto Zacche, 'Nota Bio-bibliografica,' in Carolina Lattanzi, Schiavitu delle donne [1797], ed. Gilberto Zacche (Mantua: Edizioni Lombarde, 1976), 31-3. 2 Lattanzi, Schiavitu delle donne, 42-4: 'Cittadini, se voi spezzare volete le catene dei re, noi spezzare vogliamo anco le nostre.... Se gli uomini non vogliono essere schiavi di un tiranno, molto piu noi, no non vogliamo esserlo di mille. Voi odiate un despota, noi detestiamo 1'aristocrazia degli uomini, sotto la quale gemiamo per tanti secoli. E che! Sono forse indegne le donne d'avere comuni con voi i diritti e i doveri? Non sono esse capaci delle azioni le piu magnanime e le piu decisive? ... Se la resistenza all'oppressione e un diritto, gli uomini non potranno non riconoscerlo in noi.... Deh! giunga pertanto il giorno di redenzione anco per il mio sesso, e allora a piu ragione ci chiamerete la piu cara parte del genere umano.' 3 Benoit Touzetti, 'Apologie des femmes ou verites qui font triompher le beau sexe' (Turin, 1798). 4 Anna Vadori, 'Rapporto d'una Festa Civica, celebrata in Costantinopoli dai Frances! e Veneziani' (Venice, 1797). 5 Cittadina Mattei, 'Dell'Educazione che si deve alle Donne' (Vincenza, n.d.) 6 Among these anonymous political tracts by women are Anonima Cittadina, 'La causa delle Donne. Discorso agli Italiani' [Venice, 1797], in Donne e Diritto: Due secoli di legislazione - 1796/1986, vol. 2, ed. Agata Alma Capiello et al. (Rome: Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri, 1988), 1189-99; Anonimo, 'Istruzione d'una Cittadina alle sue Concittadine' (Venice, 1797). 7 On the status of women after Napoleon's conquest of Italy see Gilberto Zacche, 'Aspetti della questione femminile in Italia nel secolo XVIII,' in Lattanzi, Schiavitu delle donne, 9-28; Paola Giuli, 'Querelle des Femmes: Eighteenth-Century,' in The Feminist Encyclopedia of Italian Literature, ed. Rinaldina Russell (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1997), 273-5; Luisa Riccaldone, 'II dibattito sulla donna nella letteratura patriotica del triennio 1796-1799,' in Italienische Studien 7 (1984): 23-46; Donatella Vasetti, 'Le donne giacobine a Bologna (1796-1799),' in La sferapubblica femminile, ed. Dianella Gagliani (Bologna: CLUEB, 1992), 41-8. 8 For a succinct overview of the major themes and authorities of the querelle des femmes, see Margaret L. King and Albert Rabil, Jr, The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe: Introduction to the Series,' in Lucrezia Marinella, The Nobility and Excellence of Women, and the Defects and Vices of Men, ed. and trans. Anne Dunhill (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), vii-xxvi. 9 Antonio Vallisneri, 'Introduzione,' Discorsi Accademici di vari autori viventi intorno agli Studi delle Donne (Padua: Giovanni Manfre, 1729), 2: 'Un secolo

Notes to pages 135-7

181

tutto mirabile e oculatissimo' [in cui] 'nulla si ammette per vero, se non cio che la ragione ben chiara, fiancheggiata alia esperienza, non dimostra per evidente.' 10 Vallisneri, 'Introduzione,' 4: 'governo d'ogni piu ben regolata Repubblica.' 11 Paola Malpezzi Price, 'A Woman's Discourse in the Italian Renaissance: Moderata Fonte's // merito delle donne'in Annali d'ltalianistica 7 (1989): 166. 12 Baldassarre Castiglione, // libra del cortegiano, ed. Ettore Bonora (Milan: Mursia, 1972). 13 Valeria Finucci, The Lady Vanishes: Subjectivity and Representation in Castiglione and Ariosto (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992), 18. 14 Vallisneri, 'Introduzione,' 2: 'tutto con indifferente e disappassionato rigore si mette al cimento.' 15 Moderata Fonte, The Worth of Women: Wherein Is Clearly Revealed Their Nobility and Their Superiority to Men [1600], ed. and trans. Virginia Cox (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997). 16 Christine De Pizan, The Book of the City of Ladies, trans. Earl Jeffrey Richards (New York: Persea, 1982). 17 Marinella, The Nobility and Excellence of Women. 18 Arcangela Tarabotti, Che le donne siano della spezie degli uomini [1651] (London: Institute of Romance Languages, 1994). 19 Jeffrey Masten, 'Is the Fundament a Grave?' in The Body in Parts: Fantasies of Corporeality in Early Modern Europe, ed. David Hillman and Carla Mazzio (New York: Routledge, 1997), 128-45.

This page intentionally left blank

Works Cited

Primary Sources Addison, Joseph. The Spectator. Edited by G. Gregory Smith. London: J.M. Dent, [1909]. Algarotti, Francesco. II Newtonianismo per le dame. Naples: Giambatista Pasquali, 1739. Agnesi, Maria Gaetana. Istituzioni Analitiche ad uso della Gioventu Italiana. Milan: Richini, 1748. Anonimo. 'Istruzione d'una Cittadina alle sue Concittadine.' Venice, 1797. Anonima Cittadina. 'La causa delle Donne. Discorso agli Italian!.' [Venice, 1797] In Donne eDiritto:Duesecoli di legislazione-1796/1986. Vol 2, edited by Agata Alma Capiello et al., 1189-99. Rome: Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri, 1988 Bandiera, Giovanni Niccolo. Trattato degli studi delle Donne in due parti diviso. Opera d'un Accademico Intronato. 2 vols. Venice: Francesco Pitteri, 1740. Barbapiccola, Giuseppa Eleonora. 'La Traduttrice a' Lettori.' In IPrincipi della felosofia di Renato Des-cartes tradotti dalfrancese col confronto del latino in cui I'autore gli scrisse, sig. +3r.-sig. +++4v. Turin: Gio. Francesco Mairesse, 1722. Basil, St, Bishop of Caesarea. 'Address to Young Men on Reading Greek Literature.' In The Letters, translated by RoyJ. Defarrari, 363-435. London: W. Heinemann, 1926. Beccaria, Cesare. 'De' fogli periodici.' In // Cafje, 1764-1766, edited by Gianni Francioni and Sergio Romagnoli, 411-19. Turin: Bollati Boringhieri, 1993. - 'Dello spirito di famiglia. In Dei delitti e dellepene [1764], edited by Franco Venturi, 68-70. Milan: Mondadori, 1991. Becelli, Guido Cesare. Trattato della divisione degli ingegni. Verona, 1738. Bettinelli, Saverio. 'Lettere sui pregi delle donne.' In Opere edite e inedite inprosa ed in verst, 13: 215-99. Venice: Adolfo Cesare, 1799-1801.

184 Works Cited Brognoli, Antonio. Elogi di Bresicani per dottrina eccellenti del secolo XVIII. Bologna: Forni Editore, 1972. Cabinet des Modes. Edited by Jean Antoine Brun [Lebrun-Tossa]. Paris, 1785-6. II Caffe 1764-1766. Edited by Gianni Francioni and Sergio Romagnoli. Turin: Bollati Boringhieri, 1993. Califronia, Rosa. Breve difesa dei diritti delle donne. Assisi, 1794. Camposanpiero, Guglielmo. 'Che debbono ammettersi le Donne allo Studio delle Scienze e delle belle Arti.' In Discorsi Accademici di van autori viventi intorno agli Studi delle Donne, edited by Giovann Antonio Volpi, 6-26. Padua: Giovanni Manfre, 1729. Castiglione, Baldassarre. // libra del cortegiano [1528]. Edited by Ettore Bonora. Milan: Mursia, 1972. Chiari, Pietro. Lettera d'un solitario a sua figlia performark il cuore, e lo spirito nella scuola del mondo pubblicato dall'abate Pietro Chiari. Venice: Battifoco, 1777. Conti, Antonio. 'Lettera dell'Abate Conti P.V. sopra lo stesso argomento.' Appendix to Antoine Leonard Thomas, Saggio sopra il carattere, i costumi e lo spirito delle donne ne'varii secoli del sig. Thomas dell'Accademia Francese. Traduzione italiana corredata di annotazioni storico critiche, ed accresciuta di una lettera dall'abate Conti P. V. Intorno lo stesso argomento. Edited and translated by Lodovico Antonio Loschi, 195-229. Venice: Giovanni Vitto, 1773. - Otto lettere inedite dell'Abate Antonio Conti. Edited by Luigi Tenca. In Atti dell'Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, 1953-1954. Vol. 112 of Classe di scienze matematiche e naturali. Venice, 1954. - Prose e poesie del signor abate Antonio Conti, patrizio veneto. 2 vols. Venice: Giambatista Pasquali, 1756. - Scrittifelosqfici.Edited by Nicola Badaloni. Naples: Casa Editrice Fulvio Rossi, 1972. Cornaldi Caminer, Gioseffa. 'Giustificazione dell'editrice.' In La donna galante ed erudita. Giornale dedicate al belsesso [1786-8], edited by Cesare De Michelis, 3-4. Venice: Marsilio Editori, 1983. Delfico, Melchiorre. 'Elogio del Marchese Grimaldi. In Opere complete di Melchiorre Deljico, edited by Giacinto Panella and Luigi Savorini. 4 volumes. Teramo: Editore Fabbri, 1901-4. - Saggiofelosoficosul matrmonio. Teramo, 1774. De Pizan, Christine. The Book of the City of Ladies. Translated by Earl Jeffrey Richards. New York: Persea, 1982. Discorsi Accademici di vari autori viventi intorno agli Studi delle Donne. Edited by Giovann Antonio Volpi. Padua: Giovanni Manfre, 1729. Filangieri, Gaetano. La Scienza della Legislazione. Edited by Vittorio Frosini. 2 vols. Rome: Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato, 1984.

Works Cited

185

Foglio per k donne. Venice [c. 1760]. Fonte, Moderate. The Worth of Women: Wherein Is Clearly Reveakd Their Nobility and Their Superiority to Men. Edited and translated by Virginia Cox. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997. Franci, Carlo Sebastiano. 'Alcuni pensieri politici.' In // Gaffe 1764-1766, edited by Gianni Francioni and Sergio Romagnoli, 143-50. Turin: Bollati Boringhieri, 1993. - 'Del lusso delle manifatture d'oro e d'argento.' In // Gaffe 1764-1766, edited by Gianni Francioni and Sergio Romagnoli, 494-7. Turin: Bollati Boringhieri, 1993. - 'Difesa delle donne.' In // Caffe 1764-1766, edited by Gianni Francioni and Sergio Romagnoli, 245-56. Turin: Bollati Boringhieri, 1993. - La moneta, oggetto istorico, civile e politico. Milan: Giuseppe Galeazzi, 1769. - 'Osservazioni sulla questione se il commercio corrompa i costumi e la morale.' In // Caffe 1764-1766, edited by Gianni Francioni and Sergio Romagnoli, 655-61. Turin: Bollati Boringhieri, 1993. Galiani, Ferdinando. Croquis d'un dialogue sur les femmes [1772]. In Opere di Ferdinando Galiam, edited by Furio Diaz and Luciano Guerci, 615-33. Vol. 6 of Illuministi Italiani. Milan: Riccardo Ricciardi, 1975. Galilei, Galileo. Dialogue on the Great World Systems in the [Thomas] Salusbury Translation. Edited by Giorgio De Santillana. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953. Giornak di adunanze, B. June 1723. Accademia De' Ricovrati, Padua. Giornale delk Dame. Florence, 1781. Giornak delle Dame e delk Mode diFrancia. Milan: Pirola, 1786-94. Giornak delk Nuove Mode di Francia e d 'Inghilterra [ 1786-94]. 3 vols. Edited by Grazietta Butazzi. Turin: Umberto Allemandi, 1988. Goldoni, Carlo. Memorie. Milan: Mondadori, 1993. - Le Smanie per la vilkggiatura. In Trilogia delta villeggiatura. Milan: Rizzoli, 1982. Gozzi, Gasparo. Gazzetta veneta [1760-2]. Florence: Sansoni, 1957. Journal de la Mode et du Gout. Edited by Jean Antoine Brun [Lebrun-Tossa]. Paris: 1790-4. L'Hospital, Marquis de [Guillaume Francois Antoine]. Analyse des infiniment petits, pour I 'intelligence des lignes courbes. Paris, 1696. Lattanzi, Carolina. Schiavitu delk donne [1797]. Edited by Gilberto Zacche. Mantua: Edizioni Lombarde, 1976. Mabillon,Jean, Dom. Traite des Estudes Monastiques. Paris: Carles Robustel, 1691. Magasin des Modes Nouvelks Francoises et Anglaises. Edited by Louis Edme. Billardon de Sauvigny. Paris, 1786-9. Malebranche, Nicolas. De la recherche de la verite. Ou Von traitte de la nature de I'esprit

186 Works Cited de I 'homme, & del 'usage qu 'il en doitfaire pour eviter I 'erreur dans les sciences. 2 vols. Paris: Chez Andre Pralard, 1675-6. - The Search after Truth. Translated by Thomas M. Lennon and Paul J. Olscamp. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1980. Marinella, Lucrezia. The Nobility and Excellence of Women and the Defects and Vices of Men [1600]. Edited and translated by Anne Dunhill. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999. Martello, Pier Jacopo. Teatro. Edited by Hannibal S. Noce Rome: Laterza, 1980. Mattei, Cittadina. 'Dell'Educazione che si deve alle Donne.' Vincenza, n.d. Medaglia Faini, Diamante. 'Quali studi convengono alle donne.' In Versi eprose con altri componimenti di diversi autori e colla vita dell'autrice, edited by Giuseppe Pontara, 167-80. Salo: Bartolomeo Righetti, 1774. - Versi e prose con altri componimenti di diversi autori e colla vita deU'autrice. Edited by Giuseppe Pontara. Salo: Bartolomeo Righetti, 1774. Muratori, Ludovico Antonio. Carteggi con Ubaldini... Vannoni. Vol. 44 ofEdizione nazionale del carteggio di Ludovico Antonio Muratori. Edited by Michela L. Nichetti Panic. Florence: L.S. Olschki, 1978. - Delia perfetta poesia italiana spiegata e dimostrata con varie osservazioni. Modena: B. Soliani, 1706. Newton, Isaac. Philosophiae naturalisprincipia mathematica. London: J. Streater for Royal Society, 1687. Nigrisoli, Francesco Maria. Considerazioni intorno alia generazione de'tnventi. Ferrara, 1712. Poullain de la Barre, Francois. The Equality of the Two Sexes. Translated by A. Daniel Franforter and Paul J. Morman. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mell en Press, 1989. Registro anagrafe generale. Archivio Comunale di Venezia. 1805. Registri de'Ragionamenti redtati nett'Accademia detta de'Discordi di Said, ed ora de'Pescatori Benacensi. Biblioteca dell'Ateneo, Salo, ms. 101 (c. 23), n. 4. Revese, Antonio. L'impossibile, owero la riforma dette donne netta loro educazione. Venice: Giovanni Zatta, 1799. Robbio di San Raffaele, Benvenuto. Disgrazie di Donna Urania, owero degli studj femminili. Parma: Bodoni, 1793. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. The Social Contract: An Eighteenth-Century Translation. Edited and translated by Charles Frankel. New York: Hafner Press, 1947. Sanival, Marchesa di [pseud, of Fausto Salvani.]. LaDifesa delleDonneosia risposta apologetica al libro detto Lo Scoglio dett'Umanitd diDiunilgo Valdedo. Venice: Pietro Savioni, 1787. Savini De' Rossi, Aretafila. 'Apologia in favore degli Studi delle Donne, contra il precedente Discorso del signer Gio. Antonio Volpi.' In Discorsi Accademid di

Works Cited

187

vari autori viventi intorno agli Studi delle Donne, edited by Giovann Antonio Volpi, 50-65. Padua: Giovanni Manfre, 1729. Soresi, Pierdomenico. Saggio sopra la necessitd e lafacilitd di ammaestrare lefanciulle. Milan: Federico Agnelli, 1774. Suardi, Giovann Battista. Nuovi istromenti per la descrizione di diverse curve antiche e moderne, e di molte altre, che servirpossono alia speculazione de' Geometri, ed all'uso de'Pratiti. Colprogetto di due nuove macchineper la. nautica, ed unaper la meccanica, e con alcune Osservazioni sopra de'Poligoni rettilinei regolari. Brescia: Gianmaria Rizzardi, 1752. - Trattenimenti matematici. Brescia: Giambatista Bossini, 1764. Tarabotti, Arcangela. Che le donne siano della spetie degli huomini. Difesa delle donne di Galerana Barcitottt [pseud.] contra Horatio Plata. Nuremberg: Cherchenberger, 1651. Thomas, Antoine Leonard. Essai sur le caractere, les moeurs el I'esprit desfemmes dans les different siecles. Paris: Chez Moutard, 1772. - Saggio sopra il carattere, il costume e lo spirito delle donne ne' varii secoli, del sig. Thomas dell'AccademiaFrancese. Traduzione italiana corredata di annotazioni storico critiche; ed accresciuta di una lettera dall'abate Conti P.V. intorno lo stesso argomento. Edited and translated by Lodovico Antonio Loschi. Venice: Giovanni Vitto, 1773. Touzetti, Benoit. 'Apologie des femmes ou verites qui font triompher le beau sexe.' Turin, 1798. Vadori, Anna. 'Rapporto d'una Festa Civica, celebrata in Constantinopoli dai Francesi e Veneziani.' Venice, 1797. Valdecio, Diunilgo [pseudo. of Carlo Maria Chiaraviglio]. Lo scoglio dell'umanitd, ossia Awertimento salutare alia gioventu per cautelarsi contro le male qualitd delle donne cattive. Operetta lepido-critica-poetica-morale di Diunilgo Valdecio, pastor arcade. 2nd ed. Venice: Zatta, 1779. Vallisneri, Antonio. 'Introduzione.' In Discorsi Accademici di vari autori viventi intorno agli Studi delle Donne, edited by Giovann Antonio Volpi, 1-5. Padua: Giovanni Manfre, 1729. - 'Decisione del Problema Fatta dal suddetto Signer Antonio Vallisneri.' In Discorsi Accademici di vari autori viventi intorno agli Studi delle Donne, edited by Giovann Antonio Volpi, 46-9. Padua: Giovanni Manfre, 1729. Verri, Pietro. Ricordi a miafeglia [1777]. In Manoscritto per Teresa, edited by Gennaro Barbarisi. Milan: Serra e Riva, 1983. - 'Sui i parolai.' In // Gaffe, 1764-1766, edited by Gianni Francioni and Sergio Romagnoli, 472-5. Turin: Bollati Boringhieri, 1993. Volpi, Giovann Antonio. 'Dedicatoria.' In Discorsi Accademici di vari autori viventi intorno agli Studi delle Donne, edited by Giovann Antonio Volpi, sig. a3r-sig. a7v. Padua: Giovanni Manfre, 1729.

188 Works Cited - 'Che non debbono ammettersi le Donne allo Studio delle Scienze, e delle belle Arti. Discorso Accademico del Signor Gio: Antonio Volpi Pubblico Professore di Filosofia nello Studio di Padova, da lui recitato in Padova nell'Accademia de' Ricovrati il di 16. Giugno 1723.' In Discorsi Accademici di van autori viventi intorno agli Studi delle Donne, edited by Giovann Antonio Volpi, 27-45. Padua: Giovanni Manfre, 1729. - 'Prefazione.' In Discorsi Accademici di vari autori viventi intorno agli Studi delle Donne, edited by Giovann Antonio Volpi, sig. a8r-sig. alOv. Padua: Giovanni Manfre, 1729. Volpi, Giovann Antonio, ed. Discorsi Accademici di vari autori viventi intorno agli Studi dette Donne. Padua: Giovanni Manfre, 1729. Zecchini, Petronio Ignazio. Di geniali: Delia dialettica delle donne ridotta al suo vero principio. Bologna: A.S. Tommaso d'Aquino, 1771. Secondary Sources Alma Mater Studiorum: La Presenza Femminile: Dal XVIII al XX Secolo. Bologna: CLUEB Editrice, 1988. Angenot, Marc. Les champions desfemmes. Montreal: Les Presses de 1'Universite de Quebec, 1977. Armaroli, Maurizio, ed. Le cere anatomiche bolognesi del Settecento. Bologna: CLUEB Editrice, 1981. Arslan, Antonia, Adriana Chemello, and Gilberto Pizzamiglio, eds. Le Stanze Ritrovate: Antologia di Scrittrici venete dal Quattrocento alNovecento. Venice: Eidos, 1993. Badaloni, Nicola. Antonio Conti: Un abate libero pensatore tra Newton e Voltaire. Milan: Feltrinelli, 1968. Bakhtin, Mikhail. Rabelais and His World. Translated by Helene Iswolsky. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1968. Ballaster, Ros, Margaret Beetham, Elizabeth Frazer, and Sandra Hebron, eds. Women's Worlds: Ideology, Femininity and the Woman's Magazine. London: Macmillan, 1991. Bandini Buti, Maria. Poetesse e scrittrici. Enciclopedia biografica e bibliografica italiana. Vol. 6. Rome: EBBI, 1942. Barthes, Roland. The Fashion System. Translated by Matthew Ward and Richard Howard. London: Jonathan Cape, 1985. Beck, Lewis White, ed. Eighteenth-Century Philosophy. New York: Free Press, 1966. Benson, Pamela Joseph. The Invention of the Renaissance Woman: The Challenge of Female Independence in the Literature and Thought of Italy and England. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992.

Works Cited

189

Berengo, Marino. Giornali veneziani del Settecento. Milan: Feltrinelli, 1962. Bersani, Leo. The Subject of Power.' Diacritics (Fall 1977): 2-21. Blade, Melinda. Education of Italian Renaissance Women. Mesquite, Texas: Ide House, 1983. Blasi,Jolanda de. Antologia delle scrittrici italiane. Florence: Nemi, 1931. Bolton, Julia, et al., eds. Equally in God's Image: Women in the Middle Ages. New York: P. Lang, 1990. Bonatti, Maria Ines. 'L'educazione femminile nel pensiero degli Illuministi e in Chiari.' Annali d'Italianistica7 (1989): 226-41. Bordo, Susan. 'The Body and the Reproduction of Femininity: A Feminist Appropriation of Foucault.' In Gender/Body/Knowledge, edited by Alison M. Jaggar and Susan Bordo, 13-33. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1989. Braidotti, Rosi. Patterns of Dissonance: A Study of Women in Contemporary Philosophy. New York: Routledge, 1991. Briggs, E.R. Tncredulite et la pense anglaise en France au debut du dixhuitieme siecle.' Revue d 'Histoire litteraire de la France 41 (October-December 1994): 497-538. Butler, Judith. Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of'Sex.' New York: Routledge, 1993. - Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge, 1990. Butazzi, Grazietta. 'Le Scandalose licenze de sartori e sartore: Considerazione sul mestiere del sarto nella Repubblica di Venezia.' In IMestieri della moda a Venezia dal XIII al XVIII Secolo. Venice: I Mestieri della Moda a Venezia, Edizione del Cavallino, 1988. - 'Mode e modelli culturali.' In Giornale delleNuoveMode diFrancia ed'Inghilterra [1786-94], edited by Grazietta Butazzi, cxi-xcliii. 3 vols. Turin: Umberto Allemandi, 1988. Canepa, Nancy. 'The Writing behind the Wall: Arcangela Tarabotti's Inferno monacaleand Cloistral Autobiography in the Seventeenth Century.' Forum Italiotm30:l (Spring 1996): 1-23. Carpanetto, Dino, and Giuseppe Ricuperati. Italy in the Age of Reason 1685-1789. Translated by Caroline Higgit. New York: Longman, 1987. Castle, Terry. Masquerade and Civilization: The Carnivalesque in Eighteenth-Century English Culture. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1986. Caughie, Pamela. Passing and Pedagogy: The Dynamics of Responsibility. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1999. Cavazza, Marta. 'Dottrici e lettrici dell'Universita di Bologna nel Settecento.' Annali di stona delle umversitd italiane 1 (1997): 109-26.

190 Works Cited - 'Women's Dialectics, or the Thinking Uterus: An Eighteenth-Century Controversy on Gender and Education.' In Nature Embodied, edited by Gianna Pomata and Lorraine Daston. Berlin: Verlag, 2002. Childs, Nick. A Political Academy in Paris, 1724-1731: The Entresol and Its Members. Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2000. Cohen, Sarah R. 'Masquerade as Mode in the French Fashion Print.' In The Clothes That Wear Us, edited by Jessica Munns and Penny Richards, 174-207. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1999. Colicchi, Calogero. Le polemiche contro I 'Arcadia. Messina: Peloritana, 1972. Collina, Beatrice. 'Moderata Fonte e II merito delle donne.' Annali di Italianistica 7 (1989): 142-64. Conti Odorisio, Ginevra. Donna e societd: Lucrezia Marinetti e Arcangela Tarabotti. Rome: Bulzoni, 1979. Copleston, Frederick, SJ. Modern Philosophy from Descartes to Leibniz. Vol. 4 of A History of Philosophy. Westminster: Newman Press, 1961. Cottingham,John. The Rationalists. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988. Covato, Carmela. Sapereepregiudizio: L'educazionedelkdonnefra' 700e'800. Rome: Archivio Giudo Izzi, 1991. Cox, Virginia. 'Moderata Fonte and The Worth of Women.' In Moderata Fonte, The Worth of Women: Wherein Is Clearly Revealed Their Nobility and Their Superiority to Men, edited and translated by Virgina Cox, 1-23. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997. Davanzo Poli, Doretta. 'La Moda nella Venezia del Settecento.' In La donna galante ed erudita. Giornale dedicato al bel sesso [1786-8]. edited by Cesare De Michelis, 329-39. Venice: Marsilio Editori, 1983. Davis, Natalie Zemon, and Arlette Farge, eds. A History of Women: Renaissance and Enlightenment Paradoxes. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, Belknap Press, 1993. De Lauretis, Teresa. 'The Practice of Sexual Difference and Feminist Thought in Italy: An Introductory Essay.' In Sexual Difference: A Theory of Social-Symbolic Practice, edited by the Milan Women's Bookstore Collective, 1-21. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990. De Maddalena, Aldo, Ettore Rotelli, and Gennaro Barbarisi, eds. Economia, istituzioni, e cultura in Lombardia nell'etd di Maria Teresa. Vol. 3. Milan: II Mulino, 1982. De Michelis, Cesare. 'Un giornale dedicato al bel sesso.' In La donna galante ed erudita, edited by Cesare De Michelis, vii-xxi. Venice: Marsilio, 1983. Diaz, Furio. 'Introduzione.' In Opere di Ferdinando Galiani. Vol. 6 of Uluministi Italiani. Milan: Riccardo Ricciardi Editore, 1975. Dizionario biografico degli italiani. Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia italiana, 196098.

Works Cited

191

Elena, Alberto. 'In lode della filosofessa di Bologna: An Introduction to Laura Bassi.' his 82 (1991): 510-18. Fachini, Ginevra Canonici. Prospetto biografeco delle donne italiane rinomate in letteratura dalsecolo detimoquartofino a'giorni nostri. Venice: Tipografia di Alvisopoli, 1824. Ferrone, Vincenzo. The Intellectual Roots of the Italian Enlightenment: Newtonian Science, Religion, and Politics in the Early Eighteenth Century. Translated by Sue Botherton. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1995. Ferrone, Vincenzo, and Daniel Roche, eds. L'llluminismo: Dizionario Storico. Rome: Editori Laterza, 1998. Fido, Franco. Guida a Goldoni: Teatro e societd nel Settecento. Turin: Einaudi, 1977. - 'Italian Contributions to the Eighteenth-Century Debate on Women.' Annali d'ltalianistica: Women's Voices in Italian Literature 7(1989): 216-50. Findlen, Paula. 'Becoming a Scientist: Gender and Knowledge in EighteenthCentury Italy.' Forthcoming in Science and Context. - 'A Forgotten Newtonian: Women and Science in the Italian Provinces.' In The Sciences in Enlightened Europe, edited by William Clark and Jan Golinski, 31349. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999. - 'Science as a Career in Enlightenment Italy: The Strategies of Laura Bassi.' his 84 (1993): 441-69. - 'Translating the New Science: Women and the Circulation of Knowledge in Enlightenment Italy.' Configurations 2 (1995): 167-206. - Women and Science: Gender and the Pursuit of Knowledge since the Middle Ages. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, in press. - The Women Who Understood Newton: Laura Bassi and Her World. New York: Knopf, forthcoming. Finucci, Valeria. The Lady Vanishes: Subjectivity and Representation in Castiglione and Ariosto. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992. Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality, Volume I: An Introduction. Translated by Robert Hurley. New York: Pantheon, 1978. Fox, Christopher, Roy S. Porter, and Robert Wokler, eds. Inventing Human Science: Eight°ei th-Century Domains. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995. Francic->i, Gin mi. 'Storia Editoriale del Caffe.' In // Caffe 1764-1766, edited by Gianni Francioni and Sergio Romagnoli, Ixxxi-cxlv. Turin: Bollati Boringhieri, 1993. Fraser, Nancy. 'Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy.' In The Phantom Public Sphere, edited by Bruce Robbins, 1-32. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993. Giordano, Antonella. Letterate toscane del Settecento. Florence: AH'Insegna del Giglio, 1994. Giuli, Paola. 'Enlightenment.' In The Feminist Encyclopedia of Italian Literature,

192 Works Cited edited by Rinaldina Russell, 77-82. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1997. - 'Querelle des Femmes: Eighteenth-Century.' In The Feminist Encyclopedia of Italian Literature, edited by Rinaldina Russell, 273-5. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1997. - 'Tracing a Sisterhood: Gorilla Olimpica as Corinne's Unacknowledged Alter Ego.' In The Novel's Seductions: Stael's Corinne in Critical Inquiry, edited by Karyne Samurlo, 165-84. Lewisburg, Penn.: Bucknell University Press, 1999. Goodman, Dena. The Republic of Letters: A Cultural History of the French Enlightenment. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994. Graff, Harvey. The Legacies of Literacy. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987. Graziosi, Elisabetta. 'Arcadia Femminile: Presenze e Modelli.' Filologia e critica 17 (1992): 321-58. Grendler, Paul. Schooling in Renaissance Italy: Literacy and Learning. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989. Guerci, Luciano. La discussione sulla donna nell'Italia del Settecento. Turin: Tirrenia Stampatori, 1987. - La sposa obbediente: Donna e matrimonio nella discussione dell'Italia del Settecento. Turin: Tirrenia Stampatori, 1988. Habermas, Jurgen. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society. Translated by Thomas Burger and Fredrick Lawrence. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1989. Harth, Erica. Cartesian Women: Versions and Subversions of Rational Discourse in the Old Regime. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992. Hufton, Olwen. 'Women, Work, and Family.' In A History of Women: Renaissance and Enlightenment Paradoxes, edited by Natalie Zemon Davis and Arlette Farge, 15-45. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, Belknap Press, 1993. Illibato, Antonio. La donna a Napoli nel Settecento: Aspetti della condizione e dell'istruzionefemminile. Naples: M. D'Auria Editore, 1985. Irigaray, Luce. The Irigaray Reader. Edited by Margaret Whitford, translated by David Macey. Oxford: Blackwell, 1991. - This Sex Which Is Not One. Translated by Catherine Porter. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985. Israel, Jonathon I. Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Mondernity, 1650-1750. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. Jones, Jennifer Michelle. "The Taste for Fashion and Frivolity": Gender, Clothing, and the Commercial Culture of the Old Regime.' Ph.D. diss., Princeton University, 1991.

Works Cited

193

Jones, Vivian. Women in the Eighteenth Century: Constructions of Femininity. London: Routledge, 1990. Jordan, Constance. 'Boccaccio's In-famous Women: Gender and Civic Virtue in the De mulieribus Claris.' In Ambiguous Realities: Women in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, edited by Carole Levin and Jeanie Watson, 25-37. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1987. - Renaissance Feminism: Literary Texts and Political Models. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990. - 'Renaissance Women Defending Women: Arguments against Patriarchy.' In Italian Women Writers from the Renaissance to the Present: Revising the Canon, edited by Maria Ornella Marotti, 55-67. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996. Jordan ova, Ludmilla. Sexual Visions: Images of Gender in Science and Medicine between the Eighteenth and the Twentieth Centuries. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989. Kavanagh, Thomas. Writing the Truth: Authority and Desire in Rousseau. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987. Kelly, Joan. Women, History, and Theory: The Essays of Joan Kelly. Edited by Catharine R. Stimpson. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984. Kelso, Ruth. Doctrine for the Lady of the Renaissance. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1956. King, Margaret L. 'Book-Lined Cells: Women and Humanism in the Early Italian Renaissance.' In Beyond Their Sex: Learned Women of the European Past, edited by Patricia Labalme, 66-90. New York: New York University Press, 1980. - 'Thwarted Ambitions: Six Learned Women of the Italian Renaissance.' Soundmgs 59 (1976): 280-304. - Women of the Renaissance. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991. King, Margaret L., and Albert Rabil, Jr, eds. Her Immaculate Hand: Selected Works by and about the Women Humanists of Quattrocento Italy. Binghamton, NY: Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 1983. - 'The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe: Introduction to the Series.' In Lucrezia Marinella, The Nobility and Excellence of Women, and the Defects and Vices of Men, edited and translated by Anne Dunhill, vii-xxvi. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999. Labalme, Patricia, ed. Beyond Their Sex: Learned Women of the European Past. New York: New York University Press, 1980. Landes, Joan. Women and the Public Sphere in the Age oftheFrench Revolution. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988. Laqueur, Thomas. Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1990.

194 Works Cited Laycock, Deborah. 'Shape-Shifting: Fashion, Gender, and Metamorphosis in Eighteenth-Century England.' In Textual Bodies: Changing Boundaries of Literary Representation, edited by Lori Hope Lefkovitz, 127-60. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997. Leith, James, ed. Facets of Education in the Eighteenth Century. Oxford: Cheney and Sons, 1977. Lowenthal, Leo. 'Historical Perspectives on Popular Culture.' In Critical Theory and Society: A Reader, edited by Stephen Eric Bronner and Douglas Kellner, 184-98. New York: Routledge, 1989. Lukoschik, Rita Unfer. Elisabetta Caminer Turra (1751-1796): Una letterata veneta verso I'Europa. Verona: Essedue, 1998. Mackie, Erin. Market a la Mode: Fashion, Commodity and Gender in The Taller' and 'The Spectator.' Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997. Maggiolo, Attilio. 'Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia e le altre donne aggregate all'Accademia Patavina dei Ricovrati.' Padova e la sua provincia. 24:11-12 (1978): 34-5. Malpezzi Price, Paola. 'A Woman's Discourse in the Italian Renaissance: Moderata Fonte's II merito dette donne.' Annali d'ltalianistica 7 (1989): 165-81. Mambelli, Anna Maria. E Settecento e donna: Indagine sulla condizione femminile. Ravenna: Mario Lapucci, 1985. Martin, Biddy. 'Feminism, Criticism, and Foucault.' In Feminism andFoucault: Reflections on Resistance, edited by Irene Diamond and Lee Quinby, 3-19. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1988. Masten, Jeffery. 'Is the Fundament a Grave?' In The Body in Parts: Fanstasies of Corporeality in Early Modern Europe, edited by David Hillman and Carla Mazzio, 128-45. New York: Routledge, 1997. Matter, Ann, and John Coakley, eds. Creative Women in Medieval and Early Modern Italy: A Religious and Artistic Renaissance. Philidelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994. Medioli, Francesca. 'L'inferno monacal^'di Arcangela Tarabotti. Turin: Rosenberg and Sellier, 1989. Meli, Elio. 'Laura Bassi Verati: Ridiscussione e nuovi spunti.' In Alma Mater Studiorum: La presenzafemminile: dal XVIII al XX secolo, 71-9. Bologna: CLUEB Editrice, 1988. Melillo, Michele. L'OperafelosoJica di Antonio Conti, Patrizio Veneto. Venice: Istituto Veneto di Arti Grafiche, 1911. Messbarger, Rebecca. 'Barbapiccola, Giuseppa Eleonora (Eighteenth Century).' In The Feminist Encyclopedia of Italian Literature, edited by Rinaldina Russell, 279. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1997. - 'Waxing Poetic: Anna Morandi Manzolini's Anatomical Sculptures.' Confegurations9:l (2001): 65-97.

Works Cited

195

- 'Woman Disputed: The Representation of Women in Eighteenth-Century Italian Public Discourse.' Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 1994. Messbarger, Rebecca, ed. and trans, with Paula ¥md\en.The Contest for Knowledge: Debates over Women's Learning in Enlightenment Italy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, forthcoming. / mestieri della moda a Venezia dal XIII al XVIII Secolo. Venice: I Mestieri della Moda a Venezia, Edizioni del Cavallino, 1988. Milan Women's Bookstore Collective. Sexual Difference: A Theory of Social-Symbolic Practice. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990. Miller, Nancy IL 'Men's Reading, Women's Writing: Gender and the Rise of the Novel.' In Displacements: Women, Tradition, and Literatures in French, edited by Joan Dejean and Nancy K. Miller, 37-54. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991. Monson, Craig, ed. The Crannied Watt: Women, Religion and the Arts in Early Modern Europe. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1992. Montanelli, Indro, and Roberto Gervaso. L'ltalia del Settecento. Milan: Rizzoli, 1971. Natali, Giulio. 'Gli studi delle donne.' In II Settecento, 1:119-70. Milan: Casa Editrice Dr. Francesco Vallardi, 1929; 6th edition, 1964. Pateman, Carole. The Sexual Contract. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988. Petronio, Giuseppe. L'illuminismo lombardo. Milan: Feltrinelli, 1961. Piromalli, Antonio. L'Arcadia. Palermo: Palumbo, 1975. Porter, Roy S. 'Medical Science and Human Science in the Enlightenment.' In Inventing Human Science: Eighteenth-Century Domains, edited by Christopher Fox, Roy S. Porter, and Robert Wokler, 53-87. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995. Rabil, Albert, Jr. 'Agrippa and the Feminist Tradition: The Other Voice in Agrippa's Declamation on Women.' In Henricus Cornelius Agrippa, Declamation on the Nobility and Preeminence of the Female Sex, edited and translated by Albert Rabil, Jr, 3-34. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996. - Laura Cerata, Quattrocento Humanist. Binghamton, NY: Center for Medieval and Early Rennaissance Studies, 1981. Reato, Danilo. Storia del Carnevale di Venezia. Venice: Tipografia Commerciale Venezia, 1988. Riccaldone, Luisa. Tl dibattito sulla donna nella letteratura patriotica del triennio 1796-1799.' ItalienischeStudienl (1984), 23-46. Ricuperati, Giuseppe. 'Periodic! eruditi, riviste e giornali di varia umanita dalle origini a meta Ottocento.' In Letteratura italiana, edited by Alberto Asor Rosa, 1:921-43. Turin: Giulio Einaudi, 1982. - 'The Renewal of the Dialogue between Italy and Europe: Intellectual and Cultural Institutions from the end of the Seventeenth Century to the First Half of the Eighteenth Century.' In Italy and the Age of Reason, 1685-1789, edited by

196 Works Cited Dino Carpanetto and Giuseppe Ricuperati, translated by Caroline Higgitt, 7895. New York: Longman, 1987. Ricuperati, Giuseppe, and Marina Roggero. 'Education Policies in EighteenthCentury Italy.' In Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century: Facets of Education in the Eighteenth Century, edited by James E. Leith, 167:223-69. Oxford: Cheney and Sons, 1977. Robbins, Bruce, ed. The Phantom Public Sphere. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993. Roche, Daniel. 'Stampa, Moda, Lumi nel Secolo XVIII.' In Giornale delle nuove mode diFrancia e d'Inghilterra, edited by Grazietta Butazzi, ix-liv. Turin: Umberto Allemandi, 1988. Romagnoli, Sergio.'// Caffe tra. Milano e 1'Europa.' In // Caffe 1764-1766, edited by Gianni Francioni and Sergio Romagnoli, xiii-lxxix. Turin: Bollati Boringhieri, 1993. Rovereto, Giorgio. 'Introduzione.' In // Caffe, 9-34. Treviso: Edizioni Canova, 1975. Russell, Rinaldina, ed. The Feminist Encyclopedia of Italian Literature. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1997. - Italian Women Writers: A Bio-Bibliographical Sourcebook. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1994. Russo, Mary. 'Female Grotesques: Carnival and Theory.' In Feminist Studies, Critical Studies, edited by Teresa De Lauretis, 213-29. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986. Said, Edward. 'Orientalism.' In A Critical and Cultural Theory Reader, edited by Anthony Easthope and Kate McGowan, 59-66. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992. Sama, Catherine. 'Becoming Visible. A Biography of Elisabetta Caminer Turra (1751-1796) during Her Formative Years.' Forthcoming in Studi Veneziani. - 'Caminer Turra, Elisabetta (1751-1796).' In The Feminist Encyclopedia of Italian Literature, edited by Rinaldina Russell, 37-9. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1997. Sama, Catherine, ed. Scrittipubblici eprivati diElisabetta Caminer Turra (1751-96). Antologia e testi. Venice: Eidos, in press. Sawday, John. The Body Emblazoned: Dissection and the Human Body in Renaissance Culture. New York: Routledge, 1995. Schiebinger, Londa. The Mind Has No Sex? Women in the Origins of Modern Science. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1989. Schober, Richard. 'Gli effetti delle riforme di Maria Teresa sulla Lombardia.' In Economia, istituzioni e cultura in Lombardia nett'etd di Maria Teresa, edited by Aldo De Maddalena, Ettore Rotelli, and Gennaro Barbarisi, 3:201-14. Milan: II Mulino, 1982.

Works Cited

197

Scott, Joan Wallach. Gender and the Politics of History. New York: Columbia University Press, 1988. Sella, Domenico. Crisis and Continuity: The Economy of Spanish Lombardy in the Seventeenth Century. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1979. Shevelow, Kathryn. Women and Print Culture: The Construction of Femininity in the Early Periodical. London: Routledge, 1989. Smith, Roger. 'The Language of Human Nature.' In Inventing Human Science: Eighteenth-Century Domains, edited by Christopher Fox, Roy S. Porter, and Robert Wokler, 88-111. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995. Stafford, Barbara. Body Criticism: Imagining the Unseen in Enlightenment Art and Medicine. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1997. Stewart, Pamela. 'Le Femmes Savants nelle Commedie del Goldoni.' In Yearbook of Italian Studies 7 (1988): 19-42. Suozzi, Michael. 'The Enlightenment in Italy: Gaetano Filangieri's Scienza della Legislazione.' Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1972. Tilche, Giovanna. Maria Gaetana Agnesi. Milan: Rizzoli, 1984. Tosi, Renzo. 'Clotilde Tambroni e il classicismo tra Parma e Bologna alia fine del XVIII secolo.' In Alma Mater Studiorum: La Presenza Femminile: Dal XVIII al XXSecolo, 119-134. Bologna: CLUEB Editrice, 1988. Valeri, Diego. L'Accademia dei Ricovrati Alias Accademia Patavina di Scienze Lettere ed Arti. Padua: Sede dell'Accademia, 1987. Vasetti, Donatella. 'Le donne giacobine a Bologna (1796-1799). In La sferapubblica femminile, ed. Dianella Gagliani, 41-8. Bologna: CLUEB, 1992. Venturi, Franco. Settecento riformatore: Da Muratori a Beccaria. Turin: Giulio Einaudi, 1969. Vittani, Giovanni. 'Ordini religiosi e studi in un grandioso disegno di riforme di Maria Teresa e Giuseppe II.' In Atti della Societd Storica Lombarda, Archivio StoncoLombardobO, part 1, nos. 1-2 (Milan, 1923): 262-70. Warner, Michael. 'The Mass Public and the Mass Subject.' In The Phantom Public Sphere, edited by Bruce Robbins, 234—55. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993. Weaver, Elissa. 'Suor Arcangela Tarabotti (1604-1657).' In Italian Women Writers: A Bio-Bibliographical Sourcebook, edited by Rinaldina Russell, 414-22. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1994. Woodbridge, Linda. Women and the English Renaissance: Literature and the Nature of Womankind 1540-1620. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1984. Zacche, Gilberto. 'Aspetti della questione femminile in Italia nel secolo XVIII.' In Carolina Lattanzi, Schiavitu dette donne, edited by Gilberto Zacche, 9-28. Mantua: Edizioni Lombarde, 1976.

This page intentionally left blank

Index

Academic des Sciences, 54 Academic Francaise, 147n6 Academic royale des sciences, 57 academies: character of, 15; women in, 7-9, 70, 96,115-16,136-7,138, 139, 147n6 Academy of Public Instruction, 70,133 Academy of the Ricovrati, 12, 25, 478, 134, 135, 138; earlier debate topics of, 23-4; female members of, 22-3, 33; orientation toward new science, 22; other debates at, 23. See also Ricovrati Debate of 1723 Academy of the Unanimi, 14-15, 71, 72, 73, 137-8 Accademia de' Pugni, 89-91 accademid, 13, 57, 135, 137 Addison, Joseph, 123-4 adultery, 122 Agiati, 79 Agnesi, Maria Gaetana, 19,67,68,136; A nalytical Institutions far the Use of Italian Youth, 8, 68; Oratio qua ostenditur Artium liberalium studia dfemineo sexu neutiquam abhorrere, 24, 29, 47 Alagonia, Larinda. S^Savini De' Rossi, Aretafila

Alary, Abbe Pierre-Joseph, 57 Albrizzi, Giovanbattista, 111 Algarotti, Francesco: Newtonianismfor Ladies, 17, 74, 117-18; Philosophy for Ladies, 74 Alma Mater Studiorum: La presenzafemminiledal XVIIIal XX secolo, 18 amateurism, 74, 75-6 Amoretti, Maria Pellegrina, 8 Angenot, Marc, 4 anti-illuministi, 33, 69-70 Arcadia Academy, 8-9, 13, 41, 79, 81, 113 Ardinghelli, Maria Angela, 9 Arditi of Brescia, 79 Aristotle, 34, 50, 60, 64, 84 authority: of fashion, 110, 112, 119, 121-3; of illuministi, 87; institutional, 8; of learned women, 67-8, 70-1; male, 16,17,24,29,39,45,72, 105, 128; paternal, 7; of personal experience, 42-3,73,85,135; political, 7; women's, 8,10,16,18-19,70, 98, 100,102, 115,126 Bacon, Francis, 53 Badaloni, Nicola, 55

200 Index Bakhtin, Mikhail: Rabelais and His World, 129-30 Ballaster, Ros: Women's Worlds: Ideology, Femininity, and the Woman's Magazine, 173nl6 Bandiera, Giovanni, 17-18, 50; Treatise on the Education of Women, 16, 76 Barbapiccola, Giuseppa Eleonora, 9, 27-8, 43 Barettti, Giuseppe, 81 Barthes, Roland: The Fashion System, 128 Basel, University of, 53 Basil, St, 84, 166n54 Bassi, Laura, 8, 19, 67, 74-5, 163nl5 Baylian Stratonism, 57 beauty, 94-5, 115; feminine, 44; power of, 37; through stasis, 38 Beccaria, Cesare, 88, 92; On Crimes and Punishment, 7; 'On Periodicals,' 107-8 Becelli, Guido Cesare: Trattato delta divisione degli ingegni (Treatise on the Division of the Intellectual Faculties), 84, 166n52 Beetham, Margaret, 173nl6 Bellay, Joachim du, 9 Benedict XIV, Pope, 8, 67-8 Benson, Pamela, 5 Berengo, Marino, I72n7 Bergalli Gozzi, Luisa, 151n43; Componimenti poetici dellepiu illustre rimatrici d'ogni secolo, 9 Bernoulli, Johann, 53 Bibliotecagalante (periodical), 108 Bibliotheque Nationale de France, 57 Biffi, Gian Battista, 92 Boccaccio, Giovanni, 116; De mulieribus claris, 4 Boccage, Madame de, Amazons, 9

bodies, women's, 37, 38, 49-51, 54. See also women, physiology of Bologna, 67,163nl5; University of, 8, 67-8, 74 Bolognese Institute of Sciences, 8 Bonaparte, Napoleon, 124 Bonaparte, Rose Josephine, 138 Bonatti, Maria Ines, 27 Bonetti, Domenico, 80 Bordo, Susan, 71 botany, 74 Brognoli, Antonio, 79-80 Butazzi, Grazietta, 108, 109, I74n24 Butturini, Mattia, 79 Cabinet des Modes (periodical), 108, 111-12,113, 174n25,175n28, I75n33 // Caffe (periodical), 15,88-90,107-8, 119, 120, 130; elitism and, 89, 90; founders and contributors of (see caffettisti); as mouthpiece for ideals of Illuminismo, 88-9, 99; political background of, 91-2, 100-1; readership of, 17,90, 119 caffettisti, 88, 90, 92, 92-3, 96-7, 138, 141 n4; anti-academic stance of, 8990; on elite women, 17; political involvement of, 92-3 Califronia, Rosa, 43 Caminer, Antonio, 113, I75n36 Caminer, Domenico, 114 Caminer Turra, Elisabetta, 9-10, 19, 114, 151n43 Campagnoni, Giuseppe: Chemistry for Ladies, 74 Camposanpiero, Guglielmo: Ricovrati Debate of 1723 and, 21n2, 25, 29, 33-6, 47 Caracas, Caterina, 145n38

Index Carli, Gian Rinaldo, 92 carnival, 15, 129-30 Carpanetto, Dino, 18 Carriera, Rosalba, 151n43 Castiglione, Baldassare: // libra del cortigiano (The Book of the Courtier), 123 Castle, Terry, 129, I79n79 Catherine the Great, 132 Caughi, Pamela, 128, 132 Cavazza, Marta, 67-8, 160n81, 160-ln82 chastity, 93 chemistry, 74 Chiaraviglio, Carlo Maria, 161n2; Affliction of Humanity (Lo scoglio dell' umanitd), 6, 69 Chiari, Pietro, 3, 19, 120 children, 18,94, 119-20, 122 Ciccone, Stefania de Stefanis, I74n24 citizen: female, 6, 17, 18, 76, 87, 98-9, 102, 138; male, 87, 119 citizenry, ideal, 97 Clarke, Samuel, 52 class, 99-100, 101-2; bourgeois middle, 109-10, 112; professional, 109 Club de 1'Entresol, 57 Cohen, Sarah, 121 Colonna, Vittoria, 34 Commedia dell' Arte, 121-2, 130 Condillac, Etienne Bonot de, 88 conduct, 106, 110, 112, 119, 122, 124 Congreve, William, 9 Conte, Margherita, 41 Conti, Antonio Schinella, 11, 13-14, 37,51-7,59-65, 68,73,137-8; Antonio Vallisneri and, 53-4; intellectual trajectory of, 52-6, 160n73; letter to Perelle, 51-2, 55, 56-8, 5965,66,68, 156nl3

201

Corcirense, Nisea. S^MedagliaFaini, Diamante Cornaro Foscarini, Lady Elisabetta, 29 Cornaro Piscopia, Elena, 147n4 Cornoldi Caminer, Gioseffa, 15, 11317, 128, I75n36 Corriere delle dame (periodical), 133 Covato, Carmela, 27, 149n20 Cox, Virginia, 4—5 Christina of Sweden, Queen, 8-9 Crusca Academy of Letters, 116-17 Dalinda. See Medaglia Faini, Diamante Dante, 34, 116 Davis, Natalie Zemon, 3 Delfico, Melchiorre, 16-18 Descartes, Rene, 50, 52-3, 54-5; Meditations, 53; Principles of Philosophy, 9, 27,53 desire, 49; female, 106; male, 64,115, 128 Diderot, Denis, 17, 88 difference, sexual, 45, 49-51, 58-63, 64, 67, 106 discourse: feminine, 105, 106-7, 128; male, 106 Doglioni, Lucio, 78 donna di spirito, 17—18 La donna galante ed erudita (The Gallant and Erudite Woman) (periodical), 106-7,110-11,112-17,121-2, 124-5, 128, 131-2, 139; public discourse and, 15; publishing history, 174n24 d'Orleans, Philippe, 57 double standard, female, 34 dowries, 99, 100 dress, 110, 119, 121-2

202

Index

dualism, Cartesian, 54-5 Dupont, Christian, 160 Duranti, Durante, 79 EcoUde Milan, 7, 90 economy, 99, 100-2 education. See women's education elitism, 89, 90 emotion, 63 Encyclopedie, 89 Engel,Johann Jakob, 9 England, 96, 111 Enlightenment, fashionability and, 118-19 equality, 76, 90, 122,133-34 erudition, 116, 123 Estratto della letteratura europea (periodical), 89 ethics, Enlightenment, 4, 35, 48, 88, 94 Europa letteraria (periodical), 9, 107 Fardella, Michelangelo, 52, 53 Farge, Arlette, 3 fashion, 44, 106, 108, 118-20; attacks on, 120-1; authority of, 110, 112, 119, 121-3; education and, 107-8, 115-16, 117-18,120,121-3,128-9, 130-1; French, 112; instability of, 124-5; masquerade and, 121 fashionability, as antithetical to Enlightenment ideal, 118-19 Fashionable Magazine (periodical), 108, I74n25 fashion industry, 106, 110, 112, 119 fashion magazines. See women's magazines Fava, Order of the, 53 femininity, 117, 131; commercialization of, 105,115,125; constructions

of, 28, 44, 48, 71, 87,106,107, 1289; mask of, 129,130-1,132 feminism, proto-, 10,13, 28,132,134 femme savante, 39-40, 78 Ferrone, Vincenzo, 54, 57 Fido, Franco, 5 Fielding, Henry, 9 Filangieri, Gaetano: The Science of Legislation, 77 Findlen, Paula, 75, 146n61, 162n7, 162n9, 163nl5 Finucci, Valeria, 135 Firmian, Count Carlo di, 92 Florence, 41, 108, 116 Foglioper le donne (periodical), 108 Fonte,Moderata,84,126,145n41; The Worth of Women (II merito dette donne), 10 Fontenelle, Bernard le Bovier de, 52, 54,117-18 force, 60, 64 force-matter, 54, 62 Foscarini, Piero, 29 Foucault, Michel, 32, 72 France, 54, 96, 113; as centre of Republic of Fashion, 107, 108, 174n24 Franci, Carlo Sebastiano, 88, 93-8, 100-1,169n21; Defence of 'Women, 88, 89, 91, 93, 96-100, 103, 169n22; La moneta soggetto istorico civile e politico, 100-2 Francioni, Gianni, 89 Franklin, Benjamin, 77 Fraser, Elizabeth, I73nl6 Fraser, Nancy, 11, 91, 106, 146n43 French Academy of Science, 8 French Revolution, 70, 162n5 Frisi, Paolo, 88, 92 frivolity, 94

Index 203 Fubini, Mario, 18 Galen, 50, 68 Galiani, Ferdinando, 66, 68, 73; Croquis d 'un dialogue sur lesfemmes (Outline of a Dialogue on Women), 5-6, 66, 68,69 Galileo (Galileo Galilei), 22, 53, 54; Dialogue on the Great World Systems, 86 Gallerie des Modes et Costumes Franfais (periodical), 108 Gazzetta veneta (Venetian Gazette) (periodical), 120 gender, 11, 28, 32,100,106; theory of humours and, 50, 60 geometry, 84 Germany, 111 Giornalede'letterati (periodical), 54 Giornale de' letterati d'ltalia (periodical), 109 Giornale delle adunanze (Journal of the Assemblies), 24 Giornale delle dame (periodical), 108, I74n24 Giornale delle dame e delle mode di Franda (Journal of Women and French Fashions) (periodical), 108, 111, I74n24 Giornale delle mode (periodical), 108 Giornale enciclopedico (periodical), 9, 89,107,114 GiuntaEconomale (periodical), 91 Goldoni, Carlo, 30, 110-11, 130, I73n21, 173-4n22; Le smanie per la villeggiatura (The Craze for the Country Holiday), 110-11 Goodman, Dena, 15, 49 Graff, Harvey, 27 Graziosi, Elisabetta, 8-9 Grillo Borromeo, Clelia del, 8

Guerci, Luciano, 28, 33, 66, 76, 102, 149nl7; La discussione sutta donna nell'Italia del Settecento, 18; La sposa obbediente: Donna e matrimonio nella discussione dett'Italia del Settecento, 18 Habermas,Jurgen, 11, 17, 90-1, 106 Hales, Stephen, 9 happiness, 36, 38 Helvetius, Claude Adrien, 88 Hermann, Jakob, 53 history, 80, 84 Hufton, Olwen, 100 Hume, David, 17, 88 humidity, 60-1, 65-6 humours, theory of, 37, 50, 68 husbands, 17,122,124, 126, 127 ideal, feminine, 15-16, 44, 106, 115, 129,139 identity, female mask of, 129-31, 132 Illibato, Antonio, 26, 27 niuminismo, 15, 108 illuministi, 15-16, 88, 141n4; ambivalence toward women, 87-8, 94-6; attitudes toward women's education, 75-6; concept of public sphere and, 11; concern for women and the public good, 6-7, 69-70, 134-5; containment of women and, 17-18; mandate of, 4 individual, public good and, 96-7 inferiority, mask of, 131-2 intellectuals, 109; female, 7-10, 1819, 25, 33,58-9, 68, 70, 73,96,137; male, 12, 23, 28-9, 30 Irigaray, Luce, 106 Italy, 10-11,96, 141n2 Jones, Jennifer, 111-12, 119

204 Index Jones, Vivian, 21 Jordan, Constance, 5 Jordanova, Ludmilla, 49 Joseph II, 26 Journal de la Mode et du Gout (periodical), 108, 175n28 judgment, 97-8 Kelly, Joan, 4 Kelso, Ruth, 4 King, Margaret, 5 labour, women's, 6, 98-101, 102 Lambertenghi, Luigi, 92 Landes,Joan, 11, 91 Laqueur, Thomas, 49, 50 Lattanzi, Carolina, 70, 133-4, 180n2; The Slavery of Women (Schiavitu delle donne), 70 Laycock, Deborah, 119 Lebrun, Jean Antoine, 111 Le Clerc, Jean, 52 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, 52, 54, 55, 63-4, 159n70 Lemaitre Mengazzi, Susanna, 9 Le Prince di Beaumont, Madame, 9 Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim, 9 lethargy, 94 L'Hospital, Guillaume-Francois-Antoine de, 53 library, 124 literacy, 27, 69, 78 Locke, John, 17, 53, 88, 124, 166n52 Lombardy, 26 London,55 Longo, Alfonso, 92 Loschi, Ludovico Antonio, 52, 66 Lucca, Father Pier Francesco, 79 Mabillon, Jean, 84, 166n54

Mackie,Erin, 118-19, 124 Maffei, Scipione, 109 Magasin des Modes Nouvelles Franfaises etAnglaises (periodical), 108, I75n28 magazines, women's. See women's magazines Malebranche, Nicolas de, 14,52,54-5, 57, 58-60,124; The Search after Truth (De la recherche de la verite), 53, 58-9 male-female binary, 59-60 Mambelli, Anna Maria, 100 Man-Machine theory, 50 Mantua, 70, 133 Manzolini, Anna Morandi, 8, 19, 67 Maria Theresa of Austria, Queen, 26, 32, 91, 92, 93, 98, 99, 103,132 Marinella, Lucrezia, 137, 145n41 marketplace, women's role in, 100-2 marriage, 16, 99, 100, 112, 125-7 Martello, Pier Jacopo: Elena Casta, 41 Martin, Biddy, 25-6 masculinity, 44, 137 mask: identity and, 129-31, 132; of inferiority, 131-2 masquerade, 121, 129-30 materialism, 13, 14, 54, 55 materiality, women's, 58-68 mathematics, 14, 53, 73, 76, 80, 81, 84 Mattei, 'Cittadina,' 134 matter, 53, 54, 64 Medaglia, Antonio, 78 Medaglia Faini, Diamante, 19, 43, 133,137-8,151n43; Aretafila Savini De' Rossi and, 82-4; on ideal curriculum for women, 77-8,80-2,836; response to arguments in Ricovrati Debate, 82-3; 'Which Studies Are Fitting for Women' (oration), 14-15, 24, 70-1

Index 205 Melillo, Michele, 52 men, 35-6, 126, 131; as antithetical to women, 37-8; to blame for women's failings, 94-5; conduct of, 45-6; fear offemme savante, 39; inherent excitability of, 44; moral agency and, 97; nature of, 11; responsibilities of, 36-7; superiority of, 62, 66-7 Menage, Gilles, 147n6 metaphysics, 76 Milan, 32, 91-2, I74n24 mimicry, 106-7 mind, sexlessness of, 16, 50-1, 76. See also women, brains of mind-body duality, 50, 54 mind-body relationship, 49-51, 55-6, 66-7 misanthropy, 46-7 misogynist tracts, 4 misogyny, 5, 12, 28, 33, 36, 39, 93-4, 126, 133, 135; scientific, 51, 66, 678, 72, 73, 137-8 Moda (Fashion), 17, 124, I76n45 Moliere, Jean Baptiste Poqelin: Le Misanthrope, 9 Montesquieu, Charles-Louis de Secondat, 17, 52, 88 Morelli, Maria Maddalena, 9, 19 mothers, 6, 38-9, 102-3, 112 Muratori, Ludovico Antonio, 23; Delia perfetta poesia italiana spiegata e dimostrata con varie osservazione, 84 myths, feminine, 34 Naples, 26, 27 Natali, Giulio: II Settecento, 18 Negrisoli, Francesco: Considerations Regarding the Generation of Living Things, Particularly of Monsters (Con-

sider azioni intorno alia generazione de' viventi eparticolaremente de' mostri), 54 Neri, Pompeo, 92 Newton, Sir Isaac, 52, 55, 61, 63, 65, 118, 124; Principia, 63 novels, romance, 123, I78n65 Nuovo giornale enciclopedico (periodical), 9 Nuovo giornale enciclopedico d 'Italia (periodical), 9 Nuovo Postiglione (periodical), 113-14 occasionalism, 54-5 Olimpica, Gorilla. See Mgrelli, Maria Maddalena Orditi of Padua, 79 Orleans, Philippe d', 57 Other, feminine, 83 Ottoboni Serbelloni, Maria Vittoria, 9 Padua, 21, 24, 52, 73; University of, 21,53 Paduan Academy, 12-13 Pallavicini, Count Gian Luca, 91, 92 Parini, Giuseppe, 121 passing, praxis of, 128, 132 Pateman, Carol, 16 patriarchalism, 116 patrons, female, 8-9, 29, 93 Pavia, University of, 91-2 Pavini, Luigi, 52 Perelle, Andre-Robert, 11, 51, 55, 57 periodicals, 107-8, 109, 172n7; Italian progressive, 89; scientific, I72n7; women's (see women's magazines) Petrarch, Francesco, 34, 116 Petrarchisti, 81 Petronio, Giuseppe, 81

206 Index philosophers, 49-50, 52, 54 philosophes. See illuministi philosophy, 49, 73, 78, 80; natural, 76, 86; new, 52-3 physics, 74, 81, 84 physiology. See women, physiology of Pimentel Fonseca, Eleonora, 145n38 Pizan, Christine de: Book of the City of Ladies, 137 Plato, 34 poetry, 78-82, 86 poets, female, 9 Poleni, Giovanni, 23 political tracts, 180n6 Poullain de la Barre, Francois, 16, 501,67,76 power, 32, 39; through conformity, 15-16, 106, 139; women's, 131-2 private life, new publicity of, 112 pseudonyms, 161n2 public: counter-, 12; female, 34, 47, 70,105,106,109,115,117; male, 83 public good, 6-7, 35, 45-6, 69-70; ideal citizenry and, 97; individual and, 96-7; women and, 87, 98-9, 100-1 public sphere, 10-11, 90-1, 94, 95, 106 Pugni. See Accademia de'Pugni querelle des femmes, 18, 135, 136; conventions of, 43; as genre, 4, 5, 12, 13,148nlO; modernization of terms in, 14, 23-4, 93 Rabil, Albert, Jr, 5 Racine, Jean: Works, 9 Reato, Danilo, 130,179n82, 83, 84 Recueil Generate des Modes d'Habillements des Femmes des Etats de sa

Majeste le Roi de Sardaigne (periodical), 108 reforms, 87, 91-2,118,119-20,133-4 Renier Michiel, Giustina, 9 Ricovrati Debate of 1723,12-15,21-2, 25-6,40,47,71,134-7,153n57; Diamante Medaglia Faini's use of arguments from, 82-3 Ricuperati, Giuseppe, 18, 92, 109 Roberti Franco, Francesca, 9 Roccati, Cristina, 8, 19 Romagnoli, Sergio, I70n31 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 17, 88, 120, 121; The Social Contract, 96-7, 170n31, 170n32 Rovereto, Giorgio, 92 Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, 55 Russo, Mary, 131 Saibante Vannetti, Bianca Laura, 8 Salio, Giuseppe, 25, 29 salons, 8-9, 15, 96 Salvani, Fausto, Defence of Women (La Difesa delle donne o sia risposta apologetica al libro detto Lo Scoglio dell'Umanitd diDiunilgo Valdecio), 6, 69, 161n2 Salvini, Anton Maria, 41 Sanival, Marchesa di. See Salvani, Fausto San Raffaele, Robbio di, 75, 81-2 Sappho, 34 Savini, Antonio, 41 Savini De' Rossi, Aretafila, 13, 15, 19, 26,133,136-7,138; Apology in Favour of Educating Women, against the Preceding Discourse by Signor Gio Antonio Volpi, 24-5,29, 41-7,56, 71; Diamante Medaglia Faini and, 82-4

Index Sawday, John, 50, 66 Schiebinger, Londa, 50, 147n6 science, 14, 18, 73, 78, 80; Academy of the Ricovrati's orientation toward, 22; Antonio Vallisneri and, 31-2; misogyny and, 51, 66, 67-8, 73, 137-8; new empirical, 5-6, 1314, 22, 44, 50-1, 73, 74, 86; women and, 16, 24, 73-7, 78, 81, 82, 84-6, 118 Science of Woman, 14, 37, 49, 51, 66, 68 scientific method, 53, 55, 59, 65, 68 scientists, female, 18-19, 74, 75 Secchi-Comneno, Pietro Francesco, 92 Sella, Domenico, 100 Selvaggia Borghini, Maria, 8 sentimentality, 123 sexes, theory of natural compatibility of, 64 sexual contract, 16 sexuality, female, 49 Shakespeare, William, 9 Shevelow, Kathryn, 117 Siena, 41 Soresi, Pierdomenico, 6, 120-1; Essay on the Necessity and the Facility of Educating Girls (Saggio sopra la necessitd e lafacilitd di ammaestrare le fanciulle), 76-7 soul, 54, 124 The Spectator (periodical), 89, 123-4, 178n65 Stamperia Turra (publishing house), 9-10 Stewart, Pamela, 141nl strength, 62-3, 66-7 Suardi, Giovann Battista: Mathematical Diversions, 80; New Instruments for the

207

Description of Diverse Ancient and Modern Curves, 80 subjectivity, feminine, 17 Tambroni, Clotilde, 8, 19 Tarabotti, Arcangela 4, 10, 84, 137, 142n9,145n41 Terence, 9 Thomas, Antoine Leonard: Essai sur lesfemmes (Essay on Women), 5, 52 Toelette (periodical), 108 Touzetti, Benoit, 134 translators, female, 9 Turin, 27 uterus, 67, 68 utilitarianism, enlightened, 88 utility. See public good Vadori, Ann, 134 Valdecio, Diunilgo. See Chiaraviglio, Carlo Maria Vallisneri, Antonio, 12-14, 15, 21, 567, 109, 135, 136;AntonioSchinella Conti and, 53-4; Diamante Medaglia Faini and, 82; interest in new science, 22, 23, 31-2; Ricovrati Debate of 1723 and, 22, 23, 25, 29, 31-2,40,41,47 Venice, 53, 108, 110; Storia del carnevale di Venezia (History of the Venetian Carnival), 130 Venturi, Franco, 18, 88-90 Verri, Pietro, 76, 89, 90, 92, 93, 120, 145n42; Advice for My Daughter (Ricordi a miafiglia), 11 Verri, Teresa, 76 Vico, Giambattista, 9, 27, 52 vigour, 59-67

virtue, 16, 38, 44, 78,93,97,102-3; as

208 Index fashionable accoutrement, 108; husbandly, 126-7; through education, 46-7; public good and, 98-9, 100-2 Vittani, Giovanni, 149nl7 Vocabulario (periodical of La Crusca), 116-17 Volpi, Giovann Antonio, 13, 56, 65, 65—6, 136; Discorsi Accademici di van autori viventi intorno agli Studi delle Donne, 28-33, 34-40, 41-8, 135-6; Ricovrati Debate of 1723 and, 21-2, 24, 26, 41, 42, 44, 45, 46; treatment of female patron, 29-30 Voltaire, Francois-Marie Arouet, 9, 52 Warner, Michael, 119 wives, 102-3 Wolff, Christian, 52 woman, ideal, 38 woman question. See querelle des femmes women: as antithetical to men, 37-8; arguments in favour of, 34-5; biological inferiority of, 37, 50-1, 52, 58-63,65-7; bourgeois, 15,17,10910, 112, 151, 151n43; brains of, 51, 58, 62, 64, 65 (see also mind, sexlessness of); as consumers, 109, 11011, 126-7; containment of, 3, 11, 17, 35, 95, 96; as 'counter-public,' 12; domesticity of, 39, 46, 47, 77-8, 85; elite, 12,17,26,27-8,34,36,40, 44, 45, 73-4, 82, 94, 96, 107; equality of, 46, 122, 133-4; exceptional, 14,34,36,40,43,58,61-2,64-5,75, 82, 125; expansion of public presence of, 7-8, 11, 31, 95-6, 98-9, 134, 138; fashionable, 119, 120-4; freedom of, 37; inefficacy of, 93-4;

inferiority of, 14, 16, 36-8, 40, 44, 56,57-63, 64-8, 71,83,131-2,1378; learned, 7-8, 38-9, 45-6, 67-8, 73, 86,114-15; masks and, 132; materiality of, 14, 49, 51, 58-68; nature of, 11, 35; oppression by men, 34-5; physiology of, 37-8, 501, 58-63, 64-7, 68, 138; plebeian, 17, 27, 34, 36, 44, 94, 98-9, 101-2, I70n38; political engagement of, 7, 133-4, 162n5; public good and, 87, 88, 93-4, 98-100, 100-2; redomestication of, 18, 35, 68, 96-7, 138-9; Renaissance defences of, 4-5; science and, 16, 24, 37, 73-7, 78, 81, 82, 84-6, 118; subjugation to men, 36, 37, 47, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66-7, 68, 95, 97, 106; traits of, 63, 64, 73; vanity of, 36, 121; weakness of, 5-6, 132; working, 99 women's education, 13,14-15,17, 25, 32,133,134,136-7,138-40,149nl7, 149n20,170n38; Antonio Conti on, 56-7, 62, 64-5; Antonio Vallisneri on, 31-2; AretafilaSaviniDe' Rossi's defence of, 41-7; class and, 27,33-4, 44; curriculum of, 6, 14-15, 16, 278, 72, 73, 76, 77-8, 80-2, 83-4; eighteenth-century Italian, 26-8; formal public, 27, 75, 76; Giovann Antonio Volpi on, 30-2; Guglielmo Camposanpiero on, 33-6; illuministi's attitude toward, 75-6, 134-5; for public good, 6,17, 33-4,35,39,456, 69-70, 73, 76-7, 84-5,93, 94,95, 97, 98; redomestication of women and, 96-7; Ricovrati Debate of 1723 and, 21, 23-4, 134-7; via women's magazines, 107-8, 115-16, 117-18, 121-3, 128-9, 130-1

Index women's magazines, 10, 15-16, 17, 107-10, 120, 139, I7ln2, I73nl6; authority of, 106; Cesare Beccaria on, 107-8; as channel for women's education, 106,107-8,115-16,11718, 121-3, 128-9, 130-1; construction of gender in, 106; English, I73nl6; as genre, 105-6, 107-10, 129, 139; ideological incoherence, 127-8; as instrument of socialization, 118, 121; as public sphere, 106 Woodbridge, Linda, 4, 28-9; Women and the English Renaissance: Litera-

209

ture and the Nature of Womankind, 149nlO Woolf, Stuart, 18 Zappi, Felice, 81 Zecchini, Petronio Ignazio, 66-8, 73, 161n90; Digeniali. Delia dialettica delle donne ridotta al suo vero prindpio (Genial Days: On the Dialectic of Women Reduced to Its True Principle), 66-7 Zeno, Apostolo, 109