Complete Writings: Letterbook, Dialogue on Adam and Eve, Orations (The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe)

Renowned in her day for her scholarship and eloquence, Isotta Nogarola (1418-66) remained one of the most famous women of the Italian Renaissance for centuries after her death. And because she was one of the first women to carve out a place for herself in the male-dominated republic of letters, Nogarola served as a crucial role model for generations of aspiring female artists and writers. This volume presents English translations of all of Nogarola's extant works and highlights just how daring and original her convictions were. In her letters and orations, Nogarola elegantly synthesized Greco-Roman thought with biblical teachings. And striding across the stage in public, she lectured the Veronese citizenry on everything from history and religion to politics and morality. But the most influential of Nogarola's works was a performance piece, Dialogue on Adam and Eve, in which she discussed the relative sinfulness of Adam and Eve—thereby opening up a centuries-long debate in Europe on gender and the nature of woman and establishing herself as an important figure in Western intellectual history. This book will be a must read for teachers and students of Women's Studies as well as of Renaissance literature and history.

Renowned in her day for her scholarship and eloquence, Isotta Nogarola (1418-66) remained one of the most famous women of the Italian Renaissance for centuries after her death. And because she was one of the first women to carve out a place for herself in the male-dominated republic of letters, Nogarola served as a crucial role model for generations of aspiring female artists and writers.

This volume presents English translations of all of Nogarola's extant works and highlights just how daring and original her convictions were. In her letters and orations, Nogarola elegantly synthesized Greco-Roman thought with biblical teachings. And striding across the stage in public, she lectured the Veronese citizenry on everything from history and religion to politics and morality. But the most influential of Nogarola's works was a performance piece, Dialogue on Adam and Eve, in which she discussed the relative sinfulness of Adam and Eve—thereby opening up a centuries-long debate in Europe on gender and the nature of woman and establishing herself as an important figure in Western intellectual history. This book will be a must read for teachers and students of Women's Studies as well as of Renaissance literature and history.

Kin, friends, and books (1434/37) Guarino's circle (1436/38) Venice and beyond (1438/39) Damiano (1438/41) The book-lined cell (1441/early 1450s) Ludovico (1451/66) The great gender debate (1451) The black swan : two orations for Ermolao Barbaro (1453) Pope Pius II and the Congress of Mantua (1459) The consolation for Marcello and the Friuli connection (1461) Appendix A : Concordance between Abel edition and the King/Robin translation Appendix B : A chronological list of sources cited by Isotta Nogarola. The early letters by and to Isotta Nogarola, sometimes jointly with her elder sister Ginevra, circulated among a close circle of humanistically trained aristocrats related to the Nogarola family, one of the leading noble clans of Verona.