Periodic Reporting for period 1 - WomenThinkingLove (A Gendered History of Emotions in Renaissance and Counter-Reformation Italy)
Reporting period: 2021-09-01 to 2023-06-30
"Women Thinking Love" delves into the profound transformations in the way Early-Modern Italian women conceived and engaged with the concept of romantic love during a pivotal period in the Western intellectual history. In the Renaissance, love emerged as a central intellectual, philosophical, and literary theme. However, the late 16th-century Catholic Reformation brought about sweeping institutional and psychological changes that had a profound impact on women's place in society, particularly with regard to their sexual and emotional conduct. Notably, between 1500 and 1650, a growing number of Italian women gained access to literacy and higher education, actively contributing to cultural dialogues. Consequently, we are privy to a wealth of female voices on the subject of love, complemented by personal writings that provide intimate insights into their romantic relationships."Women Thinking Love" employs the methodologies of the History of Emotions and Literary Studies to shine a spotlight on women's unique perspectives on this theme. This approach marks a departure from the traditional viewpoint that often regards women as passive recipients of established male-crafted ideas. This research bears significant societal relevance: it presents a fresh and alternative portrayal of women, countering the conventional depiction of them as mere receptacles for emotional conventions imposed by men; it underscores the socioconstructive nature of emotions and gender. In essence, it highlights that emotions and gender identities are not innate but rather constructed through interactions between individuals and their social environments. This insight, bolstered by the Communication activities included in the project, challenges the lingering sexist attitudes that persist in contemporary society. The overarching objectives of this project are manifold: to better understand and deepen the Italian Renaissance cultural debates on love; to cast new perspectives on theoretical and literary works by Early-Modern Italian women; to scrutinise these works through the lens of the History of Emotions; to unravel how Early-Modern Italian women conceived and navigated romantic love in relation to the dominant intellectual currents of their era (Petrarchism, Neoplatonism) and to the societal expectations that shaped and governed female comportment.
The ongoing research has revealed a compelling narrative: Early-Modern Italian women emerged as opinionated individuals who embraced their roles as independent thinkers when it came to matters of romantic love. They confronted and questioned the prevailing mainstream ideas, committed to staying true to themselves and their life objectives. This spirited defiance of convention transpired in intellectual discourse on love and within the intimate sphere of personal relationships. In intellectual debates and literary elaborations on love, women wielded their voices with eloquence and conviction and challenged entrenched notions. In the realm of personal relationships, they navigated the complex terrain of love with a spirit of autonomy, forging relationships that were guided by their own principles and desires. Their determination to chart their own course in matters of love stands as a testament to their resilience and agency. In most cases, independence and autonomy were pursued by women at great risk and at a high cost, as appears clearly in their emotional accounts surviving in their private correspondence. In sum, the research paints a vivid portrait of Early-Modern Italian women as courageous individuals who boldly carved out their own paths in the intricate landscape of romantic love, leaving an enduring legacy of intellectual and emotional independence and self-affirmation. The researcher has (co-) organised four academic gatherings; delivered eleven guest lectures/seminars/conference papers/roundtable speeches related to the project’s topic; (co-) organised/published five events/series of events/popular publications/educational material. Dr Caiazza has received training in digital and public humanities and college-university teaching. Regarding the data/results exploitation, the researcher created and released online a bibliographical catalogue and a database of the project's sources (Zotero), and coordinated a group of PhD students in collaborating with a web catalogue of Early-Modern correspondence (Archilet). She has published two articles and three book reviews, submitted one book chapter, and is working on one more article and book chapter. The proposal for the publication of a journal special issue following the conference "A Web of Sentiments" has been accepted.
So far, the literary and private writings of Early-Modern Italian women dealing with love have been studied as literary products or in relation to canonised male-crafted ideas about love (Neoplatonism, Petrarchism). The first two years of “Women Thinking Love” have considered these writings per se and through the new lenses of the history of emotions. The research has shed light on some case studies in the spirit of the micro-history contributing to global history -- in this case, that of mentalities, gender, and women. Thanks to this approach, it has resulted that women were not at all mere recipients of mainstream ideas about romantic love; on the contrary, they had their own minds, they were often not passively compliant with the social expectations regarding modest female behaviour, they strove to stay true to themselves, even at a very high cost. Moreover, the study of love correspondence witnessing long-lasting love relationships has shown that gender boundaries and constraints were not so clear and neat for women and were not passively accepted by them. Finally, regarding the revisionist idea of the Catholic Reformation as a period of restraint for women’s agency that the project aims to counter, the research conducted thus far has shown that even in the slippery slope of romantic love (dangerous for women’s reputation), women showed independency in their thinking, and found new ways for their agency. To name just a few cases, the anonymous gentlewoman who had a decade-lasting love relationship with the Knight of Santo Stefano Bernardino Lattanzi strove to live her feelings according to her beliefs, even when this meant losing her lover, and had her own way of conceiving love and marriage, not always in agreement with Catholic orthodoxy. The Jewish intellectual Sara Copio Sullam and the Jewish mother and wife Pacifica di Castro managed to stay true to their religious identity and ideas of love, facing significant life-threatening challenges. Maria Savorgnan steered her love relationship with the intellectual Pietro Bembo with great self-, emotional, and intellectual awareness, showing autonomy in her thinking and even in literary matters without being intimidated by the stature of her interlocutor. “Women Thinking Love” has contributed to increasing knowledge of female agency in Early-Modern Italy, and during the Catholic Reformation, It has provided a compelling narrative of female agency in times and contexts where women are usually regarded as passive victims of patriarchy. Without denying the injustices perpetrated against women (especially - with an intersectional perspective - when they belonged to religious minorities), it highlighted the struggles carried on by women for agency and for reappropriation of their own narrative and identity.