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.
