Antologia di poetesse italiane

For centuries, the Italian Renaissance has been narrated as a male achievement. This collection recovers the voices that were systematically silenced: twenty-three women poets writing across three hundred years, from the medieval courts to the height of the Cinquecento. Here are noblewomen like Lucrezia Tornabuoni, mother of Lorenzo de' Medici, penning devotional verse alongside courtesans like Veronica Franco, who navigated Venice's floating world with wit and sensuality. Gaspara Stampa channels devastating heartbreak into some of the most piercing love poetry in any language. Isabella di Morra writes from the loneliness of a castle in the hills of Basilicata, her brief life yielding poems of extraordinary darkness. Vittoria Colonna, the most famous woman of her age, exchanges sonnets with Michelangelo. What unites these disparate voices is their refusal to be silent, their insistence on expressing desire, grief, faith, and ambition in a world that granted women no public voice. This anthology is proof that women were always writing, always feeling, always present.