The Worth of Women

Il merito delle donne, most commonly translated The Worth of Women: Wherein is Clearly Revealed Their Nobility and Their Superiority to Men, is a dialogue by Moderata Fonte first published posthumously in 1600. The work is a dialogue between seven Venetian women discussing the worth of women and the differences between the sexes more generally. The title has also been translated The Merits of Women.

The Worth of Women: Wherein is Clearly Revealed Their Nobility and Their Superiority to Men
1600 cover of Il merito delle donne illustrated by Domenico Imberti
AuthorModerata Fonte
Original titleIl merito della donne
LanguageItalian
Published1600
Media typePrint

Plot

The Worth of Women depicts a dialogue between seven Venetian noblewomen over the course of two days. On the first day, the women debate whether men are good or bad and also discuss the dignity of women. On the second day, they discuss an overview of general knowledge of natural history and culture but also return to their discussion of the sexes. Both days also contain critiques and discussions of marriage and dowries.[1]

Characters

Adriana - an old widow

Virginia - young and unmarried, Adriana's daughter

Leonora - a young widow

Lucretia - an older married woman

Cornelia - a young, married woman

Corinna - a young "dimmessa"[note 1]

Helena - a young woman, recently married

Development

According to Fonte's biographer, Fonte completed The Worth of Women just before her death in 1592.[3] One of Fonte's daughters claimed that Fonte finished The Worth of Women "the very day before her death in childbirth".[4]

The Worth of Women was highly influenced by The Decameron, a work that Fonte often alludes to in the text.[5] Fonte's work also quotes directly and indirectly from both Petrarch's "Sonnet 263" and Orlando Furioso.[6][7] The dialogue style of Fonte's work was influenced by Baldassare Castiglione and Pietro Bembo.[8]

Virginia Cox claims that the work was influenced by the changing economy of Italy in the late sixteenth-century. This period was characterized by a reduction in marriage prospects for Venetian noble women leading to an increase in the numbers of women entering convents. However, this increase in the number of women in convents meant that it became increasingly expensive for women to become nuns. Many families were then unable to send their unwed daughters to convents which led to what Cox describes as the introduction of the "virtually unprecedented figure of the secular spinster".[9] Cox argues that these unprecedented numbers of spinsters and nuns forced women in late sixteenth-century Venice to become more aware of their vulnerability and powerlessness and thus influenced Fonte's arguments surrounding women's dowries in The Worth of Women.[10]

Publication history

The Worth of Women was first published in 1600.[11][12] The first edition was prefaced by a biography of Fonte written by Giovanni Nicolò Doglioni.[3] It is unclear what, if any, changes Doglioni made to the text before its publication.[3] The text was accompanied by a dedication from Fonte's daughter, Cecilia Zorzi, to Livia della Rovera who was 14 at the time of publication.[13] The book received a second printing in 1603.[14]

Virginia Cox's English translation of Il merito della donne, The Worth of Women, was first published by the University of Chicago Press in 1997 as part of their Other Voice in Early Modern Europe series. In 2018, the University of Chicago Press published Cox's translation under the title The Merits of Women. The 2018 edition omitted most of the scholarly footnotes and appendices published with the earlier version in an attempt to encourage a broader audience to read the text. The Merits of Women also featured a newly translated introduction from Dacia Mariani.[15]

Analysis

Adriana Chemello, Paola Malpezzi Prize, and Margaret King have all claimed that Corinna, of all the women in the dialogue, comes the closest to representing Fonte's own views and character.[16]

Biblical commentary

Amanda W. Benckhuysen describes Fonte as presenting a "pro-woman reading of Eve" in The Worth of Women.[17] Fonte acknowledges that man (Adam) was created before woman in Christianity, but claims that this supports the superiority of women.[18] Eve was created as a helper to Adam, which Fonte claims demonstrates the incompleteness and inferiority of men. Fonte also sees Adam's sin as being worse than Eve's. Benckhuysen thus claims that the social hierarchy which places men above women has no basis in the Bible.[19]

Friendship

Carolyn James claims that Fonte's depiction of ideal friendship in The Worth of Women is Ciceronian. However, James finds that Fonte departs from Cicero in that she claims that men, rather than women, lack "amicitia", the essential virtue of friendship.[20] Unlike her contemporaries, Fonte presents friendship as a female phenomenon.[21]

Reception

The Worth of Women is seen as a part of the Renaissance 'querelle des femmes'.[22][10]

Adaptations

Kairos Italy Theater's adaptation of The Worth of Women made its United States' premiere in spring 2017 as part of Carnegie Hall's "La Serenissima" festival. The text was translated by Virginia Cox and the production was directed by Jay Stern in collaboration with Laura Caparrotti. The show featured music by composer Erato Kremmyda and lyricist Maggie-Kate Coleman. The cast was Carlotta Brentan, Laura Caparrotti, Tali Custer, Aileen Lanni, Marta Mondelli, Irene Turri, and Annie Watkins.[23] In October 2019, KIT-Kairos Italy Theater re-staged their adaptation.[24]

Notes
  1. Virginia Cox describes the difficulties in interpreting this term in a footnote in her 1997 translation. She writes "The noun dimmessa in this period (more usually spelled dimessa) most often indicated a member of a female tertiary order started by Padre Antonio Pagani in Vicenza in 1579 . . . There is some evidence, however, that the term was used more loosely to indicate any respectable unmarried girl living at home, rather than in a convent."[2]

References
  1. Cox, Virginia (2015). A Short History of the Italian Renaissance. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 195. ISBN 9780857727756 – via Google Books.
  2. Fonte, Moderata (1997). The Worth of Women: Wherein is Clearly Revealed Their Nobility and Their Superiority to Men. Translated by Cox, Virginia. University of Chicago Press. p. 45. ISBN 9780226256832.
  3. Kolsky, Stephen (2001). "Moderata Fonte, Lucrezia Marinella, Giuseppe Passi: An Early Seventeenth-Century Feminist Controversy". The Modern Language Review. 96 (4): 974. doi:10.2307/3735864. ISSN 0026-7937. JSTOR 3735864 – via JSTOR.
  4. Janson, Sharon L. (2008). Debating Women, Politics, and Power in Early Modern Europe. Palgrave Macmillan US. p. 142. ISBN 9780230605527.
  5. Smarr, Janet Levarie (1995). "The Uses of Conversation: Moderata Fonte and Edmund Tilney". Comparative Literature Studies. 32 (1): 3. ISSN 0010-4132. JSTOR 40246974 – via JSTOR.
  6. Cox, Virginia (October 2005). "Sixteenth-Century Women Petrarchists and the Legacy of Laura". Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies. 35 (3): 590–91. doi:10.1215/10829636-35-3-583. ISSN 1082-9636.
  7. Shemek, Deanna (2018). "Ariostan Armory: Feminist Responses to the Orlando Furioso". MLN. 133 (1): 148–159. doi:10.1353/mln.2018.0011. ISSN 1080-6598. S2CID 165373403 – via ProQuest.
  8. Robin, Diana Maury; Levin, Carole; Larsen, Anne R. (2007). Encyclopedia of Women in the Renaissance: Italy, France, and England. ABC-CLIO. p. 151. ISBN 9781851097722 – via Google Books.
  9. Cox, Virginia (1995). "The Single Self: Feminist Thought and the Marriage Market in Early Modern Venice". Renaissance Quarterly. 48 (3): 543. doi:10.2307/2862873. ISSN 0034-4338. JSTOR 2862873. S2CID 162294401 – via JSTOR.
  10. Cox, Virginia (1995). "The Single Self: Feminist Thought and the Marriage Market in Early Modern Venice". Renaissance Quarterly. 48 (3): 513–581. doi:10.2307/2862873. ISSN 0034-4338. JSTOR 2862873. S2CID 162294401 – via JSTOR.
  11. Higginson, Thomas Wentworth (February 1959). "Ought Women to Learn the Alphabet?". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2 November 2020.
  12. Kolsky, Stephen D. (1993). "Wells of Knowledge: Moderata Fonte'sIl Merito delle donne". The Italianist. 13: 57–96. doi:10.1179/ita.1993.13.1.57. ISSN 0261-4340.
  13. Richardson, Brian (2020). Women and the Circulation of Texts in Renaissance Italy. Cambridge University Press. p. 80. ISBN 9781108477697 – via Google Books.
  14. Ross, Sarah Gwyneth (2010). The Birth of Feminism: woman as intellect in Renaissance Italy and England. Harvard University Press. p. 285. ISBN 9780674054530 – via Google Books.
  15. Fonte, Moderata (2018). "Publisher's Note". The Merits of Women : Wherein Is Revealed Their Nobility and Their Superiority to Men. Translated by Cox, Virginia. University of Chicago Press. p. 7. ISBN 9780226550770.
  16. Smarr, Janet Levarie (1995). "The Uses of Conversation: Moderata Fonte and Edmund Tilney". Comparative Literature Studies. 32 (1): 11. ISSN 0010-4132. JSTOR 40246974 – via JSTOR.
  17. Benckhuysen, Amanda W. (2019). The Gospel According to Eve : A History of Women's Interpretation. InterVarsity Press. p. 35. ISBN 9780830873654.
  18. Minnis, Alastair (2015). From Eden to Eternity : Creations of Paradise in the Later Middle Ages. University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 92. ISBN 9780812247237.
  19. Benckhuysen, Amanda W. (2019). The Gospel According to Eve : A History of Women's Interpretation. InterVarsity Press. pp. 35–41. ISBN 9780830873654.
  20. James, Carolyn (May 2008). "Friendship and Dynastic Marriage in Renaissance Italy". Literature & History. 17: 4–18. doi:10.7227/LH.17.1.2. S2CID 193541536 – via Sage Journals.
  21. Ross, Sarah Gwyneth (2010). The Birth of Feminism: woman as intellect in Renaissance Italy and England. Harvard University Press. p. 282. ISBN 9780674054530 – via Google Books.
  22. Fonte, Moderata (2007). "Moderata Fonte and the Worth of Women". The Worth of Women: Wherein Is Clearly Revealed Their Nobility and Their Superiority to Men. Translated by Cox, Virginia. University of Chicago Press. p. 1. ISBN 9780226256832 – via Google Books.
  23. BWW News Desk (8 March 2017). "Kairos Italy Theater Presents US Premiere of THE WORTH OF WOMEN". BroadwayWorld.com. Retrieved 2 November 2020.
  24. BWW News Desk (17 September 2019). "KIT-Kairos Italy Theater Announces Its 20th Anniversary Season 2019-2020 Season". BroadwayWorld.com. Retrieved 2 November 2020.
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