The flowers of Italian literature: language, imitation and gender debates in Paolo Giovio's Dialogus de viris et foeminis aetate nostra florentibus

Abstract

Written in the shadow of the devastating Sack of Rome (1527), Paolo Giovio's dialogue on the Notable Men and Women of our Time seeks to measure whether Italy's military valour, literary prowess, and female excellence have declined over the course of the Italian Wars. In this relatively unexamined work composed at the behest of his patron and protector, Vittoria Colonna, Giovio broadly surveys his male and female contemporaries in order to assess whether his age suffers from an isolated moment of catastrophe or has instead begun to grow martially, culturally, and socially barren. This article examines Giovio's evaluation of Italy's literary landscape and contradictory responses to contemporary debates over the questione della lingua, Ciceronian‐Eclectic imitation, and female authorship and readership. It demonstrates that the dialogue articulates a pro‐Latin position that reframes the polemics over imitation in terms of vernacular's perceived problematic relationship to exemplars and undiscerning, primarily female, audiences while at the same time heralding a new age of women's cultural involvement. It argues that Giovio attempts to resolve this knot by endowing Colonna herself with the positive qualities he associates with strong Latin writing, her own vernacular activity notwithstanding.

The Image of the Marquise: Bernardo Tasso and the Representation of Vittoria Colonna in the «Libro secondo degli Amori»

“…Si veda altresì l'edizione (con traduzione inglese) a cura di Gouwens (2013). Sui rapporti tra Paolo Giovio e Vittoria Colonna si rinvia a Marrocco (2014), Gouwens (2015), Goethals (2015), Michelacci (2018).…”