Women in Italian Renaissance Culture and Society

Renaissance Quarterly, Summer, 2002 by Elissa B. Weaver

In her introduction Letizia Panizza writes that one of the aims of the collection is to recover neglected areas of Italian culture and society, which she has done. In this context we should also mention the representation of women in the drama of Venetian Crete, new territory, certainly, studied by Rosemary Bancroft-Marcus.

Female networks, patronage, and vocations, freely chosen and forced, celibate and married women, courtesans, and prostitutes, women's clothes, dowries, and the laws that governed them go over familiar terrain, perhaps, but adding new names and case studies. Many of the essays are quite good; all are informative.