Modern Criticism : Modesta Pozzo

In the early Renaissance era Florence and Siena were rivals in many aspects. The Battle of Montaperti was fought between the two in September of 1260. After their triumph over Florence, Siena used the monetary winnings for the building of the Palazzo Pubblico to serve the city in governmental, spiritual and social needs; it was comparable to the basilicas in ancient Rome in this aspect. The Palazzo Pubblico (fig. 1) was also made to compete with Florence’s already constructed Palazzo della Signoria1 (fig. 2). The city also focused the new funds on the elaboration of the cathedral interior (fig. 3). In 1308, Duccio di Buoninsegna was hired for this reason. Duccio completed the requested polyptych, or multipaneled, altarpiece three years

Prior to and throughout the late middle ages, women have been portrayed in literature as vile and corrupt. During this time, Christine de Pizan became a well educated woman and counteracted the previous notions of men’s slander against women. With her literary works, Pizan illustrated to her readers and women that though education they can aspire to be something greater than what is written in history. Through the use of real historical examples, Christine de Pizan’s, The Book of the City of Ladies, acts as a defense against the commonly perceived notions of women as immoral.

Gioachino Rossini, like many great composers, was born in the right place at the right time. The musical firmament was still mourning the loss of Wolfgang Mozart in 1792 when Rossini was born. His parents were both gifted musicians, and young Gioachino was in a music conservatory by the age of 14. Rossini composed ten operas within the following seven years and had established himself as a gifted composer in the opera buffa style. This genre of comic opera was strikingly different from the rigorous opera seria, but it still managed to acquire some noticeable traits. Primarily, the arias in opera buffe shirk the da capo style of the seria mold. The subject matter deals frequently

Frida Kahlo was a half-mexican, half-hungarian painter of the 20th century born Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón in Coyoacán, Mexico City on July 6, 1907. During her short lived life, she had many accomplishments. She was a surrealist artist whos paintings reflected her thoughts and feelings. Her creative style was always amazing but confusing. Unfortunately, she lived most of her artistic life in the shadow of her husband, Diego Rivera, and her work was not truly recognized until after her death.

Because Marinella could complete her formal education, she was exposed to the popularized literature, art, and political climate of Venice in the early renaissance. This allowed her to directly experience the misogynist arguments that would influence her feminist ideas. The Nobility and its respective advocacy for women serves as a direct response to Passi’s Defects of Women. In Lucrezia Marinella and the ‘Querelle des Femmes’ in Seventeenth Century Italy written by Paola Malpezzi Price and Christine M. Ristaino, Passi’s treatise is analyzed: Passi satirizes intellectual women, and comes to close to suggesting that women are different species. He asserts that women are like animals because both women and animals are devoid of reason and virtue (Malpezzi Price and Ristaino, 108). These claims of Passi set a precedent for the argument of Marinella in The Nobility. She focused primarily on the nature of women and argued that women were superiority of men. Commenting on the extreme nobility and virtue of women, Marinella contends that because women are the nobler sex, they inevitably perform their duties better

“I’ll be out of here and away from all you knaves for one time anyway, as not a month will pass before you’ll see whether I’m nobody or a somebody.” The story of Bianco Alfani reflected the nature of 14th century Florentine society where, as Alfani remarked, the election to public office could make or destroy a person. In late 14th century and early 15th century Florence, decreased population and expanding commerce provided a favorable environment for ambitious individuals. The real life examples of Buonaccorso Pitti and Gregorio Dati demonstrated the positive role of ambition in Florence. Pitti, a nobleman had an extremely successful career, partaking in military campaigns, holding public office in Florence and being an ambassador to

In the novel Patria has a passion for religion so deep she starts school at Immaculate Concepcion to pursue her dream to become a nun. Minerva begins to talk about getting an education and says, “It started with Patria wanting to be a nun. Mamá was all for having a religious in the family, but Papá did not approve in the least. More than once, he said that Patria as a nun would be a waste of a pretty girl...Finally, Papá gave in to Mamá. He said Patria could go away to a convent school if it wasn’t one just for becoming a nun. Mamá agreed.”(Alvarez, ch. 2). After begging her parents, Patria along with her sisters were allowed to attend school. Although Papa disagrees with what Patria wants to do, that did not stop her. Going against her father's

During the medieval times, Marie de France, unlike the male writers of her time, wrote courtly stories that depicted women who were predominantly featured in the primary roles with empathy and questioned the sexist predicaments women were often subjected to. Women often times struggled to find their voice, but her stories told the perseverance and progress within those constraints. Instead, she wrote of men idealizing wealthy, powerful, independent, beautiful women. She inserts the thoughts and feelings from a woman’s perspective. In a sense, giving women the voice they strived to have heard in a male dominated time period. As Damon stated in the article “Marie de France: Psychologist of Courtly Love,” “Contemporary readers might have noted that the characters departed occasionally from the established laws of courtly conduct; none the less, as all such departures were towards reality, they were welcomed.” She opened the door for women’s self-expression and individual achievement. Marie de France’s popular adulterous love stories bring about many fascinating ethical questions.

Giacomo Puccini has written a number of operas, including Turandot, Gianni Schicchi, and Madama Butterfly. La Bohème is said to be “one of the most successful and enchanting operas ever written.” Written in the romantic period, the text and score interrelations play an important role in an overall aesthetically and historically pleasing opera. In a story of love found and love lost, Puccini uses text and score to create empathy for the characters of La Boheme. Puccini does so particularly in the aria Donde lieta uscì, sung by Mimi towards the end of Act III.

Giovanni Boccaccio is one of the leading Italian writers in the 1300s and has been considered as the father of Italian writing style through his composition of one hundred novelle. The Decameron continuously pictures women not as the objects of discussion but as the active producers and interpreters of their actions. Women are portrayed as they are or as they should be; they are shown to be as aggressive as men are while at the same time they can be submissive whenever they need to be. In many instances, Boccaccio depicts women as protagonists who do not readily accept the traditional role – being subservient to men and having no voice in the male-dominated society–, make their own decisions,

Her most famous work is The Book of the City of Ladies. Written in the vernacular, Christine writes of all the injustices women face in society and how a woman could strike back. The book is as well, a formal and lengthy response of Jean de Meun’s Romance of the Rose, by defending women and providing a wide range of strong, famous women in history to defend her argument of a strong, independent woman. In The Book of the City of Ladies, Christine writes that “...others have said and continue to say and write such awful, damning things about women and their ways. I was at a loss...who all seem to speak with one voice and are unanimous in their view that female nature is wholly given up to vice.” Criticism and sexism against women has Christine at a “loss” for words. She expresses that the common belief of women being a “vice” to the world and man, is absolutely absurd. She begins her book with this passage, and explains her goal for her contemporary woman and women for the future. “Our aim is to help you get rid of those misconceptions which have clouded your mind and made you reject what you know and believe in fact to be the truth just because so many other people have come out with the opposite opinion.” Christine wishes to make sure that whatever falsehood and deception any one person had ever said to the reader or any brainwashed fabrication into thinking their

Maria Montessori was born in Italy in 1870. She wanted to become a doctor, so she enrolled at the University of Rome; however at this time she began to develop an interest in children who were deprived; which at the time were referred to as ‘idiot children’, this encouraged Maria into studying about those who were mentally defective. Her interest then changed, and was focused into education. When she was fixed on to this idea, she began to study the theories which were devised over the last 200 years. By 1900 Montessori was known for a

An unlikely candidate to dispute the unfair, misogynistic treatment of women by men and society, Christine de Pizan successfully challenged the accepted negative views that were being expressed about women by the all-male literary world of her era. Part of Christine’s uniqueness stems from the time in which she lived, the middle to late 1300’s. The lack of a positive female role model to pattern herself after made Christine a true visionary in the fight for the equal rights of women. Her original ideas and insight provided a new and more intelligent way to view females. Pizan’s work, The Book of the City of Ladies, provided women much needed guidance in how to survive without the support of a man.

Maria Montessori was considered ahead of her time. She was born in Chiaravalle, in the province of Ancona, Italy in 1870 to an educated but not wealthy family. Despite her father's wishes and society's conservative ways at the time, she studied science. She was the first female physician in Italy when she graduated medical school in 1896. She worked mostly with the poor because she saw vast potential in them. She was an unselfish person and she traveled Italy speaking of women's rights and child labor law reforms. Not too long after graduating she was chosen to represent Italy in two different women's conferences. They were at Berlin in 1896 and also in London in 1900. Maria was appointed a professor of anthropology at the University of

Carol Lazzaro-Weis is the President of the American Association of Italian Studies, the largest associate of university professors of Italian in North America and serves on several editorial boards. Professor Lazzaro-Weis has been appointed to serve on the International Advisory Board for The Centre of Contemporary Women’s Writing. Her teaching and research interests include nineteenth and twentieth century Italian literature, genre, French women writers of the seventeenth and eighteenth century, feminist theory, etc. In addition to numerous articles on French and Italian writers, she has published the following books: From Margins to Mainstream: Feminism and Fictional modes in Italian Women’s Writing, La Signorina and Other Stories, Confused Epiphanies: L’abbé Prévost and the Romance Tradition, etc. She is currently preparing a book-length manuscript on women’s historical novels in Italy, France, Francophone Canada and the Caribbean.