For an introduction to the course, I began with the following comparison of perspectives:

* A traditional perspective: Paolo Ulvioni, repeating Scipione Bargagli's observations from Delle lodi
dell'Academie (1564), notes that women were to be well-educated and present in literary and salon society to inspire men. He reports that two key elements of academic society in Renaissance Italy were "beautiful and courteous women who inspire the soul and intellect" and "virtuous men who guide and counsel." [See: "Accademie e cultura in Italia dalla Controriforma all'Arcadia, Il caso veneziano," Libri e documenti: Archivio storico civico e Biblioteca Trivulziana. (Milano: Archivio Storico Civico e Biblioteca Trivulziana, 1979), 21]. Regarding this point, we looked at examples of the Duchess of Urbino interacting with the interlocutors in The Courtier. For other background sources regarding this perspective, see Jacob Burkhardt, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, trans. by S.G.C. Middlemore, introduced by Peter Burke, and annotated by Peter Murray (London: Penguin, 1990).

To problematize this issue, see Joan Kelly, "Did Women Have a Renaissance?" Women, History, and Theory: The Essays of Joan Kelly, Women in Culture and Society (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984).

* A new perspective: In Impersonations, Stephen Orgel asserts that "the ideology of a culture does not describe its operation, only the ideals and assumptions, often refracted and unacknowledged, of its ruling elite." [See Impersonations: The Performance of Gender in Shakespeare's England (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1996), 125.] The context for Orgel's statement is his commentary on the public activities of early modern women in England. The truth in it, however, may be applied to the development of both Continental and English early modern women's literary endeavors, and it is especially applicable to women's place and performance in Renaissance literary society. For an overview of women's history in Early Modern Europe, see also the "Introduction to the Series" by Margaret L. King and Albert Rabil, Jr. of any volume from the series, "The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe," published by the University of Chicago Press. See also Merry E. Wiesner's Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993).