Tamara Albertini - Women Humanists in the Renaissance: Paradise and Free Speech in Moderata Fonte

The Lumen Christi Institute

An evening webinar lecture with Tamara Albertini (University of Hawai'i at Manoa). Part of our summer webinar series on "Reason and Beauty in Renaissance Christian Thought and Culture," presented in collaboration with the American Cusanus Society After a brief review of women humanists like Laura Cerata, Cassandra Fedele, Lucrezia Marinella, and Isotta Nogarola, the presentation will focus on Moderata Fonte's dialogue The Merit of Women Where One Clearly Discovers How Dignified and Perfect They Are (1600). In that dialogue, Fonte creates a locus amoenus characterized by a centered garden visited by seven female interlocutors to discuss what options women have to take charge of their lives. The presentation will end by comparing and contrasting Fonte's garden with Giovanni Pico della Mirandola's paradise in his Oration on the Dignity of Man (1486)