Arcangela Tarabotti (1604–1652), Venetian nun and polemicist, was known for her protest against forced monachization and her advocacy for the education of women and their participation in public life. She responded to Francesco Buoninsegni’s Against the Vanities of Women (1638) with the Antisatire (1644), a defense of women’s fashions and a denunciation of men, but also a strong condemnation of men’s treatment of women and of the subordination of women in society. Both Buoninsegni and Tarabotti write with the exaggeration and absurd arguments typical of Menippean satire; they flaunt their knowledge of ancient and contemporary literature in a prose interspersed with poetry and replete with the astonishing Baroque conceits that delighted their contemporaries.

The Other Voice in Early Modern Women: The Toronto Series volume 70

Elissa B. Weaver is Professor Emerita of Italian at the University of Chicago. She is the author of Convent Theatre in Early Modern Italy: Spiritual Fun and Learning for Women (2002) and of numerous other works on Italian medieval and Renaissance literature. She edited the Italian edition of the Buoninsegni, Tarabotti, Satira e Antisatira (1998) and is co-editor of the Italian Women Writers online database at the University of Chicago Library.

Acknowledgments xiii
Illustrations xv
Introduction 1
Note on the Text and Translation 29
Satire and Antisatire: Dedications and Printer’s Note 31
Francesco Buoninsegni, Against the Vanities of Women, a Menippean Satire 37
Arcangela Tarabotti, Antisatire, In Response 55
Bibliography 95
Index 103