Letters and Orations

The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe: The Chicago Series

by Cassandra Fedele, Diana Robin (Translator)

By the end of the fifteenth century, Cassandra Fedele (1465-1558), a learned middle-class woman of Venice, was arguably the most famous woman writer and scholar in Europe. A cultural icon in her own time, she regularly corresponded with the king of France, lords of Milan and Naples, the Borgia pope Alexander VI, and even maintained a ten-year epistolary exchange with Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Spain that resulted in an invitation for her to join their court. Fedele's letters reveal the central, mediating role she occupied in a community of scholars otherwise inaccessible to women. Her unique admittance into this community is also highlighted by her presence as the first independent woman writer in Italy to speak publicly and, more importantly, the first to address philosophical, political, and moral issues in her own voice. Her three public orations and almost all of her letters, translated into English, are presented here for the first time.

Genres: Philosophy, Renaissance, Italian Literature, Nonfiction, History

181 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 2000

About the author

Cassandra Fedele was the most renowned woman scholar in Italy during the last decades of the Quattrocento.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[hayley⚡️ · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this for core humanities class. It was a difficult read every time but I understand that Cassandra Fedele was incredibly educated for her time and she used that to her advantage socially, personally, and every way that she could. She used her own education to encourage other people, women, to get an education. Whether they would benefit socially or just to experience an education for their own interest. Fedele seems to lose a real sense of personal voice in her letters because she uses the same type of writing every time but it never seems real.