Sweet Fire: Tullia d'Aragona's Poetry of Dialogue and Selected Prose

by Tullia d'Aragona, Elizabeth Pallitto (Editor)

Tullia d'Aragona is one of the most renowned women writers from the Italian Renaissance. Given the title the "courtesan poet," Tullia was loved and desired by many. This collection includes fifty-five of Tullia's best poems and a selection of pieces written to her and about her.

Accompanying Tullia's poems is a series of risposte (responsive letters) written by well-known men of her dayincluding Girolamo Muzio, Benedetto Varchi and Lattanzio Bennucciwho offer poetic tributes to her honor, talent, and wit.

In these poetic dialogues, Tullia shows herself a match to her male contemporaries in verbal and intellectual dexterity. In a poem written to Piero Manelli, Tullia argues for a female poet's equal right to fame and literary immortality. In a tribute of gratitude to her muse, friend, and editoraptly named Muzioshe claims that loving such a talented writer reflects well upon "the worth / was yours; but in loving you, the glory mine." Muzio, in turn, writes an introduction to Tullia's dialogue on love, praising the beauty of her mind and the brightness of her soul's "flame," refined by hardship and virtue.

The quality of craftsmanship, the originality of thought, and the fiercely proud ambition in these poems set Tullia d'Aragona in a category apart from other women poets of the era. Her wish to be immortalized in print, renowned in her own "eternal lines to time," will be fulfilled through this bilingual edition. Retaining the music of the Italian, these translations bring Tullia's work to life for an English audience.

Genres: Poetry

128 pages, Paperback

First published April 5, 2006

About the author

Tullia d'Aragona (c. 1510–1556) was born in Rome and raised there and in Siena by her mother. Like her mother, she became a courtesan, and like other courtesans who wished to move in the upper reaches of society, she was trained in music and literature. When she was in her 20s, she and her mother began to move from city to city but always returned to Rome. During the later 1530s they were in Venice and Ferrara. In both cities Aragona interacted with the philosophic and literary elite, her home became a salon, and her writing began to be noticed. It was in Ferrara that Aragona met Girolamo Muzio, the courtier and poet who would become her literary editor and promoter.

Reviews

[Cristina Contilli]

Oltre gli schemi del petrarchismo...

Grazie ad una vita avventurosa e ad una formazione culturale "libera" Tullia D'aragona riuscì a superare gli schemi del petrarchismo cinquentesco, come dimostrano (a mio parere) i seguenti versi:

Amore un tempo in così lento foco

arse mia vita, e sì colmo di doglia

struggesi il cor, che qual altro si voglia

martir fora ver lei dolcezza e gioco.




Poscia sdegno e pietate, a poco a poco

spenser la fiamma; ond’io più ch’altra soglia

libera da sì lunga e fiera voglia

giva lieta cantando in ciascun loco.




Ma il ciel né sazio ancor, lassa, né stanco

de’ danni miei, perché sempre sospiri,

mi riconduce a la mia antica sorte;




e con sì acuto spron mi punge il fianco,

ch’io temo sotto i primi empi martiri

cadere, e per men mal bramar la morte.