Breaking the Mold: The First Woman in Italian Literature

Breaking the Mold: The First Woman in Italian Literature

Lecture by Fabian Alfie

Given at the University of Arizona, on October 13, 2014

Thirteenth-century Florence was not an ideal place to be a woman, especially a fairly outspoken poet. Active between 1260-1270, the woman known only as La Compiuta Donzella (the fulfilled damsel) attracted the attention of several male writers. Two of them were astonished that such wisdom could be found in a female. The third, the important poet Guittone d’Arezzo (1235-1294), praised her insights but reminded her to follow virtue. And yet, almost nothing is known about her, not even her name. She left a corpus of three sonnets, and her status as a woman in medieval Italy is a topic that her works all but invite us to examine.