Abstract
This chapter aims at showing that, against the traditional narratives of the history of philosophy and science, a large number of women actively contributed to the scientific debate. In particular, two exemplar figures are considered here, the Italian learned ladies Camilla Erculiani and Margherita Sarrocchi. Erculiani’s (Letters on Natural Philosophy, 1584) deal with some of the most debated topics of that time, including the presumed female intellectual inferiority, the nature of the soul, planetary influences, and physical causes of the deluge. The correspondence between Sarrocchi and Galilei (1611–1612) offers an excellent analysis of the consequences of his astronomical observations.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
However, the gender prejudice was not exclusively Aristotelian, and not all the Aristotelians adopted this position v.g., see Piccolomini (1560).
- 2.
For Camilla Erculiani’s biography and the circumstances of the publication of Lettere, see Carinci (Carinci 2013, 202–229).
- 3.
Andrea Dudith, an Italian-Hungarian diplomat and ecclesiast, said he had attended, with Bathory, the lectures given by the humanist Francesco Robortello and the historian Carlo Sigonio in Padua; see Dudith1992. On the presence of Hungarian students in Padua, see Bónis (1973, 234).
- 4.
The volume is divided into two parts: the first one consists of some Latin and Greek poems, while the second one, written in Italian in 1583, is entitled: Del giardino de’ poeti, in lode del serenissimo re di Polonia, libro secondo, Venetia:Guerra, in Viridarium poetarum tum Latino, tum Graeco, tum vulgari eloquio scribentium, Venetiis: Ad signum Hyppogriphi. 1583.
- 5.
On women’s imperfection and their ‘natural’ deficiencies, see Speroni (1978, 565–584, in part. 583), dealing with ‘donnesca imperfezione’ (womanly imperfection).
- 6.
Under the pseudonym of Prodicogine Filarete, a Paduan author railed against the explicit and spiteful slanders of Onofrio Filiriaco, and wrote in 1584 a Difesadelledonne contra la falsa narratione di Onofrio Filiriaco, Padova: Meietti.
- 7.
About fifty years before the publication of Erculiani’swork, Pietro Pomponazzi, in Padua, had supported the teaching of philosophy in the Italian vernacular and the Paduan Accademia degli Infiammati led by SperoneSperoni, Alessandro Piccolomini and Benedetto Varchi, had promoted the use of the vernacular in the communication of scientific knowledge and philosophy.
- 8.
Diodorus Siculus (1542), vernacularization of the extant books of Diodorus’s Biblioteca storica; Erculiani refers to book i: Come il mondo e le cose, secondo gli antichi fisiologi e gli storici si formassero, Chap. I, Sect. 1, 6.
- 9.
Erculiani’s reference to Marcus Aurelius is taken from de Guevara (1568), vol. I, Chap. xl, 63.
- 10.
- 11.
As regards the critique of infinity in nature, Erculiani refers to the effective synthesis of Aristotle by Piccolomini (1576, ii, 21r): ‘How important it is for natural philosophy, to seek and examine if there is to be found any natural body of infinite size’.
- 12.
Piccolomini (1551, ff. 3v-4r, 5v).
- 13.
Maria Gondola is also one of the interlocutors in her husband’s Neoplatonic dialogues, in which Francesco Patrizi also features: see di Gozze (1581).
- 14.
The recent critical edition of Lettere di Filosofia naturale (Erculiani 2016) also includes Maria Gondola’s letter of dedication to Discorsi sulle Meteore, and the letters addressed to Erculiani by Sebastiano Erizzo, a Venetian translator of Plato.
- 15.
On the same issue, see Rabitti (2000, 399–433).
- 16.
Similar feminist ideas can be traced in the work of the Polish philosopher Andre Glaber De Kobylin, author of some Problemes aristoteliciens (Problematy arystoteliczne, published many times: 1535, 1535, 1542). In particular, see Gadkio skladności czlonkówczlowieczych (Tales about the Harmony of Human Limbs), ed. J. Rostafiński, Kraków, 1893, in Bogucka (2004).
- 17.
According to Moderata Fonte, changing men’s mind is a difficult task, ‘even harder than modifying the shape of trees, and when they do change their mind, it’s sometimes for the worst,’ (Fonte 1988, 112–113).
- 18.
- 19.
On the Flood as a natural phenomenon, see di Gozze (1584, 56r).
- 20.
- 21.
- 22.
See De gen. et corr. I, 5, 320b 18–20 and Met. VII 8, 1033b 29–32.
- 23.
See Avicenna, De diluviis, in Alonso Alonso (1949, 38–39).
- 24.
See the entry Giacomo (Jacopo) Menochio, written by C. Valsecchi, in Dizionario Biografico degli italiani, 2009 vol. 73.
- 25.
- 26.
See Piccolomini (1576, I, c75v). He made a distinction between the domain of the natural philosopher and that of the ‘divine’ theologian or metaphysician, which cannot be confused because of the considerable diversity of the subjects they investigate.
- 27.
- 28.
Three sonnets appear in the collection edited by Bergalli (1726, 111–112).
- 29.
- 30.
An international conference was recently held at the University of Calabria on the figure and work of Sirleto, on the occasion of the fifth centenary of his birth, entitled Il cardinal Sirleto (1514–1585). Il sapientissimo calabro e la Roma del XVI secolo, whose publication is forthcoming.
- 31.
- 32.
‘Virago’ refers to the traditional subordination of women to men (see Genesis 2,23), debated in several Renaissance treatises dealing with the querelles des femmes, starting from Cornelio Agrippa of Nettsheim (1529), see Agrippa (1990, 50–51).
- 33.
See Burckhardt (2014, 164).
- 34.
In this dialogue, Tarquinia Molza embodies the typically Renaissance ideal of the perfect woman, the new Diotima, who explains her theory about love, inspired by psychological and naturalistic investigations. Patrizi (1963, 101–102).
- 35.
See Scott-Baumann (2008).
- 36.
- 37.
Marinella (1601, 130), aware of the hostility to which women are subjected, proudly calls for the need to make their virtuous actions and their scientific works known far and wide: ‘and I, encouraged by the opinion of Gorgias and Plutarch, say that the cheer for the works of women, in the sciences and other virtuous enterprises, must resonate not just in their own towns, but in various other provinces.’
- 38.
See Bolzoni (1989, 193–216).
- 39.
- 40.
It is not a coincidence that Vincenzo Maggi (1545, 46c), in the second part of his amazing work, stated that if men had not developed their ancient virtues, they would have been surpassed by women.
- 41.
For historical references and a reconstruction of the scientific environment to which the correspondents refer, see Favaro (1894, 6–31); Gabrieli (1933, 694–727); the correspondence is included in Galilei, 1965, a reprint of the edition by Favaro 1890–1909, vol. X Carteggio 1574–1610, 18–318, and vol. XI, Carteggio 1611–1613, 1966, 191–382. The epistolary exchange between Sarrocchi, Galilei and Valerio is now included in Sarrocchi (2016). See also Ray (2016), which contains the first complete annotated English translations of Margherita Sarrocchi’s seven extant letters to Galileo and Galileo’s one surviving letter to Sarrocchi.
References
Agrippa of Nettsheim, C. (1990). nobilitate et praecellentia foeminei sexus, édition critique d’aprèsle texted’Anvers 1529. Par Antonioli, R. Reulos, Ch. Sauvage, O. Genève: Droz.
Alonso Alonso, M. (1949). Homenaje a Avicena en su milenarios: las traduciones de Jaun Gonzales de Burgos y Solomón. Al Andalus. Revista de las Escuelas de EstudiosArabes de Madrid y Granada, xiv, 38–39.
Baldini, E. & Napolitani, P. D. (1991). Per una biografia di Luca Valerio. Fonti edite e inedite per una ricostruzione della sua carriera scientifica. Bollettino di storia delle scienze matematiche, 11(1), 3–157.
Bergalli, L. (1726). Componimenti poetici delle più illustri rimatrici. Venezia: Antonio Mora.
Bianchi, L. (2009). Per una storia dell’aristotelismo ‘volgare’ nel Rinascimento: problemi e prospettive di ricerca. Bruniana & Campanelliana, 15(2), 367–385.
Boccaccio, G. (1972). De mulieribus claris, a cura di Zaccaria, Vol. X, in Tutte le opere di Giovanni Boccaccio, a cura di Branca, Milano: Mondadori.
Bogucka, M. (2004). Women in early modern polish society. Against the European background. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Bolzoni, L. (1989). Tommaso Campanella e le donne: fascino e negazione della differenza. Annali d’Italianistica 7, Women’s Voices in Italian Literature, 193–216.
Bonis, G. (1973). Gli scolari ungheresi di Padova alla corte degli Iagelloni. In V. Branca (Ed.), Venezia e l’Ungheria nel Rinascimento. Olschki: Firenze.
Borzelli, A. (1935). Note intorno a Margherita Sarrocchi e al suo poema “La Scanderbeide”. Napoli: Tipografia Pontificia degli Artigianelli.
Bronzini, C. (1624). Della dignità e nobiltà delle donne. Firenze: Pignoni.
Burckhardt, K. (2014). The civilization of the renaissance in Italy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Campanella, T. (2003). Opuscoli astrologici. In G. Ernst (Ed.). Milano: Bur.
Capaccio, G. C. (1599). Il segretario. Venezia: Moretti.
Carinci, E. (2013). “Una speziala padovana”. Lettere di philosophia naturale di Camilla Erculiani (1584). Italian Studies, 68, 202–229.
Caroti, S. (2003). L’’Aristotele italiano’ di Alessandro Piccolomini: un progetto sistematico di filosofia naturale in volgare a metà ‘500. In A. Calzona, F. P. Fiore, A. Tenenti, & C. Vasoli (Eds.), Il volgare come lingua di cultura dal Trecento al Cinquecento. Firenze: Olschki.
Cavendish, M. (1653). Poems and Fancies. London: Martin and Allestrye.
Chemello, A. (1985). L’”Institutione delle donne” di Ludovico Dolce. In Trattati scientifici nel veneto fra il XV e XVI secolo. Vicenza: Neri Pozza.
Chioccarelli, B. (1608). Illustrium Mulierum et Illustrium Litteris Virorum Elegia. Napoli: Carlino e Vitale.
Cox, V. (2008). Women’s Writing in Italy, 1400–1650. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Cox, V. (2011). The prodigious Muse. Women’s writing in counter-reformation Italy, Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press.
Cox, V. (2016). Members, Muses, Mascots: Women and Italian Mascots: Academies. In J. E. Everson, D. V. Reidy, & S. Simpson (Eds.), The Italian academies 1525–1700, networks of culture, innovation and dissent. Cambridge and New York: Legenda-Modern Humanities Research Association and Routledge.
de Guevara, A. (1568). Aureo libro di Marco Aurelio con l’Horologio de’ principi di Antonio de Guevara. Venetia: Lorenzini.
De Vivo, F. (2007). Pharmacies as centres of communication in early modern Venice. Renaissance Studies, xxi(4), 505–521.
di Gozze, N. V. (1581). Dialogo dell’Amore detto Anthos and Dialogo della Bellezza detto Anthos. Venetia: Ziletti, 1581 (reprinted with parallel Croatian translation by Natka Badurina, Zagreb, Most/The Bridge, 1995).
di Gozze, N. V. (1584). Discorsi di m. Nicolò Vito di Gozze, gentil’huomo ragugeo, dell’Academia de gli occulti, sopra le metheore d’Aristotele, ridotti in dialogo & diuisi in quattro giornate. Venezia: Francesco Ziletti.
Diodorus Siculus. (1542). Delle antique historie fabulose. Venezia: Giolito de Ferrari.
Dolce, L. (1545). Dialogo dell’institution delle donne. Secondo li tre stati che cadono nella vita humana. Venezia: Giolito de’ Ferrari.
Dolce, l. (1565). Somma di tutta la natural filosofia di Aristotele, Raccolta da M. Lodovico Dolce: nella quale si contengono Della Fisica libri viii, Del Cielo libri III, Della generatione Libri ii, Delle Meteore LibriIIIi, Dell’Anima Libri iii. Venetia: Sessa.
Erculiani C. G. (1584). Lettere di philosophia naturale, di Camilla Herculiana, speciala alle tre stelle in Padoua, indirizzate alla Serenissima Regina di Polonia: nella quale si tratta la natural causa delli Diluvij, il natural temperamento dell’huomo, et la natural formatione dell’Arco celeste. Stamperia di Lazaro, Cracovia.
Erculiani. (2016). In E. Carinci & S. Plastina (Eds.), Corrispondenze Scientifiche tra Cinquecento e Seicento. Lugano: Agorà.
Ernst, G. (2001). Il Rinascimento. Magia e astrologia. In Storia della scienza. Rome: Treccani online.
Fahy, C. (2000). Women and Italian Cinquecento literary academies. In L. Panizza (Ed.), Women in Italian renaissance culture and society (pp. 438–452). European Humanities Research Centre, Oxford: University of Oxford.
Favaro, A. (1894). Amici e corrispondenti di G. Galilei: Margherita Sarrocchi in Amici e corrispondenti di Galilei (Vol. I, pp. 6–31). Firenze: Salimbeni.
Finucci, V. (1994). La scrittura epico-cavalleresca al femminile: Moderata Fonte e i ‘Tredici canti del Floridoro’. Annali d’Italianistica, The Italian Epic and Its International Context, 12. 203–231.
Fonte, M. (1988). Il merito delle donne. In A. Chemello (Ed.). Mirano: Eidos.
Gabrieli, G. (1933). Luca Valerio Linceo e un episodio memorabile della vecchia accademia. In Rendiconti della Real Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Classe scienze morali (pp. 694–727).
Galilei, G. (1890–1909). Le opere. In A. Favaro (Ed.). Firenze: Barbera. Carteggio vol. X Carteggio (1574–1610), Firenze: Barbera, 1900, vol. XI (1611–1613), Firenze: Barbera, 1901.
Gubar, S. (1977). The female monster in Augustan Satire, Signs. Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 3(2), 380–394.
Jones, A. R. (1999). Surprising fame: Renaissance gender ideologies and women’s lyric. In L. Hudson (Ed.). Feminism and renaissance studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lirosi, A. (Ed.). (2009). Le cronache di Santa Cecilia. Un monastero femminile a Roma in età moderna. Roma: Viella.
Lirosi, A. (2012). I monasteri femminili a Roma tra XVI e XVII secolo. Roma: Viella.
Maggi V. (1545). Un brieve trattato dell’Eccellentia delle Donne, Composto dal prestantissimo Philosopho (il Maggio) & di latina lingua, in Italiana tradotto. Vi si è poi aggiunto un’essortatione a gli huomini perché non si lascino superar dalle Donne, mostrandogli il gran danno che lor è per sopravenire. Brescia: Damiano de Turlini.
Manfredi, M. (1575). Componimenti raccolti da diversi per Dame Romane. Bologna: Benucci.
Manfredi, M. (1606). Lettere brevissime. Venezia: Maglietti.
Marinella, L. (1601). La nobiltà et eccellenza delle donne, coi difetti et mancamenti de gli huomini. Venetia: Ciotti.
Marinella, L. (1645). Essortationi alle donne et a gli altri, se a loro saranno a grado. Venezia: Francesco Valvasenso.
Martin, C. (2012). Meteorology for courtiers and ladies: Vernacular aristotelianism in renaissance Italy. Philosophical Reading, 2, 3–14.
Menochio, G. (1609). Consiliorum sive Responsorum D. Iacobi Menochi, Venetia: Martire Locarno.
Ottonelli, G. S. J. (1646). La pericolosa conversatione con le donne, o poco modeste, o ritirate o cantatrici o accademiche, Firenze: Franceschini e Logi.
Ottonelli, G. S. J. (1655). Della christiana moderatione del theatro, vi libri, Firenze: Bonardi.
Patrizi, F. (1963). L’amorosa filosofia, a cura di J. C. Nelson. Firenze: Le Monnier.
Perrone Compagni, V. (2007). Un’ipotesi non impossibile. Pomponazzi sulla generazione spontanea dell’uomo (1518). Bruniana & Campanelliana, XIII(1), 99–111.
Perrone Compagni, V. (2011). La stagione delli frumenti. Due lezioni di Pomponazzi sulla generazione spontanea. Bruniana & Campanelliana, xvii(1), 199–219.
Piccolomini, A. (1551). La prima parte della filosofia naturale. Venezia: Vincenzo Valgrisi.
Piccolomini, A. (1560). L’instrumento della filosofia. Venezia: Francesco Lorenzini.
Piccolomini, A. (1576). Filosofia naturale. Venezia: Zanetti.
Piéjus, M. F., Plaisance, M., & Residori, M., (Eds). (2011). Alessandro Piccolomini (1508–1579). Un siennois à la croisée des genres et des savoirs, Actes du Colloque International (Paris Septembre 2010). Paris: Université Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris 3.
Pepys, S. (1970–1983). The diary of Samuel Pepys, a new and complete transcription. In R. Latham & W. Matthews (Eds.) (Vol. 8, pp. 243–244). London: G. Bell & Sons.
Plastina, S. (2011). Filosofe della modernità. Il pensiero delle donne dal Rinascimento all’Illuminismo. Roma: Carocci.
Plastina, S. (2014). «Considerar la mutatione dei tempi e delli stati e degli uomini» : le Lettere di philosophia naturale di Camilla Erculiani. Bruniana & Campanelliana, 20, 145–158.
Rabitti, G. (2000). La letteratura femminile e l’Europa, Storia della letteratura italiana, diretta da E. Malato, vol. XII, La letteratura italiana fuori d’Italia. Roma: Salerno Editrice.
Ray, M. K. (2015). Daughters of alchemy: Women and scientific culture in early modern Italy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Ray, M. K. (2016). Margherita Sarrocchi’s letters to Galileo. Astronomy, astrology and poetics in seventeenth century Italy. London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Russiliano, T. (1994). Apologeticus adversus cucullatos 1590, In Zambelli P. Una reincarnazione di Pico ai tempi di Pomponazzi. Milano: Il Polifilo.
Sarrocchi, M. (1633). La Scanderbeide poema heroico della sig.ra Margherita Sarrocchi alla principessa D. Giulia da Este. Dal sig. Giouanni Latini dato alla stampa. Roma: Andrea Fei.
Sarrocchi, M. (2006). Scanderbeide. The heroic deeds of George Scanderberg, King of Epirus (Trans. by R. Russell). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Sarrocchi, M. (2016). Lettere a Galilei (1611–1612). In E. Carinci & S. Plastina (Eds.), Corrispondenze Scientifiche tra Cinquecento e Seicento. Lugano: Agorà.
Scott-Baumann, E. (2008). ‘Books as their crown’ politics and gender in the reading strategies of lucy Hutchinson and Margaret Cavendish. Oxford: University of Oxford.
Speroni, S. (1978). Dialogo della dignità della donna (1542). In M. Pozzi (Ed.), Trattatisti del Cinquecento (Vol. I).Milano-Napoli: Ricciardi.
Tasso, T. (1832). Opere, a cura di Rosini. G. Pisa: Capurro.
Tasso, T. (1995). Lettere poetiche, a cura di Molinari. C. Parma: Guanda, Fondazione Pietro Bembo.
Verdile, N. (1989–1990). Contributi alla biografia di Sarrocchi. Rendiconti dell’Accademia di Archeologia Lettere e Belle Arti di Napoli, 62, 165–206.
Zemon Davies, N. (1975). Women on top, in society and culture in early modern France. Stanford and Cambridge: Stanford University Press and Polity Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Plastina, S. (2020). Letters on Natural Philosophy and New Science: Camilla Erculiani (Padua 1584) and Margherita Sarrocchi (Rome 1612). In: Ebbersmeyer, S., Paganini, G. (eds) Women, Philosophy and Science. Women in the History of Philosophy and Sciences, vol 4. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44548-5_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44548-5_4
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-44547-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-44548-5
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)