IL GIORNO DELLORACOLO (Italian Edition)

Accademia Gali- leiana di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, A list of Ricovrati members shows that Miani may have known quite a few of them, from Tommaso Contarini, to whom is dedicated the collec- tion Polinnia in which her poetry is printed, to Francesco Contarini, the author of La finta Fiammetta, of whom more later, and finally to Ottonello Descalzi, a founding member of the academy and husband of the woman to whom she dedicated her Amorosa speranza.

The Ricovrati admitted some women in the seventeenth century, such as Madeleine de Scudery and the Venetian Elena Cornaro Piscopia, the first woman ever to graduate from a European university. This is a short and incomplete defense against the detractors of his tragedy in which Speroni defended his se- lections. Giambattista Guarini, Il pastor fido Venice: The author read his play in the house of the nobleman Zabarella in Padua around Biography According to the few historians who mention her, Valeria Miani was born, probably in Padua, around the year She is first mentioned for an oration she gave in at age eighteen for the festive pageant- ry that accompanied the visit to Padua of Dowager Empress Maria, widow of Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian II von Habsburg and daughter of Charles V, who was passing through the city on her way to Portugal, where her son, Rudolf II, was to take the crown.

Teatro e musica nelle Venezie dal Cinquecento al Settecento, ed. Minelliana, , — The Making of a New Genre Lon- don: For the specific case of Padua, see Marco Callegari, Dal torchio del tipografo al banco del libraio. Cesare, , Sberti does not mention Miani. We know of another seventeen-year-old poet, for example, Issicratea Monte, who delivered a moral speech on the same occasion as Miani and later published it.

As he wrote in his Cronichetta, They [the Miani], I believe, were once administering the property or living in the house of the noble Vene- tian family of Miani, although now they live by their means and also rent out to students. One of them is Monte also read another oration three years earlier, when she was fourteen, in front of the doge, Sebastiano Venier. See Seconda oratione di Mad.

La luna dell'oracolo

Guerra, , soon to be available in a modern edition by Courtney Quaintance. A gen- eration earlier, in , another woman writer, Cassandra Fedele, was asked to deliver an oration in honor of the queen of Poland, Bona Sforza, who was passing through Venice on her way to Abano to address health issues.

Storia Veneta, at There is also a son, a priest and doctor of philosophy, and a daughter named Isabella, a very learned woman. She will compose more if God grants her life. But all other information given by Padoano corroborates what we know about Miani from a variety of sources. Harper and Brothers, , In this educated environment, it would not be out of the ordinary for a family to have a son with a degree and a daughter composing literary work. I thank Katie Rees for this reference.

There were perhaps other children in the family, beyond Valeria and her brother. Katie Rees has also found a daughter, Cornelia, who in May 6, , filed a tax return a short one in which she appears far from rich. In ASP, Estimi year , vol. Giuseppe Vedova, Biografia degli scrittori padovani, 2 vols. Coi Tipi della Min- erva, , 1: Giovanni Luigi Miani edited a collection of poems, Poesie varie di gravis- simi autori raccolte dal Sig.

Martini, , which includes poems of a number of friends of Valeria. Giovanni Alvise Miani published La prigione Padua, n. I have been unable to establish a clear relationship between either Alvise or Luigi Miani and the writer Valeria. The marriageable age for women of similar background in the Veneto area at the time was around sixteen to eighteen.

Other women writers also married late: Fonte was twenty- eight and Marinella thirty-five. Matri- monii, —, ad vocem. A Gasparo Negro, who may or may not be the same person, is in fact men- tioned as having matriculated in law in Padua in Tozzi, , Bk. Marin Negro, La Pace. Commedia non meno piacevole che ridicolosa ; Venice: The family name Negri appears in the Consiglio Nobile in Padua.

See Giovanni Battista Di Crollalanza, Dizionario storico-blasonico delle famiglie nobili e no- tabili italiane estinte e fiorenti, 3 vols. Forni, , ad vocem. A Domenico Negri performed as an actor in the Compagnia degli Uniti under the stage name of Curzio in places like Mantua and Milan, and was active between the years and Le Lettere, , ASP, Archivio Notarile, , fol. See Giovanni Saggioli, Padova nella storia delle sue strade Padua: Piazzon, , — Menego Negro e consorte di s. I thank Katie Lees for alerting me to this document.

We know this from her death certificate on August 31, As we read in a document of February 12, , if Masimila chose to marry in due time, Valeria was to provide for some of her dowry; if she chose to become a nun instead, her father alone, the nobleman Giulio Noale, would have been in charge of the smaller dowry traditionally paid be- fore entering a convent. Miani may either have had a house in Carpi or may have been a guest of I thank Mar- co Callegari for help in locating this document.

Isabella may not have married Giulio, for he is not mentioned in her death certificate as her husband. Entertainment connected to reading aloud, recitations, singing, performances, or a wedding banquet the case of Amorosa speranza was an anticipated feature of the weeks the nobil- ity spent leisurely in villa.

The famous eighteenth-century Venetian writer Carlo Goldoni, for example, was for many summers a guest of the aristocracy in countryside villas around Padua and had his com- edies performed there in makeshift halls and gardens. The practice of musical and dramatic entertainment in country houses especially with pastorals, which were often acted by the nobility itself , was so widespread both inside and outside Italy as to become almost a central feature of summertime.

Ag- nelli, —52 , 1: The letter has not surfaced. Carpi Veneziana sits between the south- ern border of the province of Padua and the northern one of Rovigo now it is part of the province of Verona. A Survey of Early Modern Drama Penned by Women It would be an understatement to say that the panorama of the Ital- ian stage toward the end of the sixteenth century was complicated, for not only was there an unprecedented flourishing of hybrid genres, but there was also confusion about how to name them and what the difference in naming really meant.

Canonical tragedies and comedies in five acts were often supplanted by an array of new forms, some of which soon disappeared.

Tragicomedies that is, tragedies with a happy ending , rustic plays, eclogues, tragic and heroic operas, satyric drama, musical comedies, pastoral drama, mythological and maritime fables, sacred representations, and moral plays constitute just some of the ephemeral terms referring to this crowd of performances. In this panorama, two genres proved par- ticularly difficult for women writers to produce, comedy and tragedy, while the pastoral was much less problematic for them to craft.

This proved challenging for women writers, for their output, whatever the content, was inevitably read autobiographically. Moreover, the preference at the time for staging in the open air, often in well traveled piazzas, spelled problems for formance, —, ed.

Cerasano and Marion Wynne-Davies London: Routledge, , 60— University of Chicago Press, , 2: Marescotti, a pasto- ral fable, and his Euridice Florence: Giunti, a tragedy. Now we call them both operas and wonder whether there is a real difference in genre between the two. Giunta, , the young woman Clizia never even appears on stage.

Studi e testi a stampa, ed. Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, , — Panizza, —33; Richard Andrews, Scripts and Scenarios: Ariosto and Tasso, ed. Duke University Press, , —69, at — The Marganorre episode is in Ludovico Ariosto, Orlando furioso, trans. Guido Waldman ; Oxford: Oxford Univer- sity Press, , canto I am paraphrasing from the poem: La profes- sione del teatro, ed. Ferruccio Marotti and Giovanna Romei Rome: Bulzoni, , 31— La fascinazione del teatro, ed.

Bulzoni, , — Ferdinando Taviani and Mirella Schino Florence: Usher, , Ronald McKerrow ; Oxford: Blackwell, , La professione del teatro, ed. Marotti and Romei, But this comedy has not surfaced. Spiritual Fun and Learning for Women Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Moderata Fonte, La passione di Cristo descritta in ottava rima Venice: She also wrote a now lost pastoral, Fillide. Nemi, , — Margherita Costa, Li Buffoni: Massi e Landi, Siro Ferrone, 2 vols. Mur- sia, , — There are, however, still doubts about the real author of this play.

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Margherita Costa, Gli amori della luna Venice: Orsetta Pellegrini, Il serraglio aperto, ovvero le malattie politiche del gran Sultano Ven- ice: Dalla Controriforma alla fine della Repubblica. Girolamo Arnaldi and Manlio Pastore Stocchi, 6 vols. An author named Angelita Scaramuccia, who published the comedies La stratonica , Gli amori concordi , La schiava di Cipro , and La Rosalba , is actually not a woman but a man with a Spanish-style first name. Leopoldo Ferri included in his collection a set of later works by the countess Maria Isabella Dosi-Grati, who wrote seven comical works in Bolognese dialect under the pseudonym of Dorigista, such as Le fortune non conosciute del dottore.

Sarti, ; Il padre accorto della figlia prudente. Sarti, ; and La Fortunata Bologna: Crescini, , — There were exceptions, of course. Vincenza Armani, for example, acted the role of Trag- edy herself in Mantua in , to great applause, as her biographer Valerini lovingly re- called: Arnaldi and Pastore Stocchi, n Traveling in Italy in , Charles de Montesquieu noticed that male stu- dents dressed as women performed on the Roman stage, but that tragedies in Jesuit theaters used women rather than men to play female parts—not for the sake of verisimilitude, as we might infer, but as a response to moralistic concerns.

See Viaggio in Italia, ed. Giovanni Macchia and Massimo Colesanti Bari: Laterza, , With their rustic apparatus and scenery, and with costumes more elegant than pretentious, pastorals are most pleasing to the eye; and with their soft verse and delicate sentiments, most beautiful to the ears and the Luisa Bergalli, Teba, tragedia Venice: Bergalli also published musical dramas, such as Agide, re di Sparta.

Dramma per musica Venice: Interest in tragedies was lively then and some women writers translated French tragedies, such as Bergalli and Manzoni Giusti as well as Elisabetta Caminer Turra, who directed on Venetian stages the plays she translated. Rossi, ; Maria Fortuna, Saffo. The information was compiled following the list of Ferri in Biblio- teca femminile italiana, and it is by no means complete for the eighteenth century.

Giancarlo Garfagnini et al. Olschki, —83 , 2: In permitting onstage young maidens and honest women who are forbidden from comedy, they give a voice to the noblest of affections, not to be dis- dained by tragedy itself. Isa- bella Andreini, as mentioned above, published La Mirtilla in ;57 and Maddalena Campiglia joined her the same year with Flori, favola boschereccia. A later writer is Isabella Coreglia, perhaps a singer native of Lucca, who produced La Dori, favola pescatoria , and Erindo il fido, favola pastorale Angelo Ingegneri, Della poesia rappresentativa e del modo di rappresentare le favole sce- niche, ed.

Maria Luisa Doglio Modena: Panini, , 7. Maria Luisa Doglio Lucca: Pacini Fazzi, ; and La Mirtilla: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, For a modern edition, see Flori: A Pastoral Drama, ed. Virginia Cox and Lisa Sampson, trans. University of Chi- cago Press, Isabella Coreglia, La Dori. Montanaro, ; and Erindo il fido, favola pastorale Pistoia: Letizia Panizza and Sharon Wood Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, , 52—64, at See also Bibliografia universale del teatro drammatico italiano con particolare riguardo alla storia della musica italiana, ed.

Giovanni Salvioli and Carlo Salvioli Venice: Livi- ana, , — Issandro eventually saves the nymph Tirenia from a sadistic satyr and falls in love with her, while Alliseo, who dejectedly tries to commit suicide, is convinced to marry a friend of Venenia, Fulgentia. Brian Rich- ardson et al. Society for Italian Studies, , 99— Sampson thinks that Torelli may have had her Partenia recited in front of members of the Accademia degli Innominati in Parma.

La famiglia Bonifazio; racconto by Antonio Caccianiga

Critical interest in Amorosa speranza is just beginning, with two recent good articles: Letteratura e ideologia nel Rinas- cimento. Scritti in onore di Michel Plaisance, ed. Giuditta Isotti Rosowsky et al. Cesari Editore, , — Torquato Tasso, Aminta, ed. Luigi Fasso, 3rd ed. In jest, she trims his beard and cuts one of his horns; thus by figuratively castrating him, she ef- fectively reverses the traditional active and passive cultural roles of male and female.

Unlike Tasso, who showed a penchant for portraying damsels in distress vic- timized by male predators, Miani emphasizes the subversive qualities and ingenuity of her nymphs, giving them more agency even at the cost of making their characterizations dull by limiting drastically their love interests. Venenia, as will also be the case with princess Celinda, is a good exam- ple of faith and female constancy: To me this reference rings more like the Petrarchan rhetorical figure of captatio benevolentiae, an attempt to seek sympathy from a potential supporter.

As Bolzetta wrote to the dedicatee of Amorosa speranza, the noblewoman Marietta Uberti Descalzi, on April 4, , in a lengthy and revealing foreword, some men will never give a fair reading to a book published by a woman. Examples of this behavior on the part of women men also are often faithful in the hands of women writers appear throughout the literature written by women.

A Chivalric Romance, ed. Yale University Press, , 67—89 and — Girolamo Arnaldi and Gianfranco Folena, 6 vols. Pozza, — , 4: In this they clearly show how unaware they are that in all past ages there have always been a number of women who have advanced by becoming commendably learned in all possible ways to contend for a position of first place among the most famous men of their time. I would invite you, but perhaps it is better To go back to Padua And in fact, I advise you to do so With that same boat That has brought you here.

And regarding our wedding Do not think that you Will have much more Than the thousand thanks Amorosa speranza, dedicatory letter, n. Ribera wrote his comments in He makes no reference to Celinda, which he may not have known about, since it came out two years after he published his book. The prologue also makes reference to a live public audience in the address by Speranza: Susan Zimmerman and Ronald Weissman London: Associated University Presses, , — Cambridge University Press, , On the villa lifestyle, see Anton Francesco Doni, Le ville, ed.

Ugo Bellocchi ; Modena: Silvana, , 22— Il Saggiatore, , Sansoni, , — The Venetian polygraph Ludovico Dolce was instrumental, for example, in introduc- ing a number of tragedies to the reading public, such as Thyeste , Didone , La Hecuba , La Medea , Progne , Marianna , Ifigenia , and Le troiane Cambridge University Press, , 11— He also commented on what to do with the Aristotelian unities, suggested ways for the author to deal with messengers and soliloquies, and sketched how to delineate tragic characters with their accompa- nying tragic flaws. Tragedies, even when Giambattista Giraldi Cinzio, Discorso intorno al comporre delle commedie e delle tragedie, in Scritti critici, ed.

Camillo Guerrieri-Crocetti ; Milan: Marzorati, , — Giraldi Cinzio claimed that he was not the first to argue for the value of tragedies with a happy ending and provided a list of classic Euripidean tragedies which adopted that format, such as Ion, Helen, Orestes, and Iphigenia. Aristotle too had claimed that audiences much preferred happy endings.

Maristella de Panizza Lorch Milan: Herrick, Italian Tragedy in the Renaissance Urbana: University of Illinois Press, For a general history of the tragic stage in the period, see Ferdinando Neri, La tragedia italiana del Cinquecento Florence: Vallardi, , —35; Marco Ariani, Tra classicismo e manierismo: Il teatro tragico del Cinquecento Florence: Cultural Realities and Theatrical Innovations London: Associated University Presses, Arnaldi and Pastore Stocchi.

The public wanted entertainment rather than suffer- ing, and for that purpose patrons preferred pastorals. For the previous fifty years, he surmised. Indeed, the majority of tragedies performed or printed at the time have female names on the title page, from Cleopatra to Ingegneri, Della poesia rappresentativa, 7. See Storia documentaria del teatro italiano, ed. Feltrinelli, , See La tragedia, — Still they could show that if rebellion to the submissive roles women were given in culture always involved a social cost, courage and steadfastness in the face of adversity made them worthy not just of pity but of admiration.

In a sense, tragedy could put women at the center of debates about their place in society, for the upper class world that populated the tragic stage prized nobility of the soul in women at the same time that it asked for their submission to patriarchy and male prerogatives.

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By delineating an array of female personalities, women dramatists could also show that there was more to women than the deception and meanness that accompanied the storylines of the popu- lar Medea and Semiramis being currently staged by male writers. To say the least, they could problematize a theatrical discourse by not offering a sacrificial female victim or by advantageously nuancing the dichotomous rendering of women as virgin or whore, angel or villain that informed the dramatic imagination as well as the literary canon of the time.

Modelli femminili nella tragedia italiana del Cinquecento Milan: Giraldi Cinzio, Discorso intorno al comporre delle commedie e delle tragedie, — Finally, the fact that tragedy was traditionally writ- ten in verse was a plus for Italian women writers, who preferred po- etry by far to prose, perhaps because they needed to demonstrate their literacy at a time when they lacked formal schooling. One night while they share the same bed, Celinda declares her feelings. But she is astonished to discover, upon a detailed physical examination, that Lucinia is a man, Autilio.

He confesses his love and utmost devotion to her straight away, still seemingly shy, and not much later Celinda discovers herself to be pregnant. At the start of the play, she is four months along in her pregnancy and has just received the news that her father is going to marry her to a Scottish prince. But something else is even more pressing: Cubo denies that Cagnacini, , where the two daughters of King Loteringo are persuaded to marry two Irish commoners. He is thus allowed to go to battle with manly armor and sword. She has been urged to remain alive both by her dying Autilio, who reminds her that she is carrying his heir and for this very reason should be strong, and by Fulco, who wishes to make amends for the horrific destruction that he has brought upon Celinda and his own son.

But Celinda commits suicide nevertheless, for the child she is carrying is a bastard. Following Boccaccio, Miani adopts the motif of a double burial, which Luigi Groto had revived in his tragedy La Hadriana, and which Shakespeare, too, poignantly uses in Romeo and Juliet. Many early modern tragedies were sent straight to press, given the prohibitive cost of staging them and paying for professional actors. Like Celinda, Hadriana confides to the nurse that she has fallen in love and also has spent the night with Latino, an enemy prince.

And again, as in Celinda, Adriana has to deal with the fact that her father has just chosen somebody else for her to marry. When Latino kills her brother unknowingly and Hadriana refuses to marry the man chosen for her, we know that a calamitous end is in the picture. The two die by poison, as in Romeo and Juliet. There were eight printings of this tragedy in the fifty years after its first edition in to attest to its popularity.

Giraldi Cinzio had even argued that most tragedies were better suited for printing than for performance, and that only hybrid tragedies with happy endings should be reserved for the stage. How successful they were is debatable, al- though Giovanni Domenico Ottonelli, himself a Jesuit, flatly declared that no plays were publicly staged in Venice between the s and Ottonelli, Della christiana moderatione del teatro. This does not mean that it did not oc- casionally happen. Clearly no one had asked the Ten for permission for these performances; Venetians knew that any such request would be turned down.

We know that in , for example, university students asked that a pastoral by Cesare Cremonini, a professor of philosophy, be performed and that their request was approved with seventeen votes in favor and four opposed.

Draghi, , See also Sberti, Degli spettacoli e delle feste che si facevano in Padova, Arnaldi and Pastore Stocchi, — Padova, Rovigo e il loro territorio, 5 vols. Corbo e Fiore, , 3: Just like Amorosa speranza, Ce- linda too, in fact, may have been performed, or at least so claims the painter and intellectual Cavalier Vanni in a cryptic sonnet addressed to Miani that is now printed in the prefatory section of Celinda.

The Jesuits successfully argued for their closure. Convents were also used but we still know little about what took place there. Immagini e storie di donne, ed. Il Poli- grafo, , 64—69, at Other plays with characters similarly named or with com- parable plots were published in those years, testifying in a sense to how much artists competed with each other for a successful script or nonchalantly cannibalized previous successful productions.

Here Celindo is a prince. In due time, Clorindo secretly marries Math- ilda, but then he has to leave the court to fight for his own father in Sicily. The suitor declares war and conquers her city while she poisons herself. See Salvioli and Salvioli, Bibliografia universale del teatro drammatico italiano, vol. Righettini, is dedicated to Francesco Gonzaga, son of Eleonora Gonzaga. Marco Petrocini, La costante Celinda Siena: But he chooses to die. Here the son of the king of Arme- nia, Sinibaldo, having fallen in love with Rodopeia, the only daugh- ter of the king of Thrace, comes to see her, disguised as a gardener.

We can look at the entire tragic output of the Serenissima to see how widespread was the motif of incest, patricidal killing, bloodshed, and vengeance on stage. Happily, for reasons of decorum, bloody events had to be described on the Italian stage rather than explicitly wit- nessed. Giacomo Guidoccio, La Mathilda Treviso: For more on the plot, see Bertana, La tragedia, 96— Leonoro Verlato, La Rodopeia Venice: For more on Verlato, see Bertana, La tragedia, 92— Giambattista Giraldi Cinzio, Orbecche Venice: Lorenzini da Turino, As a result, Irene commits suicide.

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The queen commits suicide and all the other women at court know that they will be raped. He has also been skinned. As in all early modern tragedies, in Celinda we have loyal sol- diers, noble-hearted counselors, messengers with critical news, and compassionate servants, as well as a sympathetic chorus in fact, three separate choruses to accentuate the Aristotelian element of catharsis. Central to the plot is also a good, resilient nurse, who provides here and there important historical background and consoles the beloveds. Vincenzo Giusti, Irene Venice: Angelo Ingegneri, Tomiri Naples: Luigi Groto, La Dalida Venice: Antonio Decio da Horte, Acripanda Venice: Francesco Mondella, Isifile Verona: Guido Waldman New York: Oxford University Press, , 4.

Within this tragic environment, elements from popular epic romances also abound. I am referring, rather, to the motifs of cross-dressing and gender-bending, which after all would better fit comedies. Muzio Manfredi, La Semiramis Bergamo: The locales have not been chosen at random, for Miani shows herself highly knowl- edgeable of the myth, folklore, and historical facts connected to Lydia and Persia. For specific references, see the notes accompanying Celinda. The amorous action, indeed, starts when Celinda falls in love with Autilio and literally checks him out physically.

At this point only he declares the love that motivated his disguise in the first place, thus creating a brief lesbian moment that Miani conveys in the erotic tones typical of the tragedies of the time: And so, there I went, where the feigned Lucinia on soft cushions remained infirm and languishing.

And from my rich attire having disrobed, nude, I settled by her side. And touching and kissing again now her white face, now her beautiful neck, I made of these arms around her a chain. But so much did I do and so much did I say in the end that she pushed my right hand over her white chest, and then I realized it was not, like mine, adorned with breasts. Giraldi Cinzio had argued that tragic characters should be delineated so as to be partly good and partly evil, in order to engen- der compassion in the audience when something terrible happens to them.

Given their tragic flaw, these half-good, half-bad characters de- serve some sort of penalty for Giraldi Cinzio, but not a horrible one; thus, as justice is reestablished, the audience can feel both compassion and horror—the two elements that make tragedies powerful. Horror, moreover, is more commanding if the victim is ignorant of the sin that he or she has committed, for the spectators are thus likely to iden- tify so much with the hideous and yet pitiful character on stage that they look for a change of fortune, from unhappy to happy.

Following these dramaturgical conventions, in Celinda King Cubo is not delineated as overly villainous, excessive, or monstrous, but simply as being self-possessed, autocratic, and, in the end, stupid. La Calisa di Maddalena Campiglia, ed. Congedo, , 71— He is too much of a fool for the spectators to care much about him. He presents himself in Act 1. Omphale fell in love with him, the two married and had a child, Lamos. More damningly, he wants to kill his father, who has no ethical reasons to be punished either as a father or as a king, for the war he wages against Lydia is for the purpose of getting back his own runaway son and heir.

On the battlefield Autilio slaughters or conquers his own friends and loses along the way much of the moral standing that he may have gained with the spectators. More damningly, he is cast as being not good enough: Celinda herself laments her precipitous social descent after having made love to Autilio: In the literature of the period, some authors were arguing that there should be a difference in the way royal female characters are treated; unlike women of the citizenry, it was argued, fictional royal women were supposed to be heroic and so not necessarily chaste and mod- est.

Given the imitative nature of plot elements in contemporary plays, it was inevitable for Miani to model at least in part her conflicted Celinda after the royal princesses that the stage was offering. Although torn and anguished at the thought of the effects that her pri- vate choices may have on things political, Celinda is characterized as pursuing her dream of heroic love in a self-centered way and with no regrets.

Love is her engulfing tyrant: But it is also a natural one, she claims, because her beloved deserves her, as in this scene in which Traiano Boccalini, Ragguagli di Parnaso e Pietra del paragone politico, ed. Giuseppe Rua, 2 vols. Laterza, —12 , 1. She is my lover, and the fortunate king. Nurse You deride and mock me. Eh, daughter, these are of little faith all truthful signs. Celinda Under a lying skirt and under the false name of Lucinia hides Autilio, the prince of Persia, my welcome consort and dear lover.

Even if her union does not disturb social classes Autilio is her equal in rank nor, once the disguise is shed, gender boundaries, it is still anathema to the Law of the Father, for she is unmistakably a polluted daugh- ter. Strong, talkative, and never repentant like Antigone, Celinda refuses to live a life whose dreams are compromised, and so falls into suicidal depression and welcomes the coming catastrophe.

In choos- ing to make Celinda heroically defiant, Miani cannot also make her morally virtuous, and therefore, as in Senecan tragedies, Celinda is made to pay the final price, whose inevitability she herself acknowl- edges: The resolution is pathetic, as the tears of the commod- ified and victimized daughter are directed to the public, and her piti- able lament works as a figurative cleansing of the emotions.

The heroic grief of classic tragedy has become the love anguish of the early modern stage as individuals sacrifice themselves left and right on the altar of love. The cathartic encouragement of pity and fear among the spectators of the classical theater is thus substituted by the therapeutic value of the lament that explains the passion of love both in terms of its aesthetic value as in courtly love and Petrarchist poetry and in terms of a destructive and yet fated individual choice. In plead- ing with the audience for an understanding of her suffering, Celinda showcases a novel idea about tragic pleasure.

Who ever saw anyone but you weep over the thing he sought for? That this eventu- ally resulted in boring female characters is only part of the story. For a woman writer like Miani, such a choice would have meant certain disempowerment of her female protagonist, for the valiant patience and utter submission of Griselda can hardly be qualities realistical- ly adoptable by women.

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Better to have the distressed and bereaved Celinda fully realize the hopelessness of her situation and die tragi- cally, dominating the stage with her grief. Her castigation for having wreaked havoc becomes thus a self-silencing; her surreptitious plung- ing of a just-found knife into her chest a gesture that is recounted by the valet Corimbo to keep decorum on stage works as a cautionary tale: Aug 01, Drusie's Biblio rated it really liked it.

Riesco, finalmente, a parlarvi di questo italianissimo urban fantasy che ritengo abbia poco da invidiare ai suoi consimili oltre confine. Trovo che la differenzi da tante altre ragazze degli urban fantasy che accettano la magia e l'impossibile come se niente fosse o comunque in cui basta davvero poco per convincerle. E' proprio questa ricerca che la porta a voler parlare con persone simili e a scoprire altre persone che possono varcare i confini di questa dimensione fino ad arrivare ad un piano 'superiore'.

Questi incontri permetteranno sia a lei che agli altri, dei confronti, anche duri, su cosa sia la maledizione, e come affrontarla. Ho trovato molto interessante soprattutto lo scambio che ha con padre Benjamin che spiega tutto con la fede e con Dio. Ottimo anche l'uso della 'paura' che la Barbieri fa avere a Francesco. Su cosa faccio le pulci? Ondine si occupa di un po' tutti i nemici, uno dopo l'altro, senza che sia chiaro cosa fanno i suoi compagni nel frattempo. Dalle note finali si apprende inoltre, che tutti gli eventi paranormali o inspiegabili citati nel libro sono riconducibili a cose effettivamente accadute nel mondo reale.

Questa accuratezza e attinenza mi sono piaciute molto. Ho apprezzato questo lato del ragazzo, il non volerne fare un super eroe a tutti i costi. Padre Benjamin mi ha suscitato lo stesso dispetto che suscita in Ondine. Su Lysandra invece, non ho molto da dire, arriva quasi al termine e rimane molto misteriosa, pur se affascinante. Ho apprezzato la ricercatezza dei termini, delle tecniche, dei misteri e delle spiegazioni che vengono via via fornite, cose che rendono il libro chiaro per qualsiasi lettore e alla portata di tutti. I suoi personaggi sono molto ben caratterizzati e questo me li ha resi simpatici e, soprattutto, facili da ricordare detesto i romanzi dove si finisce per confondere i 'partecipanti'.

L'ironia e lo scetticismo inoltre, hanno contribuito a rendere la lettura leggera e divertente. Oct 18, Anncleire rated it really liked it Shelves: Recensione anche sul mio blog: Ho ricevuto un eARC di questo libro direttamente da Valentina Barbieri in cambio della mia onesta opinione. E questo non me lo sarei mai aspettata. Fin da bambina ha lottato per non farsi rinchiudere e ha sempre cercato di trovare un equilibrio nella sua vita.

Ma ovviamente abbiamo anche il lui della situazione, un lui che non ci saremmo mai immaginati e che inizialmente sembra solo una comparsa di poco conto, ma, che in breve, diventa un punto di riferimento importante. Dal ritmo serrato e pieno di azione, questo libro non delude e anzi offre molti spunti di riflessione per chi mantiene la mente aperta e non si lascia intimorire.

Il particolare da non dimenticare? Jun 08, Violet Nightfall rated it really liked it. Buon pomeriggio a tutti cari lettori, eccomi qui a presentarvi l'ennesima recensione. E' in grado di catalizzare le forze del mondo sovrannaturale, di attraversare le barriere, plasmare le dimensioni a suo piacimento ovviamente con un po' di allenamento e intercettare le anime lei li chiama Inconsci suddivisi in vari sottogruppi come i penetranti, gli amanti, etc che ivi camminano.

Dopo questo talk-show Ondine viene contattata da una donna Emiliana che crede di poter parlare col figlio defunto tramite la tecnica della Metafonia l'incisione di voci che non posseggono alcun timbro vocale, su nastri preregistrati o vergini. Lei e il suo migliore amico Francesco iniziano il loro viaggio, si rendono conto che l'inconscio che tentava di contattare la donna non era suo figlio ma la proiezione di un bambino defunto molti anni prima..

Ma ci sono alcuni punti dolenti, e non mi riferisco ai piccoli e banali errori in cui ci si imbatte verso la fine del romanzo, no.. Non si perde d'animo e lotta sempre per quello in cui crede, forse anche per questo la possessione non era molto in linea col personaggio, anche se mi sarebbe piaciuto osservare la lotta interiore della nostra protagonista durante un simile momento!

Ottimo esordio, anche se consiglierei all'autrice di limitare la descrizione dei combattimenti accorciandone i tempi, almeno in alcuni frangenti la lotta finale ha messo in ginocchio anche me! Brava, un libro da leggere e un'autrice da tenere d'occhio, sicuramente fuori dalle righe per fortuna. Apr 01, Giovanna rated it really liked it.

A quest'elenco oggi si aggiunge anche Valentina Barbieri, il cui libro rientra tra quelli che mi hanno piacevolmente stupita. Sono le anime di coloro i quali sono morti e che non riescono a staccarsi dalla nostra dimensione. Quando si lascia convincere dall'amico Francesco a partecipare ad una trasmissione televisiva che tratta casi come il suo, la ragazza si ritrova nella fossa dei leoni: Inutile dire che esce sconfitta dallo scontro televisivo.

Tutte le diverse teorie elaborate dall'autrice in questo libro sono senza alcun dubbio interessanti ed originali, quasi quasi potrei crederci! Da parte sua una maggiore apertura mentale l'avrei gradita. Non ho problemi con le autrice italiane, ma ultimamente sono stata delusa, e cerco di andare con i piedi di piombo. Mi faccio sempre prendere da trama e cover, e rimango delusa. Ultimamente invece mi soffermo sui pareri, e ho trovato libri davvero meravigliosi come Albion, L'innocenza del peccato ecc.

Durante la sua crescita impara a convivere con questa maledizione e elabora una teoria che secondo lei spiega quanto le accade. Cercando una spiegazione razionale e scientifica, Ondine, insieme al migliore amico Francesco, indaga su eventi paranormali. Tutti ragazzi che da piccoli soffrivano di questa malattia. Lotte in un'altra dimensione, custodi, un ordine dei guardiani dei portali. E' un susseguirsi di colpi scena, che tengono il lettore attaccato alle pagine.

E' presente una storia d'amore, ma non ruba la scena al corso della storia. Non vedo l'ora di scoprire qualcos'altro su questa lotta, su questi fantasmi. Spero di non dover aspettare molto tempo. May 06, Francy rated it really liked it. In questa dimensione, l' Altra Parte come viene chiamata dai protagonisti, Ondine osserva e percepisce il dolore e per quanto riguarda i Penetranti, la rabbia e il male che essi emanano.

Gli Inconsci sono in cerca Da http: A partire dalla sua famiglia e dalla nascita del suo potere. Le atmosfere sono tipicamente e studiosamente oscure, tanto che qualche scena un po di brividi li mette. Durante la lettura del romanzo si denota la ricercatezza da parte dell' autrice nella scelta di alcuni particolari davvero interessanti e reali. May 28, Gilly rated it really liked it Shelves: Quattro stelline e mezzo!!!!

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