Clara Stella

RESEARCH INTERESTS

Early modern women writers in Italy
Circulation of texts books
Hagiography, spiritual poetry, hagiographical narratives
Women's contribution to early modern history of knowledge
The nexus between literary production and Christian humanism

Scopus Publications

I ONLY SHOW A LITTLE OF HER" The Life of a Forgotten Domenican Sister， Fantina Gambara (1436-1517)




Margherita Costa's Cecilia Martire (1644): Repentance and renovatio at the Barberini Court




Speaking with Authority: Reading Catherine of Siena in the Times of Vittoria Colonna
Clara Stella
University of Toronto Libraries - UOTL
This article proposes a way of reading Vittoria Colonna’s lyric persona in the light of Catherine of Siena’s religious writings and philosophy of the self. In part 1, I begin by tracing the mystic profile that the participants of Colonna’s reformed circles ascribed to the saint. Those descriptions are then incorporated into a comparison of the schisms that shaped Christianity in Catherine’s times, namely the Avignon Papacy, and those of the Lutheran Reformation. In part 2, Colonna’s sacred charisma(s) is related to Catherine’s penitential and political model, thus identifying her Vita and epistles as a very possible literary source that Colonna could have used in her religious output and self-identification. In part 3, I analyze Colonna’s exegesis of the penitent Magdalene in the light of Catherine’s political reading of the same character. To conclude, I discuss the ways in which we can integrate the Trecento tradition into Colonna’s conception of grace and prophetic message of renovatio.


Il ruolo di Vittoria Colonna nelle Rime Diverse d’alcune Nobilissime et Virtuosissime Donne (1559)
Clara Stella
Informa UK Limited
ABSTRACT The Rime di donne, printed in 1559, is the first Italian verse anthology dedicated entirely to female poets. This article offers a detailed reading of the image and role that Vittoria Colonna plays in the anthology, drawing comparisons with Pietro Bembo’s function in the Libro primo of 1545. It suggests that the Rime di donne’s editorial strategies codify Colonna as the female equivalent to Bembo, presenting her as the exemplary exponent of Petrarchan style for contemporary women poets. The article first examines two sonnets that Marguerite d’Angoulême addressed to Colonna, exploring how those highlight Colonna’s stylistic and spiritual primacy within the anthology. Secondly, it analyses the poems the editor chose to represent Colonna herself. Finally, it shows ways in which the anthology can be regarded as a testimony to the poetic and stylistic legacy of Colonna with respect to the construction of the female poetic persona for the poets anthologised.