Giovanni Mario Filelfo's eulogy for Isotta Nogarola

Maria Vardalà

doi:10.5817/ERB2025-2-4

Giovanni Mario Filelfo's eulogy for Isotta Nogarola

Vol.46,No.2(2025)

Maria Vardalà

https://doi.org/10.5817/ERB2025-2-4

Stable URL (handle):
http://hdl.handle.net/11222.digilib/digilib.83306

PDF (Italian)

Abstract

Two years after she passed away in 1466, Isotta Nogarola was praised in a long eulogy by the famous humanist Giovanni Mario Filelfo (1426–1480). Filelfo, who was at the time in Verona, dedicated to Isotta's brother Ludovico Nogarola a eulogy related to her life, portraying her as a poet and as a marvellous woman who refused to be married and embraced the humanist studies. The article explores the eulogy's content and the significance of its words by proposing a translation of the Latin text and by adding a commentary to certain lyrics of it. Filelfo managed to describe Isotta's life and advancement in the literary world in a vivid way, drawing inspiration on her private correspondence and the fame that was following her name. Filelfo's dedicatory work consists of a poem written in hexameters and of two sonnets written in the Italian of the time where he also praises Isotta's virtues.

Keywords:
Giovanni Mario Filelfo; Isotta Nogarola; eulogy

Pages:
40–50

References

Abel, E. (Ed.) (1886). Isotæ Nogarolæ veronensis opera quæ supersunt omnia, accedunt Angelæ et Zenevræ Nogarolæ epistolæ et carmina (vol. 2). Vienna: Gerold e soci, Budapest: Fridericum Kilian.

Boccaccio, G. (1596). Delle donne illustri (M. G. Betussi, Trans.). Firenze: Filippo Giunti. (Original work published 1375).

Farnetti, M. (2022). Sorelle: Storia letteraria di una relazione. Roma: Carocci editore.

Feng, A. (2017). In Laura's shadow: Gendered Dialogues and Humanist Petrarchism in the Fifteenth Century. In A. A. Feng, Writing Beloveds: Humanist Petrarchism and the Politics of Gender (pp. 68–105). Toronto: University of Toronto Press. | DOI 10.3138/9781487511791-005

King, M. L. (1976). Thwarted Ambitions: Six learned women of the Italian Renaissance. Soundings: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 59(3), 280–304.

King, M. L. (1980) Book-lined cells: women and humanism in the early Italian Renaissance. In P. H. Labalme (Ed.), Beyond Their Sex: Learned Women of the European Past (pp. 66–90). New York: New York University Press.

King, M. L. & Rabil A. Jr. (1992). Her Immaculate Hand: Selected Works by and about the Women Humanists of Quattrocento Italy. New York: Centre for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies.

King, M. L. & Robin, D. (Ed. Trans.) (2004). Nogarola, Isotta. Complete Writings: Letterbook, Dialogue on Adam and Eve, Orations. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press. | DOI 10.7208/chicago/9780226590097.001.0001

McClure, G. W. (1991). Sorrow and Consolation in Italian Humanism. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Segarizzi, A. (1904). Niccolò Barbo patrizio veneziano del secolo XV e le accuse contro Isotta Nogarola. Giornale storico della letteratura italiana, XLIII, 39–54.

Metrics