Ita Mac Carthy | The University of Durham England (original) (raw)

Books and their chapters by Ita Mac Carthy

The Grace of the Italian Renaissance, 2020

‘Grace’ emerges as a keyword in the culture and society of sixteenth-century Italy. This book exp... more ‘Grace’ emerges as a keyword in the culture and society of sixteenth-century Italy. This book explores how it conveys and connects the most pressing ethical, social and aesthetic concerns of an age concerned with the reactivation of ancient ideas in a changing world. The book reassesses artists such as Francesco del Cossa, Raphael, and Michelangelo and explores anew writers like Castiglione, Ariosto, Tullia d'Aragona, and Vittoria Colonna. It shows how these artists and writers put grace at the heart of their work. The book argues that grace came to be as contested as it was prized across a range of Renaissance Italian contexts. It characterised emerging styles in literature and the visual arts, shaped ideas about how best to behave at court and sparked controversy about social harmony and human salvation. For all these reasons, grace abounded in the Italian Renaissance, yet it remained hard to define. The book explores what grace meant to theologians, artists, writers, and philosophers, showing how it influenced their thinking about themselves, each other and the world. It portrays grace not as a stable formula of expression but as a web of interventions in culture and society.

The Grace of the Italian Renaissance, 2020

This introductory chapter analyses the April fresco depicting the three Graces of classical tradi... more This introductory chapter analyses the April fresco depicting the three Graces of classical tradition in the Salone dei mesi (Room of the months) of Ferrara's Palazzo Schifanoia. The Allegory of April transforms the abstract qualities of grace into an eloquent verbal language that is read from top to bottom by following the line of their spiritual passage from the heavens to deserving mortals below. Close allies of beauty and faithful escorts to Love, these qualities inspire the arts of love, poetry, and music. Through the sign of Taurus, they infuse the powers of liberality into the hearts of the elect. An ideal rather than a realistic portrait of universal grace and sociability, though, the fresco also conveys the real-world dearth of its qualities. For although the fresco's painter, Francesco del Cossa, paints grace with grace, he fails to receive grace in return. He shares in a problem that fifteenth-century poets, artists, male courtiers, and court ladies knew well: the...

The Grace of the Italian Renaissance, 2020

This chapter discusses ‘grace’ in the context of the Italian Renaissance. During this time, the t... more This chapter discusses ‘grace’ in the context of the Italian Renaissance. During this time, the term became a mark of distinction in the questione della lingua and in the new language of literature. It was reenergised by the recovery of ancient texts that extolled its virtues as an instrument of persuasion in the language and visual arts. And it was the central bone of contention in Reformation and Counter-Reformation discussions about the nature of God's intervention in human salvation. Within each of these contexts, grace became a defining quality that Italians made their own. Grace provides a unique perspective on sixteenth-century Italy, for it rose to prominence in the context of so-called High Renaissance art, yet it also played a pivotal role in its polemical progress towards Mannerism. It was not, therefore, a banner that united artists in their advance towards the full maturity of their discipline, but a locus of encounter and conflict...

Cognitive Confusions: Preface, 2016

How do humans distinguish between factual and counterfactual scenarios? When do rational thought... more How do humans distinguish between factual and counterfactual scenarios? When
do rational thoughts and beliefs become delusions and illusions and why do we often
fail to monitor the boundaries between different forms of cognitive activity? Where
do dreams fit into our lived experience of the world and what role do they have,
if any, in our strategies and procedures for thinking about it?

Cognitive Confusions: Dreams, Delusions and Illusions in Early Modern Culture, Feb 13, 2017

'Cognitive Confusions' opens with a celebrated literary example of what we would call a delusion... more 'Cognitive Confusions' opens with a celebrated literary example of what we would call a
delusion in Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso. It develops an argument which draws on
modern psychological and cognitive accounts of delusion, while maintaining a
firm connection between the historical, the fictional and the cognitive.

Renaissance Keywords, 2013

Certain words played a crucial role in the making of the European Renaissance, and still recur to... more Certain words played a crucial role in the making of the European Renaissance, and still recur today in our shifting understanding of it. Discretion and grace, to take two examples studied here, express how individuals thought about themselves, each other and their experience of the world, yet they are as hard to define as they are ever-present in Renaissance discourse. In this collection of essays, scholars from across the Humanities offer new interpretations of these and other 'keywords', to adopt Raymond Williams's term, and investigate the vocabulary that not only accompanied, but also produced, the cultural transformations that made the Renaissance so distinctive. A keywords approach to Renaissance Europe provides a rich contextual framework for the exploration of its central ideas. It also highlights the need for fresh thinking on current histories of the age. Seven Renaissance Keywords engages with the ongoing debate about the term 'Renaissance' itself, perhaps more our keyword than theirs, and seeks alternative ways to understand a culture and society which produced conceptions of the self as much as it did art and science. The result is an exploration at the cutting edge of contemporary research.

Renaissance Keywords, 2013

'Grace' rises to prominence as a keyword in the literature, visual arts, social theory and theolo... more 'Grace' rises to prominence as a keyword in the literature, visual arts, social theory and theology of the long sixteenth century in Italy. This chapter describes the emergence of Renaissance grace within two contexts: the late fifteenth-century revival of antiquity and the early sixteenth-century debates about religion. The first cultural development to have a profound impact on the status of grace was the humanist revival of classical antiquity. Both the humanist revival of antiquity and the quarrels about religion sought intellectual rupture with the immediate past, a radical rethinking of the secular and the sacred. The second major cultural development to contribute directly to the rise and pre-eminence of Renaissance grace was the Reformation of the Roman Catholic Church and the quarrels about religion that surrounded it. Mediating between the predominantly Latin discourse of reform and the primarily vernacular language of sixteenth-century art theory were those humanists who sought to promote the vernacular as the language of literate culture.

Essays by Ita Mac Carthy

Ariosto, the Orlando Furioso and English Culture, 2019

This essay examines the fortunes in English literature of one of Ariosto’s minor characters, the ... more This essay examines the fortunes in English literature of one of Ariosto’s minor characters, the Spanish princess Fiordispina. It focuses, in particular, on the very different ways in which English authors Sir John Harington and John Gay cope (or fail to cope) with the abundant gender confusion and free-floating sexual desire of the Fiordispina episode in the former’s Orlando Furioso Translated into Heroical Verse (1591) and the latter’s ‘The Story of Fiordispina’ (c. 1720) and Achilles: A play (1732). Framed by Ali Smith’s reflections in Girl Meets Boy (2007) on rewriting old stories for new circumstances, it draws on relevance theory and offers new readings of how Harington and Gay amplify, abridge or alternatively alter the original in accordance with their need to be relevant to the readers for whom they write.

Polygraphia: https://polygraphia.it/quaderno-2-polygraphia/, 2021

Questo saggio è dedicato alla produzione letteraria di Tullia d’Aragona, in particolare al Dialog... more Questo saggio è dedicato alla produzione letteraria di Tullia d’Aragona, in particolare al Dialogo della infinità d’amore e alle Rime (entrambi del 1547), testi sconfinanti rispetto ai generi letterari cui appartengono in quanto offrono un punto di vista e un linguaggio femminili in un momento storico in cui le voci della letteratura erano pre- valentemente maschili. Il focus del saggio è rappresentato del termine ‘grazia’ e dalla maniera in cui d’Aragona lo utilizza – o, talvolta, evita di utilizzarlo – in modo da rifiutare una idealizzazione delle donne eccessiva e pericolo- sa. Sulla scorta di autori neoplatonici quali Marsilio Ficino, Leone Ebreo e Baldassare Castiglione, d’Aragona offre con il suo Dialogo un trattato filosofico sul tema dell’amore. Tuttavia, a differenza dei suoi modelli e interlocutori, ella disinnesca l’associazione tra grazia divina e bellezza corporale, così comune negli autori uomini, e respinge l’invito alle donne a diventare intermediarie tra gli uomini e la trascendenza spirituale suggerito dal neoplatonismo ficiniano. Nell’antologia lirica intitolata Rime d’Aragona accoglie le poesie dei suoi amanti e corrispondenti in cui il legame tra l’amore e la grazia rimane intatto, mentre nelle sue poesie evita qualsiasi connotazione spirituale. La grazia cui ella accenna nei propri componimenti è sempre quella letteraria, in un tentativo di avvicinare le Grazie alle Muse. La grazia letteraria permette a d’Aragona di liberarsi dall’idealizzazione neoplatonica degli amanti e di coltivare per sé onore, integrità e ambizione autoriale.

Modern Language Notes, 2014

In 1557, Lodovico Dolce (c.1508-68) proclaimed grace to be the most prestigious marker of disti... more In 1557, Lodovico Dolce (c.1508-68) proclaimed grace to be the most
prestigious marker of distinction for writers and artists. In the same
treatise, he hailed Ariosto as the contemporary poetic champion of
that quality (Dialogo delta pittura 195-96). But what did Dolce mean
by grace when applying it to Ariosto, and where, if at all, is grace to
be found in the Furioso? This essay offers an answer to these questions
through a close reading, which draws and builds on Dolce's work, of
a brief but exemplary episode: the final part of Astolfo's voyage to
the moon.

The Modern Language Review, 2007

Ariosto hated travelling. During what Caretti calls his ‘vita per niente avventurosa’, he went no... more Ariosto hated travelling. During what Caretti calls his ‘vita per niente avventurosa’, he went no further than Rome, where he was sent, unwillingly, as secretary to Cardinal Ippolito d’Este. Despite the poet’s intense dislike of travelling, though, one of the most evocative features of Orlando furioso is its inexhaustible geography and vast unlimited space. This essay explores what it might mean when the literary imagination of a home-loving poet embarks on such wondrous journeys across the new worlds of the Renaissance globe and beyond.

The Modern Language Review, 2009

This second part of a two-part essay on the theme of travel in the "Orlando furioso" reads Astolf... more This second part of a two-part essay on the theme of travel in the "Orlando furioso" reads Astolfo's journey to the moon as a means of gaining a critical perspective on the sixteenth-century court and an allegorical reflection on the role and value of literature therein. Emphasizing the links between the episode and Menippean satire, it shows how Ariosto experiments with different narrative modes to yield original visions of the changing and infinitely complex world, to comment on the profession of writing, and to celebrate the power of poetry to be at once entertaining and instructive.

Olifant, 2003

Situated in cantos 9, 10, and 11 of Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, the Olimpia episode is ma... more Situated in cantos 9, 10, and 11 of Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, the Olimpia episode is made up of three narrative blocks recounting three distinct events. In canto 9, Olimpia tells her tale of forced separation from Bireno, her lover. Orlando unhesitatingly takes up her cause. He unites the lovers and punishes the villain, King Cimosco. In Canto 10, Bireno sets sail from Holland with Olimpia on board. He abandons her on a deserted island and sails off with King Cimosco's young daughter instead. Finally, in canto 11, Olimpia is plucked from the deserted island by pirates who offer her as a human sacrifice to the sea orc at Ebuda. Orlando intervenes once more. He saves the damsel and offers her in marriage to Oberto, King of Hibernia. I will concentrate mostly on the first of these three narrative blocks in this paper. Olimpia is declared an exemplary model of feminine virtue, a paragon of fidelity by the Furioso's narrator: Fra quanti amor, fra quante fede al mondo mai si trovâr, fra quanti cor constanti, fra quante, o per dolente o per iocondo stato, fêr prove mai famosi amanti; piú tosto il primo loco ch'il secondo darò ad Olimpia: e se pur non va inanti, ben voglio dir che fra gli antiqui e nuovi maggior de l'amor suo non si ritruovi [.. .] (X,1) Among all the lovers in the world who ever gave proof of constancy, through adverse times and in prosperity, however renowned they be, I should award the first place, yes, the first to Olympia. And if she be not the first, I shall still

Italian Studies, 2005

This essay argues against the traditional perception of the character of Marfisa in the Orlando f... more This essay argues against the traditional perception of the character of Marfisa in the Orlando furioso as a straightforward symbol of women's agency and as a pro-woman gesture in the contemporary querelle des femmes. It looks first at the success of her performance of masculinity in the romance epic and then at the way this is undermined by Ariosto's comical reminder of her anatomical difference/lack. This characteristic narrative ambivalence, I argue, complicates the apparent simplicity both of Marfisa's portrayal and of the poem's contribution to the debate about women. In fact, through Marfisa, the Furioso opens up the comparatively un-nuanced contemporary discussion to more complex reflections on female agency, gender typecasting, and questions of gendered identity. Through a close reading of the seemingly discordant discourses underpinning her character, this essay elaborates a richer understanding of the Furioso's configurations of gender.

Drafts by Ita Mac Carthy

An early modern diablogue, 2021

Contributions from the book launch of The Grace of the Italian Renaissance with texts from the au... more Contributions from the book launch of The Grace of the Italian Renaissance
with texts from the author Ita Mac Carthy, Patricia Emison, Paolo D’Angelo, Martin McLaughlin and Brian Cummings.

Reviews by Ita Mac Carthy

Renaissance Studies, 2018

Raphael: The Drawings (Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 1 June - 3 September, 2017). Catalogue by Cather... more Raphael: The Drawings (Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 1 June - 3 September, 2017). Catalogue by Catherine Whistler and Ben Thomas with Achim Gnann and Angelamaria Aceto. Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 2017. 256 pp.

The Modern Language Review, 2008

Creative by Ita Mac Carthy

Like A Tree Cut Back, 2021

Prologue to 'Like a Tree Cut Back' by Michael McCarthy

The Grace of the Italian Renaissance, 2020

‘Grace’ emerges as a keyword in the culture and society of sixteenth-century Italy. This book exp... more ‘Grace’ emerges as a keyword in the culture and society of sixteenth-century Italy. This book explores how it conveys and connects the most pressing ethical, social and aesthetic concerns of an age concerned with the reactivation of ancient ideas in a changing world. The book reassesses artists such as Francesco del Cossa, Raphael, and Michelangelo and explores anew writers like Castiglione, Ariosto, Tullia d'Aragona, and Vittoria Colonna. It shows how these artists and writers put grace at the heart of their work. The book argues that grace came to be as contested as it was prized across a range of Renaissance Italian contexts. It characterised emerging styles in literature and the visual arts, shaped ideas about how best to behave at court and sparked controversy about social harmony and human salvation. For all these reasons, grace abounded in the Italian Renaissance, yet it remained hard to define. The book explores what grace meant to theologians, artists, writers, and philosophers, showing how it influenced their thinking about themselves, each other and the world. It portrays grace not as a stable formula of expression but as a web of interventions in culture and society.

The Grace of the Italian Renaissance, 2020

This introductory chapter analyses the April fresco depicting the three Graces of classical tradi... more This introductory chapter analyses the April fresco depicting the three Graces of classical tradition in the Salone dei mesi (Room of the months) of Ferrara's Palazzo Schifanoia. The Allegory of April transforms the abstract qualities of grace into an eloquent verbal language that is read from top to bottom by following the line of their spiritual passage from the heavens to deserving mortals below. Close allies of beauty and faithful escorts to Love, these qualities inspire the arts of love, poetry, and music. Through the sign of Taurus, they infuse the powers of liberality into the hearts of the elect. An ideal rather than a realistic portrait of universal grace and sociability, though, the fresco also conveys the real-world dearth of its qualities. For although the fresco's painter, Francesco del Cossa, paints grace with grace, he fails to receive grace in return. He shares in a problem that fifteenth-century poets, artists, male courtiers, and court ladies knew well: the...

The Grace of the Italian Renaissance, 2020

This chapter discusses ‘grace’ in the context of the Italian Renaissance. During this time, the t... more This chapter discusses ‘grace’ in the context of the Italian Renaissance. During this time, the term became a mark of distinction in the questione della lingua and in the new language of literature. It was reenergised by the recovery of ancient texts that extolled its virtues as an instrument of persuasion in the language and visual arts. And it was the central bone of contention in Reformation and Counter-Reformation discussions about the nature of God's intervention in human salvation. Within each of these contexts, grace became a defining quality that Italians made their own. Grace provides a unique perspective on sixteenth-century Italy, for it rose to prominence in the context of so-called High Renaissance art, yet it also played a pivotal role in its polemical progress towards Mannerism. It was not, therefore, a banner that united artists in their advance towards the full maturity of their discipline, but a locus of encounter and conflict...

Cognitive Confusions: Preface, 2016

How do humans distinguish between factual and counterfactual scenarios? When do rational thought... more How do humans distinguish between factual and counterfactual scenarios? When
do rational thoughts and beliefs become delusions and illusions and why do we often
fail to monitor the boundaries between different forms of cognitive activity? Where
do dreams fit into our lived experience of the world and what role do they have,
if any, in our strategies and procedures for thinking about it?

Cognitive Confusions: Dreams, Delusions and Illusions in Early Modern Culture, Feb 13, 2017

'Cognitive Confusions' opens with a celebrated literary example of what we would call a delusion... more 'Cognitive Confusions' opens with a celebrated literary example of what we would call a
delusion in Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso. It develops an argument which draws on
modern psychological and cognitive accounts of delusion, while maintaining a
firm connection between the historical, the fictional and the cognitive.

Renaissance Keywords, 2013

Certain words played a crucial role in the making of the European Renaissance, and still recur to... more Certain words played a crucial role in the making of the European Renaissance, and still recur today in our shifting understanding of it. Discretion and grace, to take two examples studied here, express how individuals thought about themselves, each other and their experience of the world, yet they are as hard to define as they are ever-present in Renaissance discourse. In this collection of essays, scholars from across the Humanities offer new interpretations of these and other 'keywords', to adopt Raymond Williams's term, and investigate the vocabulary that not only accompanied, but also produced, the cultural transformations that made the Renaissance so distinctive. A keywords approach to Renaissance Europe provides a rich contextual framework for the exploration of its central ideas. It also highlights the need for fresh thinking on current histories of the age. Seven Renaissance Keywords engages with the ongoing debate about the term 'Renaissance' itself, perhaps more our keyword than theirs, and seeks alternative ways to understand a culture and society which produced conceptions of the self as much as it did art and science. The result is an exploration at the cutting edge of contemporary research.

Renaissance Keywords, 2013

'Grace' rises to prominence as a keyword in the literature, visual arts, social theory and theolo... more 'Grace' rises to prominence as a keyword in the literature, visual arts, social theory and theology of the long sixteenth century in Italy. This chapter describes the emergence of Renaissance grace within two contexts: the late fifteenth-century revival of antiquity and the early sixteenth-century debates about religion. The first cultural development to have a profound impact on the status of grace was the humanist revival of classical antiquity. Both the humanist revival of antiquity and the quarrels about religion sought intellectual rupture with the immediate past, a radical rethinking of the secular and the sacred. The second major cultural development to contribute directly to the rise and pre-eminence of Renaissance grace was the Reformation of the Roman Catholic Church and the quarrels about religion that surrounded it. Mediating between the predominantly Latin discourse of reform and the primarily vernacular language of sixteenth-century art theory were those humanists who sought to promote the vernacular as the language of literate culture.

Ariosto, the Orlando Furioso and English Culture, 2019

This essay examines the fortunes in English literature of one of Ariosto’s minor characters, the ... more This essay examines the fortunes in English literature of one of Ariosto’s minor characters, the Spanish princess Fiordispina. It focuses, in particular, on the very different ways in which English authors Sir John Harington and John Gay cope (or fail to cope) with the abundant gender confusion and free-floating sexual desire of the Fiordispina episode in the former’s Orlando Furioso Translated into Heroical Verse (1591) and the latter’s ‘The Story of Fiordispina’ (c. 1720) and Achilles: A play (1732). Framed by Ali Smith’s reflections in Girl Meets Boy (2007) on rewriting old stories for new circumstances, it draws on relevance theory and offers new readings of how Harington and Gay amplify, abridge or alternatively alter the original in accordance with their need to be relevant to the readers for whom they write.

Polygraphia: https://polygraphia.it/quaderno-2-polygraphia/, 2021

Questo saggio è dedicato alla produzione letteraria di Tullia d’Aragona, in particolare al Dialog... more Questo saggio è dedicato alla produzione letteraria di Tullia d’Aragona, in particolare al Dialogo della infinità d’amore e alle Rime (entrambi del 1547), testi sconfinanti rispetto ai generi letterari cui appartengono in quanto offrono un punto di vista e un linguaggio femminili in un momento storico in cui le voci della letteratura erano pre- valentemente maschili. Il focus del saggio è rappresentato del termine ‘grazia’ e dalla maniera in cui d’Aragona lo utilizza – o, talvolta, evita di utilizzarlo – in modo da rifiutare una idealizzazione delle donne eccessiva e pericolo- sa. Sulla scorta di autori neoplatonici quali Marsilio Ficino, Leone Ebreo e Baldassare Castiglione, d’Aragona offre con il suo Dialogo un trattato filosofico sul tema dell’amore. Tuttavia, a differenza dei suoi modelli e interlocutori, ella disinnesca l’associazione tra grazia divina e bellezza corporale, così comune negli autori uomini, e respinge l’invito alle donne a diventare intermediarie tra gli uomini e la trascendenza spirituale suggerito dal neoplatonismo ficiniano. Nell’antologia lirica intitolata Rime d’Aragona accoglie le poesie dei suoi amanti e corrispondenti in cui il legame tra l’amore e la grazia rimane intatto, mentre nelle sue poesie evita qualsiasi connotazione spirituale. La grazia cui ella accenna nei propri componimenti è sempre quella letteraria, in un tentativo di avvicinare le Grazie alle Muse. La grazia letteraria permette a d’Aragona di liberarsi dall’idealizzazione neoplatonica degli amanti e di coltivare per sé onore, integrità e ambizione autoriale.

Modern Language Notes, 2014

In 1557, Lodovico Dolce (c.1508-68) proclaimed grace to be the most prestigious marker of disti... more In 1557, Lodovico Dolce (c.1508-68) proclaimed grace to be the most
prestigious marker of distinction for writers and artists. In the same
treatise, he hailed Ariosto as the contemporary poetic champion of
that quality (Dialogo delta pittura 195-96). But what did Dolce mean
by grace when applying it to Ariosto, and where, if at all, is grace to
be found in the Furioso? This essay offers an answer to these questions
through a close reading, which draws and builds on Dolce's work, of
a brief but exemplary episode: the final part of Astolfo's voyage to
the moon.

The Modern Language Review, 2007

Ariosto hated travelling. During what Caretti calls his ‘vita per niente avventurosa’, he went no... more Ariosto hated travelling. During what Caretti calls his ‘vita per niente avventurosa’, he went no further than Rome, where he was sent, unwillingly, as secretary to Cardinal Ippolito d’Este. Despite the poet’s intense dislike of travelling, though, one of the most evocative features of Orlando furioso is its inexhaustible geography and vast unlimited space. This essay explores what it might mean when the literary imagination of a home-loving poet embarks on such wondrous journeys across the new worlds of the Renaissance globe and beyond.

The Modern Language Review, 2009

This second part of a two-part essay on the theme of travel in the "Orlando furioso" reads Astolf... more This second part of a two-part essay on the theme of travel in the "Orlando furioso" reads Astolfo's journey to the moon as a means of gaining a critical perspective on the sixteenth-century court and an allegorical reflection on the role and value of literature therein. Emphasizing the links between the episode and Menippean satire, it shows how Ariosto experiments with different narrative modes to yield original visions of the changing and infinitely complex world, to comment on the profession of writing, and to celebrate the power of poetry to be at once entertaining and instructive.

Olifant, 2003

Situated in cantos 9, 10, and 11 of Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, the Olimpia episode is ma... more Situated in cantos 9, 10, and 11 of Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, the Olimpia episode is made up of three narrative blocks recounting three distinct events. In canto 9, Olimpia tells her tale of forced separation from Bireno, her lover. Orlando unhesitatingly takes up her cause. He unites the lovers and punishes the villain, King Cimosco. In Canto 10, Bireno sets sail from Holland with Olimpia on board. He abandons her on a deserted island and sails off with King Cimosco's young daughter instead. Finally, in canto 11, Olimpia is plucked from the deserted island by pirates who offer her as a human sacrifice to the sea orc at Ebuda. Orlando intervenes once more. He saves the damsel and offers her in marriage to Oberto, King of Hibernia. I will concentrate mostly on the first of these three narrative blocks in this paper. Olimpia is declared an exemplary model of feminine virtue, a paragon of fidelity by the Furioso's narrator: Fra quanti amor, fra quante fede al mondo mai si trovâr, fra quanti cor constanti, fra quante, o per dolente o per iocondo stato, fêr prove mai famosi amanti; piú tosto il primo loco ch'il secondo darò ad Olimpia: e se pur non va inanti, ben voglio dir che fra gli antiqui e nuovi maggior de l'amor suo non si ritruovi [.. .] (X,1) Among all the lovers in the world who ever gave proof of constancy, through adverse times and in prosperity, however renowned they be, I should award the first place, yes, the first to Olympia. And if she be not the first, I shall still

Italian Studies, 2005

This essay argues against the traditional perception of the character of Marfisa in the Orlando f... more This essay argues against the traditional perception of the character of Marfisa in the Orlando furioso as a straightforward symbol of women's agency and as a pro-woman gesture in the contemporary querelle des femmes. It looks first at the success of her performance of masculinity in the romance epic and then at the way this is undermined by Ariosto's comical reminder of her anatomical difference/lack. This characteristic narrative ambivalence, I argue, complicates the apparent simplicity both of Marfisa's portrayal and of the poem's contribution to the debate about women. In fact, through Marfisa, the Furioso opens up the comparatively un-nuanced contemporary discussion to more complex reflections on female agency, gender typecasting, and questions of gendered identity. Through a close reading of the seemingly discordant discourses underpinning her character, this essay elaborates a richer understanding of the Furioso's configurations of gender.

An early modern diablogue, 2021

Contributions from the book launch of The Grace of the Italian Renaissance with texts from the au... more Contributions from the book launch of The Grace of the Italian Renaissance
with texts from the author Ita Mac Carthy, Patricia Emison, Paolo D’Angelo, Martin McLaughlin and Brian Cummings.

Renaissance Studies, 2018

Raphael: The Drawings (Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 1 June - 3 September, 2017). Catalogue by Cather... more Raphael: The Drawings (Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 1 June - 3 September, 2017). Catalogue by Catherine Whistler and Ben Thomas with Achim Gnann and Angelamaria Aceto. Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 2017. 256 pp.

The Modern Language Review, 2008

Like A Tree Cut Back, 2021

Prologue to 'Like a Tree Cut Back' by Michael McCarthy

Francosphères, 2021

Short story

Modern Language Review, 2008

Princeton University Press eBooks, Jan 14, 2020

This chapter considers whether court ladies required the same qualities as male courtiers. Grace,... more This chapter considers whether court ladies required the same qualities as male courtiers. Grace, it turns out, is as vital for women of the court as it is for men, but womanly grace is more closely linked to beauty and to what Italians today refer to as bella presenza than its manly counterpart. The chapter explores how two women authors, Vittoria Colonna and Tullia d'Aragona, sever the links that unite grace and beauty in male discourse. In Colonna's love poetry (ca. 1525–1535), grace resists semantic absorption into refined womanly appearances and rhetoric and turns, instead, towards spirituality that admits of no physical or corporeal manifestation. Tullia d'Aragona, by contrast, rejects the language of grace outright, identifying it as an impossible feminine standard, on the one hand, and perilously close to the language of sexual graces and favours, on the other. In her Rime (Poems) and Dialogo dell'infinità d'amore (Dialogue on the Infinity of Love) (both published in 1547), she identifies it as a word requiring sensitive handling, an instrument of control to flee from and a semantic trap set by men inclined in their treatment of women to the extremes of praise and blame.

Renaissance Quarterly, 2018

no means merely trickled. These were not marginal men. The essays also reveal how “the study of n... more no means merely trickled. These were not marginal men. The essays also reveal how “the study of nature [was] . . . a form of worship” (208). The introduction notes that two rulers (significantly “usurpers”), Gustav-Vasa in SwedenFinland and Frederik I in Denmark-Norway, regarded the new evangelical ideas as “useful for their aim of establishing national churches under royal control” (1), thus lending royal support (at least implicitly) to the driving force that religion (Protestantism/ Lutheranism) became in fusing medicine, natural philosophy, and religion intellectually. Many sixteenthand early seventeenth-century thinkers, in Scandinavia as elsewhere, shared the idea that the “book of nature” was “much more than a mere metaphor.” In nature one could find “inscribed [God’s] . . . own perfect wisdom” (172). Melanchthon insisted that knowledge of anatomy was the best way for Protestants, who inhabited an imperfect sublunary world, to perceive God. These two strongly articulated themes bind the collection together, but the individual authors also highlight differences. Each contribution provides considerable detail (sometimes a bit too much detail) but rarely strays far from the main interpretations advanced here. The result is a richly textured view of science, medicine, and religion in post-Reformation Scandinavia. Scholars who know a good deal about the relationship between early modern science and religion and who believe that relationship is complementary and not antagonistic, will not be surprised by the general interpretations presented here. Nonetheless, these twelve articles do not just add their moiety to our store of knowledge; rather, they enhance, nuance, and expand it while demonstrating how tightly interwoven, but also richly variegated, the intellectual world of post-Reformation Europe was.

Routledge eBooks, Jul 5, 2017