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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 31 May 2011
During March 1588, Maria d'Aragona, the Marchesa of Vasto, sponsored a set of four intermedi at her palazzo in Chiaia, Naples. The centrepiece of the entertainment was the intermedio entitled ‘Queen Cleopatra on her Ship’. This article explores d'Aragona's role as sponsor of the entertainment, particularly in relation to her interest in the historical figure of Cleopatra. Drawing on sources that informed perceptions of the Egyptian queen during the early- to mid-Cinquecento, it will be shown that within a performance context governed by a strong-willed female patron, the often negatively depicted Cleopatra could be cast as a positive role model, particularly for d'Aragona-related noblewomen who themselves had experienced strong female mentorship and enjoyed the relative autonomy of widowhood. D'Aragona's decision to cast the Neapolitan virtuosa Eufemia Jozola as Cleopatra reinforced the female-orientated nature of the intermedio, and sheds new light on mid-Cinquecento Neapolitan performance practice.
1 Ibid. In the opening letter of the Stanze dated 20 March 1558, Marc'Antonio Passero refers to the intermedi for the comedy Alessandro as ‘performed a few days ago’. The Duchess of Alba's husband, Fernando Alvarez of Toledo, had recently completed his two-year term as viceroy; the viceroy's departure appears to have prompted the timing of Maria d'Aragona's entertainment, to celebrate the outgoing viceroy's wife.
2 See note 82. It was common in entertainments of this type for characters on the stage to move into physical proximity to important members of the audience in order to address them directly. In the fifth intermedio for La pellegrina performed in Florence in 1589, Arion's galley ‘finally stopped with its bow towards the princes, and lowered the sails in respect; then playing a harp Turrerino [Arion] sang a very beautiful madrigal in the manner of an echo’. (‘[F]inalmente ella si fermò volta con lo sperone verso li Principi, e ammainò le vele per riverenza; poi il Turrerino cantò, sonando un'harpa, un bellissimo madrigale a modo d'un'Eco.’) Pavoni, Giuseppe, Diario … Delle feste celebrate nelle solennissime Nozze delli Serenissimi Sposi (Bologna, 1589), 20Google Scholar . Bonnie Gordon considers a similar tactic in her reading of Monteverdi's Il ballo delle ingrate performed during the 1608 Mantuan wedding celebrations for Francesco Gonzaga and Margherita de Savoy. In this instance, Pluto imparts a moralising message directly to the female members of the audience. Regarding the Mantuan celebrations, see Gordon, , ‘Talking Back: The Female Voice in Il ballo delle ingrate’, this journal, 11/1 (1999), 4 and 8n22Google Scholar .
3 ‘Cleopatra si levò in piè, et disse le sotto scritte stanze con un modo mezzo tra cantare et recitare.’ Stanze di Luigi Tansillo, n.p.
4 See, for example, Harness, Kelley, Echoes of Women's Voices: Music, Art, and Female Patronage in Early Modern Florence (Chicago, 2006)Google Scholar ; Cusick, Suzanne, ‘Of Women, Music, and Power: A Model from Seicento Florence’, in Musicology and Difference: Gender and Sexuality in Music Scholarship, ed. Solie, Ruth (Berkeley, 1993), 281–304Google Scholar ; Folliott, Sheila, ‘Catherine de’ Medici as Artemisia: Figuring the Powerful Widow’, in Rewriting the Renaissance: The Discourse of Sexual Difference in Early Modern Europe, ed. Ferguson, Margaret W., Quilligan, Maureen and Vickers, Nancy J. (Chicago, 1986), 227–241Google Scholar ; King, Catherine, Renaissance Women Patrons: Wives and Widows in Italy, c. 1300–c. 1550 (Manchester, 1998)Google Scholar ; and Reiss, Sheryl and Wilkins, David (eds.), Beyond Isabella: Secular Women Patrons of Art in Renaissance Italy (Kirksville, MO, 2001)Google Scholar .
5 STANZE / DI LUIGI TANSILLO. / Composte per gli intermedii della come[–] / dia recitata in casa della Illustrissima / et Eccelentissima Signora Mar= / chesa del Vasto A diletto della / Illustrissima et Eccelentissi[–] / ma Signora Duchessa / D'Alba (Rome, Vatican Library, Ferraioli V.4769).
6 Musicologists seem to have known only those parts of the descrizione published in an article by Erasmo Pèrcopo in 1914 (see below). Pèrcopo discovered the print – at that time in the private library of the Feraioli marquesses at Rome – and reprinted the description in his article, but the poetic texts by Tansillo are omitted. (Pèrcopo later published the poetic texts along with some excerpts from the description in his edition of Tansillo's works.) Thus, until fairly recently, musicologists appear to have largely relied on Pèrcopo's 1914 article for the descrizione of the 1558 entertainment, which excludes the poetic texts, including Cleopatra's stanze. See Pèrcopo, , ‘Di una stampa sconosciuta delle “Stanze” del Tansillo per la Duchessa d’Alba (1558)’, Rassegna critica della letteratura italiana, 19 (1914), 73–88Google Scholar , and Pèrcopo, (ed.), Tansillo, Il canzoniere, edito ed inedito secondo una copia dell'autografo ed altri manoscritti e stampe (Naples, 1926), 257–261Google Scholar . The descrizione housed in the Vatican Library has now been transcribed in full. See Treadwell, Nina, ‘Restaging the Siren: Musical Women in the Performance of Sixteenth-Century Italian Theatre’, Ph.D. diss. (University of Southern California, 2000), 315–343Google Scholar (Appendix C).
7 See above, note 5.
8 Passero definitely wrote the description's dedication and a final address to the reader. The framing and tone of the latter suggests that its inclusion was an afterthought; Passero indicates that he would need assistance from ‘some nice spirit’ in order to name all the ladies in attendance, perhaps indicating that he was not actually present at the entertainment. His social status would not necessarily have precluded his attendance, however: he was evidently more than a mere bookseller, his shop being a meeting place for literati, and he being a published poet himself, as well as a patron of others' books. He may have been the Marc'Antonio Passero who was ennobled, along with his brothers, in 1536. See Larson, Keith, ‘The Unaccompanied Madrigal in Naples’, Ph.D. diss. (Harvard University, 1985), 170–171n26Google Scholar .
9 ‘Sappi, dolcissimo lettor mio, che la Signora Marchesa del Vasto, ornamento del mondo, non che d'Italia, desiderosa di dar qualche piacere alla Signora Duchessa d'Alba, offerse di farle intender et vedere una delle nostre comedie rappresentata col’ suo teatro, il suo Proscenio, è i suoi lumi, et con tutte le circostanzie, che dagli antichi si usavano, et da' moderni s'usano.’ Stanze di Luigi Tansillo, n.p. (from the opening address to the reader).
10 ‘Dell'apparato et della comedia fu l'assunto della Signora Marchesa, la quale et l'uno et l'altra parve che facesse ella fare come dicon di Virgilio, per arte di negromantia, che dal di, che si propose à quel, che si rappresentò la comedia, non vi corse un mese.’ Stanze di Luigi Tansillo, n.p.
11 The phrase that follows the reference to d'Aragona's involvement with the comedy and the apparato uses the latter term in its specific sense: ‘The set was made in Chiaia and it was very beautiful and sumptuous’. (‘Si fece l'apparato in chiaia, et fu assai bello et sontuoso.’) Stanze di Luigi Tansillo, n.p. (from the address to the reader). Thus, the earlier use of the term could be meant generically or otherwise. One of the more generic definitions in the Vocabolario degli Accademici della Crusca (Venice, 1612) indicates: ‘specially prepared festivities’. (‘[F]esteggiarlo con qualche singulare apparato.’) http://vocabolario.signum.sns.it/_s_index2.html (accessed 15 February 2010). Of the brief definitions for apparato included in John Florio's dictionary ‘a preparation, a garnishment’ is most relevant. See Florio, , Queen Anna's New World of Words (London, 1611; rpt. Menston, England, 1968), 33Google Scholar .
12 Croce, Benedetto, Aneddoti di varia letteratura (Naples, 1942), I, 290–291Google Scholar .
13 This was also the case with other plays written for the Sienese Intronati. For further information, see the introduction to Rita Belladonna's translation of the play: Piccolomini, Alessandro, Alessandro, trans. Belladonna, (Ottawa, 1984), esp. 7–9Google Scholar ; see also Coller, Alexandra, ‘The Sienese Accademia degli Intronati and its Female Interlocutors’, Italianist, 26/2 (2006), 223–246CrossRefGoogle Scholar .
14 Belladonna, 10.
15 See, for example, Wilbourne, Emily, ‘Amor nello specchio (1622): Mirroring, Masturbation, and Same-Sex Love’, Women and Music: A Journal of Gender and Culture, 13 (2009), 54–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; Heller, Wendy, ‘The Queen as King: Refashioning “Semiramide” for Seicento Venice’, this journal, 5/2 (1993), 93–114Google Scholar , at 108; Heller, , Emblems of Eloquence: Opera and Women's Voices in Seventeenth- Century Venice (Berkeley, 2003), esp. 256–267 and 347n52Google Scholar ; and Treadwell, , ‘Female Operatic Cross-Dressing: Bernardo Saddumene's Libretto for Leonardo Vinci's Li zite ‘n galera (1722)’, this journal, 10/2 (1998), 131–156Google Scholar .
16 ‘[V]enivano sei Donzelle di Cleopatra con odori in mano, profumando le rive del fiume.’ Stanze di Luigi Tansillo, n.p. This gesture seems to be loosely drawn from a passage in Plutarch's Lives. See Perrin, Bernadotte (trans.), Plutarch's Lives, IX (Cambridge, 1920), 193–195Google Scholar .
17 ‘[I]n un'altro di quei mostri marini ivano assise le tre sue figlie, le quali fingevano le tre Gratie, anzi le rappresentavano da dovero, tali sono elle, et massime la prima nata.’ D'Aragona's grand nieces probably participated in the fourth intermedio as well because the descrizione mentions the presence of the Graces with Night and his chariot. The actual names of Maria's grand nieces do not appear in the descrizione and I have been unable to ascertain them.
18 ‘[T]he dresses and clothes of all – as much those inside the ship as those outside [of it] – were certainly wonderfully rich and pleasant; and it is not a marvel, because, besides Signor Don Garzia who in these things has surpassed all kings, there was also the good sense and beautiful judgment of Signora Lady Vittoria [Colonna of Toledo], whose divine cleverness and beauties and divine parts are above [all] others, and today is unique in the world; and she spent a lot of effort so that [this scene] would come out well.’ (‘[P]ure ben vestite furono certo gli habiti et le vesti di tutte tanto di quei della nave, quanto di quei di fuora, mirabilmente ricchi et vaghi, et non è maraviglia, poi che oltre il Signor Don Garzia, che in queste cose hà vinti quanti Re mai furono, vi fu anco del sale et del bel giuditio della Signora Donna Vittoria [Colonna di Toledo], il cui divino ingegno sopra l'altre sue bellezze et divine parti, e oggi unico al mondo, et ella vi attese assai, perche comparisser bene.’) Stanze di Luigi Tansillo, n.p.
19 Battiferra probably heard Jozola sing while the poet was in Rome. See Kirkham, Victoria (ed. and trans.), Laura Battiferra and Her Literary Circle (Chicago, 2006), 127 and 391n102, n103Google Scholar .
20 Most recently the passage from Giustiniani's Discorso sopra la musica that includes reference to Jozola has been cited in Hill, John Walter, Roman Monody, Cantata, and Opera, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1997), I, 102Google Scholar ; and Wistreich, Richard, Warrior, Courtier, Singer: Giulio Cesare Brancaccio and the Performance of Identity in the Late Renaissance (Aldershot, 2007), 193Google Scholar .
21 Issues of casting were influenced by a variety of factors, but there is evidence suggesting that on those (less frequent) occasions during this period when women were employed as theatrical performers, the presence of vere donne (true women) was indeed noticed. Further, female singers were often carefully utilised in order to highlight their presence. An entry from the Diari of Marin Sanudo for 4 February 1529 calls attention to the presence of four vere donne on the sixteenth-century Italian stage: ‘[A]nd having made a stage in the middle [of the piazza], a mummery was made by four young men and four women, true women, who were dancing’. (‘[E]t fatto uno soler in mezo, dove fu fatto una muraia [sic] di 4 zoveni et 4 done, vere done, quale balavano.’) Sanudo, Diari, XLIX, 422. By making a point of specifying that the women involved were actually ‘real’, the writer reveals his own (as well as his potential reader's) assumption regarding theatrical practice during this period: that the women involved were probably not ‘real’ at all but, rather, were men cross-dressed as women. That women's presence on the stage during this period was not an everyday occurrence is revealed by the intense interest often expressed in various kinds of written reports when women were involved. For further information, see Treadwell, ‘Restaging the Siren’, 18–36. Regarding the strategic ‘placement’ of female performers in sixteenth-century musico-theatrical entertainments in order to highlight their presence, and audience members' special note of their appearances, see Treadwell, , Music and Wonder at the Medici Court: The 1589 Interludes for ‘La pellegrina’ (Bloomington and Indianapolis, 2008), 94–95, 135–136, 166Google Scholar . During the premiere performance of the Pellegrina intermedi a German diarist, Bartold Gadenstedt, expressed particular interest in tracking the various appearances of the Florentine virtuosa Vittoria Archilei. He mistakenly believed her to be the soloist who opened intermedio four, when in fact the singer was Lucia Caccini.
22 ‘Queen Cleopatra was Phomia [Eufemia Jozola] … Marco Antonio and the others inside and outside of the ship were all very excellent and very famous musicians: Cornelio was Marco Antonio; Scipione delle Palle was Proteo outside of the ship; Giovanni Leonardo dell'Arpa, singular on this instrument, was one of the servants of Marco Antonio.’ (‘[L]a Regina Cleopatra era Phomia… . Il Marc'Antonio et gli altri dentro et fuora della nave, erano tutti Musici Eccellentissimi et famosissimi: Cornelio era il Marc'Antonio, Scipion delle Palle era Proteo fuor della Nave, Gioan Lonardo dell'Arpa, unico in questo strumento, era de servitori di Marc'Antonio.’) Stanze di Luigi Tansillo, n.p.
23 The function of the male musicians in this intermedio was to impersonate various characters, but as the location of Palle and the role of dell'Arpa as a servant indicates, their roles were subsidiary. They no doubt accompanied Jozola's solo on plucked-string instruments and sang in the ensemble numbers.
24 The descrizione provides no texts (or titles) for these ensemble numbers, and they are only mentioned briefly. Typically, these pieces were used to end an intermedio, with the musicians moving off stage while singing. See below, nn.28 and 78.
25 Jozola is one of the very few female musicians from the mid-sixteenth century for whom we can establish both a specific theatrical performance context and surviving music associated with the performance. For earlier in the century, the most prominent example of a similar kind is that of singer Barbara Salutati (La Barbara) who prepared madrigals by Verdelot for interludes for Niccolò Machiavelli's plays La Mandragola and La Clizia. See Colin Slim, H., A Gift of Madrigals and Motets, 2 vols. (Chicago, 1972), I, 92–100Google Scholar .
26 ‘[U]n figlio del Signor Conte di Lauro, fanciullo d'ingegno, e di memoria, e di prontezza mirabile.’ Stanze di Luigi Tansillo, n.p.
27 ‘Lelio Grisone Nipotino del Papa, un poco di più età di quel, che fè l'Alba, e non di minore espettazione à suoi.’ Ibid.
28 In ‘The Chariot of Dawn’ singing did, however, accompany Dawn's exit from the stage. At the end of Dawn's stanzas ‘the chariot of Dawn went its way, and Phoebus [Apollo] and the Muses sang very sweetly and followed it.’ (‘Finite le sù scritte stanze, il carro dell'Alba se n'andò al suo camino, et Phebo et le Muse cantarono dolcissimamente et lo seguirono[.]’) Ibid.
29 ‘[N]on intervenne altro suono, che di tamburri, et di trombe.’ Ibid.
30 Nino Pirrotta has noted the resemblance of these two intermedi to those produced at Florence in 1539 (framing Antonio Landi's comedy Il commodo) for the marriage of Cosimo de' Medici and Eleonora of Toledo. Yet in the context of the Neapolitan performance the resonances were quite different: the stanzas sung by Dawn were a direct homage to the Duchess of Alba, whereas in the 1539 intermedio the appearance of Dawn signifies a more general awakening, the dawn of a new ‘golden age’ in Florence. Tansillo probably witnessed the Florentine festivities, including the intermedi for Il commodo, as he was present in the wedding party that escorted Eleonora from Naples to Florence by boat. See Pirrotta, , Music and Theatre from Poliziano to Monteverdi, trans. Eales, Karen (Cambridge, 1982), 198–199Google Scholar .
31 ‘[H]er [Maria d'Aragona's] son, Signor Don Inico Davalo [d'Avalos], was charged with thinking of and preparing two of the intermedi, and Signor Don Garzia of Toledo, her nephew, [was charged with preparing] two others.’ (‘[S]i obbligarono il Signor Don Inico Davalo suo figlio di pensar et fare esso duo degli intermedii, et il Signor Don Garzia di Toledo suo nipote duo altri.’) Stanze di Luigi Tansillo, n.p. (from the opening address to the reader).
32 ‘Mi sono mosso à far questo, per riparare tutto ad un tempo alla riputation vostra, et alla fatica: Alla riputatione, perche, anchor che voi siate piu scarso delle vostre compositioni à coloro che le desiderano … Tuttavia queste vostre stanze sono gia nelle altrui mani, che quelli, che le hanno recitate, ne han fatto copia à molti, et se ben voi voreste, ch'elle si dileguassero dalla memoria degli homini, non che da gli occhi come rime da voi composte ad istantia d'altri, et quasi all'improviso, per che servissero solamente in quel tempo, et fossero da tutti intese, non gia per che corressero il mondo, et vi restassero.’ Stanze di Luigi Tansillo, n.p. (from the opening dedication to Tansillo).
33 Passero's dedication continues as follows: ‘However, these [rhymes] are circulating and they will continue to circulate, and what is worse, they are treated very badly [i.e. circulating in corrupt versions], so that it should be less displeasing to you that they would be printed well, rather than circulating in manuscript badly. To your effort, because there are so many friends and Lords that all day long are asking for these [rhymes] from you, [and] not only are you not sufficient to write them out (since, thanks to the capacity of memory that God has given you, you are more an enemy of the pen than was Scaletta of the sword), but you will need as many writers as we have in the chancery and in the notary's office. Now that they are printed you can refer whoever wants them to the bookseller. So without getting tired you will satisfy everybody.’ (‘[D]apoi elle pur vi sono et sarano, et quel ch’è peggio, mal trattate, onde meno vi debbe dispiacere, che vadano bene stampate, che male scritte, Alla fatica, perche dove tanti amici et Signori tutto di ve le chiedono, non pure voi non bastate à scriverle, il quale, mercè della memoria che Iddio v'ha dato, sete più nemico della penna, che non era Scaletta della spada, ma vi voriano quanti scrittori hà in Cancellaria et in scrivania, essendo elle stampate, potrete rimetter chi le desidera, al libraro. Cosi senza fatigarvi voi, satisfarete à tutti.’) Ironically, of course, one of these ‘corrupt versions' appeared in Rodio's 1577 anthology along with the skeletal version of Cleopatra's song.
34 Robin, Diana, ‘Aragona, Giovanna’, in Encyclopedia of Women of the Renaissance: Italy, France, and England, ed. Robin, Diana, Larsen, Anne and Levin, Carole (Santa Barbara, 2007), 23Google Scholar .
35 Costanza was briefly married to Federico del Balzo who died in 1483. In 1501 she obtained the duchy of Francavilla from Federico d'Aragona, and followed her brother (Inigo II) to Ischia because of international tensions between Spain and France. She was also known as the Principessa di Francavilla. See Dizionario biografico delgi italiani, IV (Rome, 1960– ), 621–2.
36 Though Vittoria Colonna was married on Ischia in 1509, Vittoria's husband, Francesco Ferrante d'Avalos, left almost immediately on a series of military campaigns for Charles V against the French, and thus was largely absent. Francesco died in 1525 after injuries sustained in battle, and Vittoria (like her aunt) never remarried. See Abigail Brundin, ‘Colonna, Vittoria’, in Encyclopedia of Women of the Renaissance, 87–91.
37 Regarding the Ischia salon of d'Avalos and Colonna, see Robin, Diana, Publishing Women: Salons, the Presses, and the Counter-Reformation in Sixteenth-Century Italy (Chicago, 2007), 3–13Google Scholar .
38 Particularly striking is Abigail Brundin's examination of Vittoria Colonna's conception of the Virgin Mary, one of two female biblical figures the poet engages with as role model: ‘It is unusual and especially interesting that Colonna's Virgin [Mary] is allowed to speak publicly and given the role of maestra, including the capacity to create laws'. Colonna ‘asserts the female right to a public vocal role alongside men through her championing of Mary, whose powerful position is bestowed upon her and authorised by her son, the “maestro primo”, and is offered as an example to all women’. See Brundin, , Vittoria Colonna and the Spiritual Poetics of the Italian Reformation (Aldershot, 2008), 150–154, 191–192Google Scholar .
39 Although there was an English translation of 1521, sixteenth-century Italian writers do not cite Pizan's work. The island of Ischia was also envisaged as an Arcadia – memorialised in a letter by Paolo Giovio published in Sanudo's Diari – distant from the ravages of war waged by Charles V and the French army. Robin, Publishing Women, 13.
40 Alfonso d'Avalos was a warrior-courtier, poet and sponsor of the visual arts who held important military positions under Charles V. He was general at Tunis in 1535 and was governor of Milan from 1538 to 1546. He received the Order of the Golden Fleece and was granted various fiefs in southern Italy. Regarding his artistic commissions and procurement of paintings for family members, see Hollingsworth, Mary, Patronage in Sixteenth-Century Italy (London, 1996), 223–224Google Scholar , and Marjorie Och, ‘Vittoria Colonna and the Commission for a “Mary Magdalene” by Titian’, in Beyond Isabella, 193–223. D'Avalos is best known in musicological literature for his poem ‘Anchor che col partire’. Cipriano de Rore's musical setting of the poem was one of the most frequently reprinted madrigals of the century.
41 On this point, see Robin, Publishing Women, 16–17.
42 The exception, in terms of southern roots, was Giulia Gonzaga Colonna who spent her early years in northern Italy, but after marriage at the age of thirteen moved to Fondi. The castle was conveniently positioned on the Appian Road, making it a natural stop for noble persons making their way to Naples. Thus began Giulia Gonzaga's association with southern circles; she moved to Naples in 1536. See Rinaldina Russell, ‘Gonzaga, Giulia’, in Encyclopedia of Women of the Renaissance, 166–8.
43 On Giovanna d'Aragona's shrewd marriage arrangements for her children see Robin, Publishing Women, 103.
44 Ischia and Naples remained recurrent locations for these salons for the duration of these women's lives; however, at various times the noblewomen either hosted or strongly influenced salons elsewhere, basing them on the Ischia model. Before her move to Naples, Giulia Gonzaga hosted a salon at her estate at Fondi, south of Rome, where she was initially introduced to the d'Aragona–Colonna circle. Additional locations included Rome and Viterbo, with the itinerant Colonna at the helm, and Milan and Pavia (d'Aragona was situated at the former while her husband was governor of Milan). For further information see Robin, Publishing Women, esp. 38–9.
45 The second edition of Dentice's, LuigiDuo dialoghi della musica (Rome, 1553)Google Scholar describes a specifically musical ridotto at the home of Giovanna d'Aragona. The description opens the second of the two dialogues.
46 Russell, 167.
47 On this point see Renée Baernstein, P., ‘In Widow's Habit: Women between Convent and Family in Sixteenth-Century Milan’, Sixteenth Century Journal, 25/4 (1994), 789Google Scholar .
48 By age fifty it was typically considered inappropriate for a woman to remarry. After the age of fifty a woman's body was considered more ‘male’, and therefore increased respect was expected. See L. A. Botello, ‘Old Age and Women’, in Encyclopedia of Women of the Renaissance, 285–6.
49 Baernstein, 790–1.
50 Maria and Giovanna d'Aragona also spent time in separate residences, as heads of their own households.
51 As Baernstein points out (791), the notaries and ecclesiastical protectors associated with particular convents could be a useful resource for the widow, helping to make sure she received the financial remuneration that was her due.
52 Robin, Publishing Women, 26.
53 Even before Valdés's arrival, Naples was an important centre of religious reform in Italy. See Robin, ‘Aragona, Giovanna’, in Encyclopedia of Women of the Renaissance, 23. It seems likely that the reformist movement appealed to the d'Aragona–Colonna circle because of its emphasis on the doctrine of justification by faith alone. Valdés's preaching emphasised the inner dimension of religiosity, to the extent that (male-dominated) ceremonial practices and church structure became irrelevant. An emphasis on the inner spiritual life and one's direct relationship with Christ may have been an empowering experience for the d'Aragona–Colonna women, and one that resonated with the social prerogatives they already enjoyed.
54 Baernstein, 791.
55 For example, after the election of Pope Paul IV, Giovanna d'Aragona escaped Rome under cover of night after being placed under house arrest (see Robin, Publishing Women, 103). Giulia Gonzaga was the subject of several investigations because of her association with Valdés and the fact that she circulated and promoted his work (see Russell, ‘Gonzaga, Giulia’, in Encyclopedia of Women of the Renaissance, 168–9).
56 On the central importance of chastity and virginity in the promotion of Maria Magdalena's public image, especially through sponsorship of spectacle, see Harness, Echoes of Women's Voices, chap. 3. Pagan figures with ambiguous reputations such as Artemisia, Semiramis, Sophonisba and Lucretia were included as pictorial representations in the archduchess's audience room (see Harness, esp. 51–2). The closest one comes to Cleopatra is perhaps in the figure of Queen Sophonisba, whose fame stemmed from drinking poison to avoid becoming a captive of Rome; Semiramis's sexual exploits were also problematic. But as Harness points out, all four heroines are united by steadfast loyalty to their husbands, and in the cases of Semiramis and Artemisia, by continuing to secure their husbands' realms.
57 See the text for the ballo that concluded the sixth and final intermedio in Intermedii et concerti, fatti per la Commedia rappresentata in Firenze nelle nozze del Serenissimo Don Ferdinando Medici, e Madama Christiana di Loreno, Gran Duchi di Toscana (Venice, 1591), nono, 20. For a later example demonstrating how court entertainments served as a means of reifying contemporary gender ideologies, especially in relation to marriage, see Cusick, Suzanne, ‘“There was not one lady who failed to shed a tear”: Arianna's Lament and the Construction of Modern Womanhood’, Early Music, 22/1 (1994), 21–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar .
58 See Cusick, ibid., and Treadwell, Music and Wonder, 118–20.
59 Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus was known as Octavian during his military career and later known as Augustus. He is referred to here as Caesar Augustus, to distinguish him from Gaius Julius Caesar, Augustus's predecessor and great uncle, who was Cleopatra's one-time lover.
60 Hamer, Mary, ‘Queen of Denial: On the Uses of Cleopatra’, Transition, 72 (1996), 80–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar .
61 Alberto Bacchi della Lega identifies seven editions of Boccaccio's work in Italy prior to 1600 (and two in Spain) in his Serie delle edizioni delle opere di G. Boccaccio (Bologna, 1875).
62 On this point, see Ajmar, Marta, ‘Exemplary Women in Renaissance Italy: Ambivalent Models of Behaviour?’, in Women in Italian Renaissance Culture and Society, ed. Panizza, Letizia (Oxford, 2000), esp. 244–253Google Scholar . In addition, the private nature of a communication was paramount in terms of any comparison between Cleopatra and a prominent figure such as Eleonora di Toledo, Duchess of Florence. In a private letter to Duchess Eleonora from December 1560, an as-yet unidentified author provided exemplars of wise, valorous, chaste and prudent women. Included in this list was the renowned poet, the Marchesa di Pescara (Maria d'Aragona's late in-law, Vittoria Colonna) who was cast as ‘valorous', while the historical Cleopatra was the woman who ‘by her foresighted prudence, very quickly would give herself voluntary death than come into the hands of the rival enemy’. In this case, one of Cleopatra's few perceived attributes was highlighted by way of positive comparison with the duchess. Archivio di Stato, Florence, Mediceo del Principato, 487, f. 514r. Cited in Benson, Paula J., ‘Eleonora di Toledo among Famous Women: Iconographic Innovation after the Conquest of Siena, in The Cultural World of Eleonora di Toledo: Duchess of Florence and Siena, ed. Eisenbichler, Konrad (Aldershot, 2004), 136.Google Scholar
63 Tinagli, Paola, ‘Eleonora and her “Famous Sisters”: The Tradition of “Illustrious Women” in Paintings for the Domestic Interior’, in The Cultural World of Eleonora di Toledo, 124Google Scholar .
64 Betussi, Giuseppe, Libro di M. Gio. Boccaccio delle donne illustri (Venice, 1547)Google Scholar . Editions of Betussi's book were also published in 1545, 1558, 1565 and 1596. There was also an Italian translation by Luca Antonio Ridolfi (translated into French in 1551) as well as a Spanish translation (Seville, 1528) that may have been known in Neapolitan circles. I refer to the section entitled ‘Cleopatra Regina d’Egitto' in Betussi's 1547 edition (pp. 102–106). Maria d'Aragona had known Betussi as early as 1546 when he attended her veglie or evening soirees in Pavia; see Robin, Publishing Women, 109.
65 Boccaccio, Giovanni, Famous Women, trans. Brown, Virginia (Cambridge, MA, 2001), 181–182Google Scholar .
66 Perrin, Plutarch's Lives, 329–31. Boccaccio never makes mention of Cleopatra on board ship.
67 After a brief stay in Pavia after vacating the castello at Milan following her husband's death, d'Aragona promptly returned to her beloved Ischia and Naples. Robin, ‘Aragona, Maria’, Encyclopedia of Women of the Renaissance, 25.
68 See Perrin, Plutarch's Lives, 193–5, and Landi, Giulio, La vita di Cleopatra, reina d'Egitto (Venice, 1551)Google Scholar .
69 Doni was a member of Maria's Chiave d'Oro academy at Pavia, and she maintained contact with him after her return to Naples.
70 See Perrin, 329.
71 According to Brian Curran: ‘The statue was apparently already highly regarded in artistic and antiquarian circles, and the pope paid such a substantial fee for the piece that installments were still being made during the pontificate of Paul III (1534–49)’. See Curran, , The Egyptian Renaissance: The Afterlife of Ancient Egypt in Early Modern Italy (Chicago and London, 2007), 167 and 171Google Scholar .
72 For example, see Curran, 176.
73 Brummer, Hans Henrik, The Statue Court in the Vatican Belvedere (Stockholm, 1970), 216–249, 163Google Scholar .
74 The marble statue was installed on top of an ancient sarcophagus in the Vatican's Belvedere statue court. The family palazzo of Giovanna d'Aragona was but a stone's throw from the Vatican.
75 A translation of Castiglione's poem along with the original Latin can be found in Curran, 172–3, 346–7n37.
76 The engraving took place at a later date when the statue was installed in the Vatican palace. Curran, 172.
77 Curran, 175. As Curran notes, the literary conceit of the ‘speaking statue’ was a classical one, and was also particularly popular during the Renaissance when antique statues were being recovered.
78 However, according to the descrizione, the scene concludes with the various musicians singing together (although the text is not included): ‘After Phomia sang the above-written stanzas, she, together with the others, sang and played a madrigal very sweetly; and [when] finished, made her voyage [off the stage], still singing’. (‘Dopò cantate Phomia le sopra scritte stanze, ella con gli altri insieme cantarono et sonarono dolcissimamente, un madrigale, et finito, fe’ il suo vìaggio, tuttavia cantando.’) Stanze di Luigi Tansillo, n.p.
79 Perrin, 197.
80 As was usual for this repertory, the piece was published in partbooks with each musical line texted. (Only the bass and soprano partbooks survive; the tenor is missing.) However, as the description makes clear, the piece was not sung by an ensemble of singers, but by a soloist (as was typical for this kind of repertory). The remaining part/s, therefore, merely outline an instrumental accompaniment that, when realised, would have provided harmonic support for the singer.
81 Hill, Roman Monody, 63–5, 102, 105.
82 ‘Dentro la Nave iva Glepatra [sic], et Marco Antonio, et create di Cleopatra, et servi di Marco Antonio, riccamente vestiti al modo et habito Egittiaco, et Cleopatra da Regina … [L]a Regina Cleopatra era Phomia, la quale nel canto non si può comp[a]rare à cosa terrena, ma all'harmonia del Cielo … Giunta la nave al cospetto di quelle Signore[,] Cleopatra si levò in piè, et disse le sotto scritte stanze con un modo mezzo tra cantare et recitare, ad hora ad hora nel chiuder de versi intonando, non già sonando gli istrumenti, il che dava gratia et maestà.’ Stanze di Luigi Tansillo, n.p. I wish to thank Jonathan Glixon for assistance with this translation, and for sharing his thoughts regarding possible interpretations of the latter part of this passage.
83 The opening of Florio's definition for intonáre (p. 264) is most relevant here: ‘to entune, to make sound, to tune voice or instrument, to raise the voice, to resound’.
84 Franchini, Francesco, Poemata: Manna, Heroes, Italia, Germania, Gallia, Hispania, Belgae, Elegiae, Epigrammatum libri sex (Basel, 1558), 228Google Scholar . The poem is addressed to ‘Euphemia Jozola Neapolitana’: ‘While the famous Eufemia sounds her sweet songs, / And mixes learned poems with soft sounds: / Apollo stops his horses, and from the highest point of Olympus, / Surprised by the rivers of [her] liquid voice, he says: / “Let the swan yield [to her], and the nightingale, and here let the Muses surrender; / the wise girl conquers the birds and conquers the goddesses”.’ (‘Dum movet insignis dulces Euphemia cantus, / Integrat et molli carmina culta sono: / Sistit equos Phoebus, medioque; è vertice olympi / Miratus liquidae flumina vocis, ait: / Cedat olor, cedat philomela, huic cedite Musae; / Vincit aves, vincit docta puella deas.’)
85 On soft singing and the preference for the lower part of the female range during this period, see Wistreich, Richard, ‘Reconstructing pre-Romantic Singing Technique’, in The Cambridge Companion to Singing, ed. Potter, John (Cambridge, 2000), 183Google Scholar .
86 Hill, 102: ‘con varietà di passaggi nuovi e grati all'orecchie di tutti’. The translation is Hill's.
87 I:Nf, ms. SM.XXVIII.166. The relevant portion on music (ff. 79v–83v) is transcribed and translated in Larson, ‘The Unaccompanied Madrigal in Naples', Appendix G.
88 ‘Una di quale è stata la Fumia degna di memoria, e di multa lode cosi circa il modo del cantare / voce, dispositione, e gratia. Come nel porgere dele parole, qual'è una parti molto necessaria per s' in camera.’ Larson, 933, 941; I:Nf, ms. SM.XXVIII.166, ff. 82v–83r. My translation differs in some significant details from that of Larson. I wish to thank Giulio Ongaro for helping me to clarify this passage.
89 Wistreich, ‘Reconstructing pre-Romantic Singing Technique’, 186. For further information on the way disposition was cultivated see ibid., 186–90. See also Greenlee, Robert, ‘“Dispositione di voce”: Passage to Florid Singing’, Early Music, 15/1 (1987), 47–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar .
90 Wistreich, 191.
91 Hill, 65–6.
92 Treadwell, , ‘The Performance of Gender in Cavalieri/Guidiccioni's Ballo “O che nuovo miracolo” (1589)’, Women and Music: A Journal of Gender and Culture, 1 (1997), 55–70, at 56Google Scholar . See, for example, Ann Jones, Rosalind, The Currency of Eros: Women's Love Lyric in Europe, 1540–1620 (Bloomington, 1990), 1–10Google Scholar ; Phyllis Austern, Linda, ‘“Sing Againe Syren”: The Female Musician and Sexual Enchantment in Elizabethan Life and Literature’, Renaissance Quarterly, 42/3 (1989), 420–448CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; and LaMay, Thomasin, ‘Composing from the Throat: Madalena Casulana's Primo libro de madrigali, 1568’, in Musical Voices of Early Modern Women: Many-Headed Melodies, ed. LaMay, (Aldershot, 2005), 365–398Google Scholar .
93 D'Aragona's Cleopatra is by no means completely de-sexualised, however, as references at the opening of stanza seven and the conclusion of stanza nine attest (see the Appendix). On the whole, though, d'Aragona's Cleopatra is presented as faithfully attached to Antony. More commonly, however, Cleopatra was known for a sexuality that was dominant or autonomous. The image of Cleopatra controlling her own death with the asps – referred to in Tansillo's third stanza – had erotic connotations in other contexts. The many pictorial images of a naked Cleopatra with the asp(s) at or near her breasts bespoke a challenging autoeroticism. On this point, see Hamer, Mary, Signs of Cleopatra: History, Politics, Representation (London, 1993), 34–35Google Scholar . For a sixteenth-century pictorial example, see ‘Cleopatra's Suicide’ by Giampetrino (Louvre, Paris) reproduced in Lawner, Lynne, Lives of the Courtesans: Portraits of the Renaissance (New York, 1987), 108Google Scholar . Other representations of Cleopatra bespeak a different kind of appropriation of male prerogative. For example, in Paris Bordone's Portrait of a Woman as Cleopatra (Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore), the Egyptian queen is depicted as a courtesan solemnly gazing at the viewer, and rigidly holding the asp at arm's length, controlling what is arguably in this context a phallic symbol, but also a symbol of her self-determined destiny. The painting is reproduced in Lawner, 34.
94 As suggested by Cleopatra's reference to the river Lethe in stanza ten, Antony and Cleopatra's relationship is posited as a model of strength and sustainability that might be mirrored by a noblewoman's love for her dead husband. In the Latin poetic tradition, the water of Lethe in Hades was drunk by souls before their reincarnation, ensuring that their previous existence was erased from memory. In stanza ten, the implication is that, despite taking the water of Lethe, Cleopatra and Mark Antony did not lose all memory of one another, which was a testament to the strength of their love.
95 Baernstein, ‘In Widow's Habit’, 789.
96 In addition, the Colonna family, like the Borgia clan, had a long history of claiming descent from Egyptian ancestors. This speaks to the complex relationship between Renaissance humanists and their perceptions of ancient Egypt. An association with the latter could be used to claim ancient roots (as a form of legitimisation) or alternatively to claim superiority by invoking an East–West dichotomy. Regarding the claims of the Colonna family to have descended from Egyptian deities see Curran, The Egyptian Renaissance, 143, 255, 260, 263.
97 Curran, 173. The ‘eternal tears' of which Castiglione writes also related to the Belvedere Cleopatra's positioning in a fountain, which indeed made the statue's tears incessant.
98 See the Appendix, stanza ten.
99 Passero mentions the location as the city of Pisa because Pisa was the setting for Piccolomini's Alessandro.