Abstract
Gianbattista Giraldi’s work is examined in this chapter, where the author explores his relationship as Ercole II’s secretary and playwright with the duchess. Tracing the powerful female tradition of patronage from her mother, Anne de Bretagne, and godmother Anne de France to Louise de Savoie and the latter’s daughter, Marguerite de Navarre, Pieri shows the ways in which Renata’s involvement enriched the Este cultural and intellectual legacy in Ferrara. Renata was particularly fond of theater, from the writing and reading of plays to their staging and production, and Pieri demonstrates her affinities with Giraldi, including personally experiencing the Counter-Reformation’s invasive demands. After offering a short history of the theater (and its stagnation) in Ferrara under Alfonso I, Pieri observes a theatrical renaissance thanks to Ercole II’s and Renata’s patronage and advocacy: the number of representations and the use of the Italian language increased, and theater became a family affair as the young Este children acted in a play to entertain Pope Paul II. Furthermore, through his œuvre, Giraldi built and reinvigorated the Este theater and stage with strong female protagonists that embodied Renata’s and her close friends’ lives and stories. Indeed, Pieri argues that a close reading of Giraldi’s work reveals a strong and stoic duchessa on equal footing, both intellectually and politically, with the duke.
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Notes
- 1.
Eleonora Belligni, Renata di Francia (1510–1575). Un’eresia di corte (Turin: UTET, 2011), 200.
- 2.
These courts’ influence was due to the prestige of the bride’s family, but the true distinction was economic, as it had to do with the presence of salaried employees. Eleonora, as the first lady of Ferrara after Borso d’Este’s long celibate, started the tradition by relocating in a separate wing in Castelvecchio, where she kept only few Neapolitan courtiers, chosen by her husband and assimilated. Lucrezia’s following, on the other hand, seemed to many to be too Spanish and expensive. Renata’s entourage was chosen by François I, to whom reported the Soubise family, and included a fixed number of salaried employees, as well as a guaranteed welcome and support to her dowry lands’ countrymen and women. Renata’s account books were hidden from her husband, according to French chancery rules, and his attempts to insert one of his trusted employees and interrupt the flux of resources and people that surrounded his wife failed continuously. See Chiara Franceschini, “La corte di Renata di Francia (1528–1560),” Storia di Ferrara, Il Rinascimento. Situazioni e personaggi, Vol. 6, ed. Adriano Prosperi (Ferrara: Corbo, 2000), 186–214.
- 3.
For Anne de Bretagne and Anne de France’s complex relationship and their specific feminine pedagogy which they created, see Elodie Lequain, “Anne de France et les livres: la tradition et le pouvoir,” in Patronnes et mécènes en France à la Renaissance, ed. Kathleen Wilson-Chevalier (Paris: Publications de l’Université de Saint-Etienne, 2007), 155–168, Tracy Adams, “Rivals or Friends? Anne de France and Anne de Bretagne,” in Women in French, Special Issue (2010): 46–61, and Zita Rohr, “Rocking the Cradle and Ruling the World: Queens’ Households in Late Medieval and Early Modern Aragon and France,” in Royal and Elite Households in Medieval and Early Modern Europe. More than Just a Castle, ed. Theresa Earenfight (Boston: Brill, 2018), 309–337.
- 4.
Many studies have analyzed, from various perspectives, the presence and influence of women in power during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance focusing on juridical, gender, and anthropological questions. See in particular Craig Taylor, “The Salic Law, French Queenship and the Defense of Women,” French Historical Studies, 29, no. 4 (2004): 543–564, Fanny Cosandey, “De Lance en quenouille. La place de la reine dans l’état moderne, XVIe-XVIIe siècles,” Annales, Histoire, Sciences Sociales, 52, no. 4 (1997): 799–820, and Theresa Earenfight, “A Lifetime of Power: Beyond Binaries of Gender,” in Medieval Elite Women and the Exercise of Power, 1100–1400. The New Middle Ages, ed. Heather J. Tanner (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), 543–564. See also the editor’s introduction to the volume Medieval Elite Women and the Exercise of Power, 1–18, for a compelling methodological frame to these questions.
- 5.
On Calvin’s relationship with Renée, see also Dick Wursten, Robert Hudson’s, and Kelly Peebles’s contributions to this volume.
- 6.
On the religious influences of Renée’s youth, see Kathleen Wilson-Chevalier’s first contribution to this volume.
- 7.
See Luigi Suttina, “Commedie, feste e giuochi a Roma e Ferrara presso il cardinale Ippolito d’Este nel carnevale degli anni 1540 e 1547,” Giornale Storico della Letteratura Italiana 99 (1932): 279–284 and Ippolito II d’Este cardinale, principe, mecenate, ed. Marina Cogotti and Francesco Paolo Fiore, (Rome: De Luca, 2013).
- 8.
Unfortunately, though, not a line was found from Boiardo’s vulgarizations, and not even from the Menaechmi, the Aulularia, the Andria, the Eunuco, nor the Formio translated by Ludovico Ariosto. Giovan Battista Giraldi, also known as Cinzio, notes that, in order to finish the Andria and the Eunuco, “su quella meravigliosa scena che per simili rappresentazioni già avea fatto apparecchiare sua Eccellenzia per la rappresentazione della Cassaria,” “non gli bastò nondimeno il poco tempo che gli fu dato a tradurre quelle favole in verso. Perché i versi non si sputano né si gittano a stampa ma vogliono in lunghezza di tempo molta considerazione” (on that marvelous scene, which for similar shows had already convened His Excellency for the representation of Cassaria. The little time that was given to him to translate the fables into verses was nonetheless not enough. Because verses are not to be spit out nor thrown into the press, but need much time and consideration). G. B. Giraldi, Lettera sulla tragedia, in Trattati di poetica e retorica del Cinquecento, vol. 1, ed. Bernard Weinberg (Bari: Laterza, 1970), 4. Also, Celio Calcagnini, when writing his Miles glorious, was forced by Alfonso to assign the parts one by one as he was translating them.
- 9.
In 1570, for example, Zan Ganassa is the star at the wedding of Renée and Ercole’s daughter, Lucrezia d’Este, and Francesco Maria II, duke of Urbino. See Sergio Monaldini, “Visioni di comico: Alfonso II, la corte estense e la Commedia dell’arte,” Maske und Kothurn 50, no. 3 (2004): 45–64.
- 10.
See the example of Gabriele Bombace’s tragedy, Alidoro, which was sumptuously performed in Reggio in 1568, and of which remains a print copy of its success, thoroughly recounted, but not the text itself. Guarini, in particular, defends the survival of his Idropica and Pastor Fido, among lost copies and deferred performances. See Marzia Pieri, “Idropiche fra corte, accademia e tipografie: il nuovo pubblico di Guarini,” in ‘Rime’ e ‘Lettere’ di Battista Guarini, Atti del Convegno di Studi, Padova, 5–6 dicembre 2003, ed. Maria Da Rif, (Alessandria: Edizioni dell’Orso, 2008), 475–504.
- 11.
Giraldi Cinzio, Commentario delle cose di Ferrara et de’ principi da Este di M. Giovambattista Giraldi Gentilhuomo ferrarese eccc, tratto dall’epitome di M Gregorio Giraldi tradotto da Lodovico Domenichi (Venice: Giovanni de’ Rossi, 1556), 162.
- 12.
Giraldi, Commentario delle cose di Ferrara, 162.
- 13.
“Non haveva il Duca Hercole lettere latine, percioché essendo egli stato travagliato troppo dalla fortuna, non ci havea potuto metter l’animo. Ma sapendo benissimo come la cognitione delle lettere è di grandissima utilità a’ principi grandi, per governare se stessi e i popoli loro, stimò sempre molto i professori delle buone lettere, e da loro con animo ingordissimo cercava d’imparare i modi di signoreggiare giustamente le cagioni delle cose, e la cognitione di tutte l’historie antiche” (the Duke Hercole did not have Latin letters, therefore, being occupied with bad luck, he couldn’t put his mind to it. But knowing very well how being educated is of great importance to princes, in order to govern themselves and their people, he had always esteemed very much the professors of letters, and from them, with an eager soul, he sought to learn the ways to govern in a just way the ways of things, and the knowledge of all ancient things), Giraldi Cinzio, Commentario delle cose, 110.
- 14.
Giraldi Cinzio, Commentario delle cose, 155.
- 15.
In Discorso intorno alla lingua, this judgment also pertains to the Ferrara comedies, including Ariosto’s. See the edition by Paolo Trovato (Padua: Antenore, 1982), 63.
- 16.
“Né solamente il Duca Hercole si dilettò di così fatte lettere, ma talmente favorì la commedia, che con grandissime spese, e reale apparato rinovò i giuochi delle scene, il cui uso s’era dismesso affatto al suo tempo. Et già havea cominciata a provedere un bellissimo luogo a’ posteri per recitare quelle favole, et lo avrebbe fornito, se la crudel morte non havesse rotto i suoi disegni. Percioché l’anno 1504 e del suo principato 33 a 16 di gennaio, quel giorno ch’egli haveva apparecchiato di far recitare una comedia al popolo, che passava settanta anni della sua vita, venne a morte” (not only did the Duke Hercole enjoy learning about letters, but he so much favored comedy, that with great expenses and real apparatus renewed the acts on stage, whose usage had ended for a while. And he had already started to provide a beautiful place for those stories to be rehearsed, and he would have completed this, had not cruel death broken his design. Therefore, in the year 1504 and 33 in his dukedom, on January 13, that day in which he had prepared to have a comedy played in front of his people, when he was 70, he died), Giraldi, Commentario delle cose, 112.
- 17.
See Angelo Solerti, “La vita ferrarese nella prima metà del secolo decimosesto descritta da Agostino Mosti,” Atti e Memorie delle Province di Romagna, series III, vol. 10 (Bologna: s.n., 1891–1892), 171.
- 18.
See Solerti, La vita ferrarese nella prima metà del secolo decimosesto, 180.
- 19.
Strabellino described to Isabella d’Este the ladies’ “scuffiotti d’oro in testa” (gold embellishments in their hair), as well as the garb and ornaments of the foreigners. It was the first mark of the desire to Italianize the duchess which would also become a source of conflict between the duke and Madame de Soubise. See Rosanna Gorris, “‘D’un château l’autre’: la corte di Renata di Francia a Ferrara (1528–1560),” Il palazzo di Renata di Francia, ed. Loredana Olivato Puppi (Ferrara: Cassa di Risparmio di Ferrara, 1997), 150 and Benedetto Fontana, Renata di Francia, duchessa di Ferrara: sui documenti dell’archivio Estense, del Mediceo, del Gonzaga e dell’archivio segreto Vaticano, vol. 1 (Rome: Forzani, 1889), 75.
- 20.
Fontana, Renata di Francia, vol. 1, 69.
- 21.
Fontana, Renata di Francia, vol. 1, 69.
- 22.
The festivities and efforts did not go unnoticed and on January 13, François I wrote Alfonso a letter in which he expressed his satisfaction regarding the wonderful welcome that his sister-in-law received, which was promptly referred to him. Fontana, Renata di Francia, 90.
- 23.
Fontana, Renata di Francia, 83.
- 24.
Fontana, Renata di Francia, 99. We know little of the foreign translations of some of the Italian plays prepared for a foreign public, such as Orbecche in French, commissioned by François I, Altile in Spanish performed in Parma, or Sofonisba by Trissino, performed in Blois in 1556.
- 25.
See Michele Catalano, Vita di Ludovico Ariosto ricostruita su nuovi documenti, Vol. 1 (Geneva: Olschki, 1931), 584.
- 26.
Fontana, Renata di Francia, vol. 1, 154.
- 27.
See Il libro del Cortegiano, ed. Ettore Bonora (Milan: Mursia, 1976), book 1, chapter 42, 84.
- 28.
See Marguerite de Navarre, Les comédies bibliques, ed. Barbara Marczuk (Geneva: Droz, 2000). The representations started in the 1540s at the small court of Nérac, but the tradition to dramatize sacred texts in the form of jeus or ludi with a joyful ending started in the convents. This tradition did not intersect with the humanistic discovery of classical theater. Brantôme writes that Marguerite would compose comedies and moral and pastoral novels: “qu’elle faisoit jouer et représenter par des filles de sa court” (that she would have performed and interpreted by the girls at her court) and that she had staged a comedy for her husband: “une traduction tragicomique” (a translated tragi-comedy) of almost the entire Testament. See Les Comédies bibliques, 19. This type of short and lyric private mysthères, with few characters and numerous monologues, show an aristocratic theatrical background destined to be inexorably included in the arrival of classical dramaturgy, which would survive in the tradition of the northern Protestant rhetoric. In some of Giraldi’s scenes, Renata could have found some of these same characteristics.
- 29.
See Bernardo Dovizi il Bibbiena, Calandra, ed. G. Padoan (Padua: Antenore, 1985), 235.
- 30.
This detail was noted in a document edited in March 1549 which is no longer available, and which contained Particolare descrizione della Comedia che fece recitare la Nazione Fiorentina a richiesta di Sua Maestà Cristianissima, according to Italian nuptial pamphlets which published the notice of marriage. See Dovizi il Bibbiena, Calandra, 214.
- 31.
See Gorris, “‘Jean Baptiste Giraldy Cynthien gentilhomme ferrarois’: il Cinthio in Francia,” Giovan Battista Giraldi Cinzio gentiluomo ferrarese, ed. Paolo Cherchi, Micaela Rinaldi and Mariangela Tempera (Florence: Olschki, 2008), 77–129, who sees Renata’s influence on Giraldi’s earlier fortune in France.
- 32.
The architect Sebastiano Serlio, a pupil of Baldassarre Peruzzi, settled in France in the 1540s, invited by François I to work on the construction of the château de Fontainebleau; after the king’s death, in 1547 he moved from Paris to Lyon in the service of Ippolito d’Este and devoted himself to intense theoretical work; his Secondo libro di Perspectiva, published in Paris in 1545, is a fundamental treatise on scenography, enriched by three famous engravings related to the comic, tragic, and satirical scene, that summarizes and disseminates the models of the Italian spectacle. The text can be read in Lo spettacolo dall’Umanesimo al Manierismo. Teoria e tecnica, ed. Ferruccio Marotti (Milan: Feltrinelli, 1974), 190–205.
- 33.
The works of Christoforo di Messisbugo, Ercole II’s superintendent of feasts, were printed a year after his death in 1549, by Giovanni de Buglhat and Antonio Hucher, and describe his vast experience in the matter of scalcheria, that is, cutting of meat, culinary recipes, and the organization of court banquets. A modern edition by Ferdinando Bandini was printed in Venice by Neri Pozza in 1992.
- 34.
See also Guillaume Berthon’s and Robert J. Hudson’s contributions to this volume.
- 35.
See Severi, Sitibondo nel stampar de’ libri. Niccolò Zoppino tra libro volgare, letteratura cortigiana e questione della lingua. Rome: Vecchiarelli.
- 36.
See Gorris, “D’un château l’autre,” 145, and “‘Donne ornate di scienza e di virtù’: donne e francesi alla corte di Renata di Francia,” Schifanoia, 28–29 (2005), 175–205.
- 37.
See Gorris, “D’un château l’autre,” 146.
- 38.
Ernesto Masi, I Burlamacchi e di alcuni documenti intorno a Renata d’Este duchessa di Ferrara (Bologna: Zanichelli, 1876), 232.
- 39.
See G. B. Giraldi Cinzio, Scritti critici, ed. Camillo Guerrieri Crocetti (Milan: Marzorati, 1973), 278.
- 40.
G. B. Giraldi, Lettera sulla tragedia, 241–242.
- 41.
See Franceschini, La corte di Renata di Francia, 197.
- 42.
For Carpi and his paintings, see Wilson-Chevalier’s contribution in this volume. See also Alessandra Pattanaro, Girolamo da Carpi. Ritratti (Padua: Bertoncelli Arti Grafiche, 2000). To the painting’s ekphrasis, whose location remains unknown, Giraldi dedicates his composition Poematia entitled Renata Parthenia. See Gorris, “J.B. Giraldy Cinthien gentilhomme Ferrarois,” 83.
- 43.
A famous example is that of the recitals in the 1513 carnival at the court of Urbino, which alternated Bibbiena’s Calandra and Nicola Grasso’s Eutychia recited by gentlemen, and a lost comedy by 14-year-old Guidubaldo Rugiero recited by children.
- 44.
The letter is addressed to Cardinal Gonzaga. See Fontana, Renata di Francia, vol. 2, 90.
- 45.
Ercole II wrote that, after dinner, the pope was invited to attend a comedy in which Anna (13) played the lover, Alfonso (10) another lover, Lucrezia (8) the choir, Eleonora (6) a young lady, and Luigi (5) a servant. Fontana, Renata di Francia, vol. 2, 182–183.
- 46.
For more on Sinapio, also known as Johannes Sinapius, or Senff, and his connection to Renée’s court and to Jean Calvin, see Dick Wursten’s contribution to this volume.
- 47.
See Federica Ambrosini, “Literarum studia nobis communia”: Olimpia Morata e la corte di Renata di Francia,” Olimpia Morata: cultura umanistica e Riforma protestante tra Ferrara e l’Europa, Schifanoia 28–29 (2005): 207–232, especially 212.
- 48.
Orbecche’s tragic realism quickly became popular in France through Renata’s circle, thus nourishing a mystic and millenarian current of “cruelty tragedies” continuous with the years of civil wars and inaugurated by Edouard du Monin’s Orbec-Oronte. See Rosanna Gorris, “La tragedia della crudeltà,” Dalla tragedia rinascimentale alla tragicommedia barocca, ed. Elio Mosele (Fasano: Schena Editore,1993), 294–309.
- 49.
It was Anne de Parthenay’s wedding to Anthoine de Pons in 1533, and Sinapio’s wedding to Françoise de Boussiron in 1539 that Giraldi celebrated, although the de Pons would be sent back to France by Ercole in 1544. See Gorris, “J.B. Giraldy Cinthien gentilhomme Ferrarois,” 182.
- 50.
Guy Lébatteux notes Giraldi’s rise as a member of the lower nobility, who arrives to the Este court from the Studio as a philosopher and scientist, and then becomes a literato. In his social and economic climbing are involved a series of individuals who were loyal to Renata in not only mundane and political ways, but also in ethical and idealistic ways, including Celio Calcagnini, Anton Musa Brasavola, Bernardo Tasso, Renata’s secretary until 1531, Francesco Porto and his uncle, Lilio Gregorio Giraldi, Diana Ariosti, who was Antoine de Pons’s tutor. See Lébatteux, “Idéologie monarchique et propagande dynastique dans l’oeuvre de Giambattista Giraldi Cinthio,” Les écrivains et le pouvoir en Italie à l’époque de la Renaissance (deuxième série), ed. André Rochon (Paris: CNRS, 1974), 243–312.
- 51.
See Teatro del Cinquecento. La tragedia, ed. R. Cremante, vol. 1 (Milan-Naples: Ricciardi, 1997), 438–439.
- 52.
Dell’Hercole di M. Giovanbattista Giraldi Nobile Ferrarese (Modena: Gadaldini, 1557), 121, 138.
- 53.
See Giovan Battista Giraldi Cinzio, De Ferraria et Atestinis principibus commentariolum ex Lilii Gregorii Gyraldi epitome deductum (Ferrara: per Franciscum Rubeum, 1556), 70v. See also Giraldi’s sonnet in Gabriella Scarlatta’s chapter in this volume.
- 54.
See Riccardo Bruscagli, G. B. Giraldi: comico, satirico, tragico, Stagioni della civiltà estense (Pisa: Nistri-Lischi, 1983), 167.
- 55.
See “Discorso over lettera di messer Giovambattista Giraldi Cinthio, nobile ferrarese et segretario dell’illustrissimo Duca di Ferrara, a messer Giulio Pontio Ponzoni, intorno al comporre delle comedie et delle tragedie,” in G. B. Giraldi Cinthio, Discorsi intorno al comporre rivisti dall’autore nell’esemplare ferrarese Cl. I 90, ed. Susanna Villari (Messina: Centro Interdipartimentale di Studi Umanistici, 2002), 306.
- 56.
“Discorso over lettera,” 300.
- 57.
See for example the letter of November 3, 1549, where Giraldi reassures the duke about the preparations for the staging of Antivalomeni. See G.B Giraldi, Carteggio, ed. Susanna Villari (Messina: Sicania, 1966), 237. For Giraldi’s staging, see Pieri, “Mettere in scena la tragedia. Le prove del Giraldi,” Schifanoia 12 (1992): 129–142, and Scenery, Set and Staging in the Italian Renaissance Studies in the Practice of Theatre, ed. Christopher Cairns (New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 1996).
- 58.
In fact, Zibaldone’s actor Stefanelo Botarga filled with Giraldi material. See Maria del Valle Ojeda Calvo, Stefanelo Botarga e Zan Ganassa. Scenari e zibaldoni di comici italiani nella Spagna del Cinquecento (Rome: Bulzoni, 2007). Furthermore, Angelo Ingegneri “erases” Giraldi from the dramaturgical canon in his 1598 treaty Della poesia rappresentativa e del modo di rappresentare le favole sceniche.
- 59.
Giraldi himself, in his long revision of his Discorso sulle commedie hesitates to enter the critical analysis of the comic vis of the classical writers, adding and deleting in indecisive terms his notes. See Villari, “Premessa” to G. B. Giraldi Cinthio, Discorsi intorno al comporre, XC–XCI.
- 60.
G. B. Giraldi, Discorso, 205. The gentleman, who was already one of Ariosto’s friends and an illustrious member of the Elevati academy, had written a tragedy, Arianna, and various “gentili et molto giudiciose comedie” (refined and very serious comedies), among them Il Geloso and I fantasmi (a rewriting of Plautus’s Mostellaria), which dated from the 1530s, were edited in Venice in 1544 by Domenichi, with a dedication to Alberto Lollio.
- 61.
See Giraldi, Discorso, 234.
- 62.
The chronology of his compositions has not always been determined for sure, also because the author comes back to his writings at various stages, with several rehearsals and preliminary tests of public readings. Orbecche was composed and rehearsed at various stages, in 1541, then published in 1543. Didone was read in 1541, Altile’s announced representation in 1543 was compromised by the murder of the main actor, and therefore did not materialize until 1545. Cleopatra, composed in 1543, was not represented until 1555 (or maybe before), and Egle was prepared in 1545 and edited a bit later. In 1548, after a short pause, Antivalomeni was represented and Eudemoni was written. Selene and Eufimia were represented several times in 1547 and 1560; Arrenopia was represented in front of Alfonso II in 1563 and Epitia, which was never represented, was written between 1543 and 1554.
- 63.
This is the dazzling judgment by Cesare Garboli in Volume 5 of Enciclopedia dello Spettacolo, Florence (Rome: Sansoni, 1958).
- 64.
This is also the hypothesis of Paola Cosentino, “Tragiche eroine,” Italique. Poésie italienne de la Renaissance 9 (2006): 69–99, and Corinne Lucas, “Le personnage de la reine dans le théâtre de Giraldi Cinzio,” in La corte di Ferrara e il suo mecenatismo, 1441–1598, ed. Marianne Pade, Lene Waage Petersen, and Daniela Quarta (Modena: Panini: 1990), 283–300. See also the more recent contributions by Irene Romera Pintor, “Las heroinas tràgicas del teatro de Giraldi Cinthio,” and by Villari, “Le eroine ‘tragiche’ delle novelle giraldiane,” Eroine tragiche nel Rinascimento, ed. Sandra Clerc and Umberto Motta (Bologna: EMIL, 2019), 175–200 and 201–220.
- 65.
The decree gave authority to the priest and no longer to the spouses’ agreement the potestas to officially ratify the validity of the wedding, thus annulling almost completely the lawfulness of the clandestine weddings. Several years ago, I discussed this topic in an essay, “La strategia edificante degli Ecatommiti” Esperienze letterarie 3 (1978): 43–74. Riccardo Bruscagli, however, has persuasively debunked my theory, showing that, on the contrary, Giraldi still lives in a rigorous and pre-tridentine regime. “Il racconto del matrimonio negli Ecatommiti di Giraldi Cinzio,” Studi di Letteratura Italiana per Vitilio Masiello, ed. Pasquale Guaragnella and Marco Santagata (Bari: Laterza 2006), 553–575. This is an additional confirmation of how recently the documents and historiography about Giraldi’s context have been enriched, but also muddled.
- 66.
This enthusiastic judgment is expressed in a 1552 letter to Bartolomeo Ricci. See Gorris, “D’un château l’autre,” 145.
- 67.
This lamentation, 33 verses long, appears as an appendix of elevated oration when compared to the main plot: “Che serà più di me, poi che perduta / ho la reina mia? Misera, dove / porò girar la mente perch’ io possa / trovar conforto a questo grave affanno? / Non è per me più questa corte, poi / che non vi è chi era la mia certa speme. / [….] Che debbo far io, che mi nacqui nana? / Io son sì in dubbio di me stessa ch’io / esser non vorrei nata; o non vorrei, / poi che pur nacqui, esser venuta a questa / corte infelice, poi che non ci è quella / alma gentil che noi faceva liete, / e tutte siamo in preda a questo cane. / […] ritornar voglio alla mia patria antica / et in vita privata, col mio padre / e con la madre mia, starmi più tosto / che star qui in corte, ove mi tremi sempre / nel petto il cor per la continua tema / che debbiam tutte aver di questa fiera.” (What will become of me, since I have lost / my queen. Wretched, where / can I turn to find comfort / for this grave sorrow? / This court is no longer for me, since / there is no longer what was my true hope. / […] What should I do, I, who was born a dwarf? / I am in such doubt of myself that / I wish I hadn’t been born; or do not want, since I was born, to have come to this / unhappy court, since that kind soul / is no longer here, she, who made us happy, / and we are all at the mercy of this dog. / […] I want to go back to my homeland / and in private life, with my father / and with my mother, feel more at home / than staying here at court, where my heart constantly / shivers in my chest for the continuous fear / that we all should have of this situation.) See Giraldi, Eufimia. An Italian Renaissance Tragedy, ed. Philip Horne (New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 2003), 154.
- 68.
See Belligni, Renata di Francia, 96.
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Pieri, M. (2021). Renata di Francia and the Theater: Some Hypotheses. In: Peebles, K.D., Scarlatta, G. (eds) Representing the Life and Legacy of Renée de France. Queenship and Power. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-69121-9_8
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