Women and the Circulation of Texts in Renaissance Italy

Brian Richardson, University of Leeds

A lecture by
Brian Richardson, University of Leeds

During the Italian Renaissance, women became more prominent as authors and as patrons, and new works argued in favor of their worth and abilities. But how far could laywomen and nuns take part in the processes of circulating texts from authors to readers or listeners? How did women go about publishing their own works in manuscript or print? How did they influence, directly or indirectly, the publication of works by men? Which texts might women copy by hand? How far could they become involved in the more public business of making and selling printed books? The talk will conclude by considering how women might acquire books and in what circumstances they might hear verse performed.

Brian Richardson is Emeritus Professor of Italian Language at the University of Leeds. His research interests center on the histories of language and literature in late medieval and Renaissance Italy. He has edited texts relating to the language debates of the sixteenth century and has studied textual editing and the uses of print, manuscript, and orality. His books include Print Culture in Renaissance Italy: The Editor and the Vernacular Text, 1470- 1600 (Cambridge, 1994); Printing, Writers, and Readers in Renaissance Italy (Cambridge, 1999), and Manuscript Culture in Renaissance Italy (Cambridge, 2009).

Presented with NYU Italian Studies and NYU Medieval and Renaissance Center.

In ENGLISH.

From the Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimo.