Paternal Tyranny

Arcangela Tarabotti

Published by University of Chicago Press 2004

Paternal Tyranny

Arcangela Tarabotti

Translated by: Letizia Panizza

In the series The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe

https://doi.org/10.7208/9780226789675

Overview
Contents

About this book

Sharp-witted and sharp-tongued, Arcangela Tarabotti (1604-52) yearned to be formally educated and enjoy an independent life in Venetian literary circles. But instead, at sixteen, her father forced her into a Benedictine convent. To protest her confinement, Tarabotti composed polemical works exposing the many injustices perpetrated against women of her day.

Paternal Tyranny, the first of these works, is a fiery but carefully argued manifesto against the oppression of women by the Venetian patriarchy. Denouncing key misogynist texts of the era, Tarabotti shows how despicable it was for Venice, a republic that prided itself on its political liberties, to deprive its women of rights accorded even to foreigners. She accuses parents of treating convents as dumping grounds for disabled, illegitimate, or otherwise unwanted daughters. Finally, through compelling feminist readings of the Bible and other religious works, Tarabotti demonstrates that women are clearly men's equals in God's eyes.

An avenging angel who dared to speak out for the rights of women nearly four centuries ago, Arcangela Tarabotti can now finally be heard.

Author information

Letizia Panizza is a research fellow in the Department of Italian at Royal Holloway, University of London. She is the editor of Women in Italian Renaissance Culture and Society and coeditor of A History of Women's Writing in Italy. She also wrote the introduction to Lucrezia Marinella's The Nobility and Excellence of Women and the Defects and Vices of Men, published by the University of Chicago Press.

Reviews

"This scathing treatise by a seventeenth-century Venetian nun . . . should make uneasy reading for historians, theologians, Catholics, fathers, mothers, and brothers alike, as it exposes a system whereby daughters in Counter-Reformation Venice were 'imprisoned' in convents as nuns. . . . It is unusual to hear quite so loudly and clearly what a woman (let alone a nun) thought of her life in seventeenth-century Catholic Europe."

— Kate Lowe, Journal of Ecclesiastical History

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
CONTENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	v
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
THE OTHER VOICE IN EARLY MODERN EUROPE: INTRODUCTION TO THE SERIES Margaret L. King and Albert Rabil Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
VOLUME EDITOR’S BIBLIOGRAPHY Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	33
PATERNAL TYRANNY Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	37
APPENDIX ONE: ARCANGELA TARABOTTI Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	155
APPENDIX TWO: FERRANTE PALLAVICINO Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	158
SERIES EDITOR’S BIBLIOGRAPHY Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	163
INDEX Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	173

Language: English
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 211
Keywords: womens issues; woman; feminism; feminist; 1600s; history; historical; renaissance; venice; venetian; literary; literature; writer; writing; academic; scholarly; italy; italian; convent; nun; benedictine; polemics; polemical; injustice; justice; manifesto; oppression; patriarchy; misogynist; argument; controversial; republic; liberty; politics; political; religion; bible; catholic; catholicism

eBook

Published: November 1, 2007
ISBN: 9780226789675