From the Male-Centered Accademia Pontaniana in Naples to the D’Avalos: Colonna’s ‘Cenacolo’ on Ischia

• In Event: Learned and Literary Women in Italy and France: Academies, Epistolarity

Abstract

During the first decades of the sixteenth century — a period of political and religious turmoil in Italy — two women, Costanza d’Avalos, the chatelaine of the castle of Ischia together with her niece by marriage Vittoria Colonna, hosted literary gatherings on Ischia, bringing together male humanists and inviting them to read aloud their writings and to converse among themselves. Poets from various circles were invited to take part in these gatherings. For those coming from Rome, Ischia was considered a sort of Arcadia for them — a place far from politics and conflict. This paper will concentrate on the group of participants coming from Naples who were members of various phases of the Accademia Pontaniana, (such as Sannazaro, Chariteo, Gravina, Antonio Minturno and Scipione Capece) and on the shift from an all male academy to a new social setting which included the presence of women.

Author

• Shulamit Furstenberg-Levi, International Studies Institute of Florence