Arcangela Tarabotti

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Arcangela Tarabotti OSB , born Elena Cassandra Tarabotti (* February 24, 1604 in Venice , † February 28, 1652 ), was a Venetian Benedictine and writer. She corresponded with important contemporaries, among other things, about the legality of the forced placement of girls and women in nunneries in the Republic of Venice , the cause of which was the marriage system with its exorbitant endowments, but also about the rejection of the claim that women are not people.

Life

Elena Cassandra Tarabotti was born as the daughter of Stefano Tarabotti and Maria Cadena in Castello , one of the six districts ( Sestieri ) of Venice. She was one of eleven children and the eldest of six daughters. Elena Cassandra was chosen for the monastery at a young age, possibly related to her poor marriage prospects. Sometimes she calls herself "zoppa" (lame).

The former Sant'Anna church in Venice, 2012

Elena Tarabotti entered the convent of the Benedictine Sisters of Sant'Anna in Castello as an oblate in 1617 and was dressed as a novice three years later . She received the religious name Arcangela ("Archangel"). In 1629 she was consecrated as a virgin .

In her writings she spoke out clearly against the compulsory stay of women in monasteries and against the fact that women were systematically withheld from education; at the same time, she expressed regret that her own inadequate knowledge of Latin could give rise to criticism. Arcangela wrote a total of at least six works, four of which were published during her lifetime. She corresponded with Giovan Francesco Loredan (1607–1661), one of the founders of the Accademia degli Incogniti , who supported her in her publications.

Tarabotti first wrote the Tirannia paterna and the Inferno monacale , which attacked the said forced residences. However, the Tirannia paterna was only printed posthumously in 1654 and appeared under the pseudonym "Galerana Baratotti". She also accused the government of not cracking down on this institute and reproached the fathers for cheating on their daughters for their lives. The Inferno Monacale describes the path from the handover of the daughters under unfounded promises to the inner numbness. But Tarabotti was unable to publish this work either during her lifetime. Even when she tried in France, it failed.

But in 1643 she managed to publish the Paradiso monacale . In it she praised the monastery as the appropriate place for those women for whom this path was the right one. She also managed to gain a foothold in literary circles via this comparatively moderate work. She corresponded with Angelico Aprosio , Loredano and Francesco Pona (1595–1655).

In 1641 she turned against the satirical work Contro 'l lusso donnesco satira menippea from 1638 by Francesco Buoninsegni by writing the Antisatira , a work that she was able to publish anonymously. In it she turned all accusations against women against men without sparing with ridicule. But since she also included religious institutions in her satire and turned against men in general, she lost a number of supporters. This is how counter- writings arose, such as Girolamo Brusoni's Antisatira satirizzata , which Tarabotti described as "the best" of these writings, but with clear irony. Another former proponent threatened to divulge her real identity. However, with the help of her correspondent, she was able to prevent publication. Soon she accused Brusoni of stealing ideas from her in order to write his Amori tragici , which also dealt with caged nuns.

Finally, in 1650, Tarabotti published the Lettere familiari e di complimento . It turned out that, despite the prohibition of writing on nuns, she maintained extensive correspondence with numerous scholars, including Vittoria della Rovere in Florence, to whom she had dedicated the Antisatira , and Cardinal Mazarin in Paris. She also corresponded with her brother-in-law Giacomo Pighetti, with her sisters and friends in Venice and Bologna , then with the French ambassador Henri Bretel de Grémonville and his family, but then also with Renée de Clermont-Galerande . With Le lagrime (the tears) she composed a collection of letters in honor of Regina Donà, who died as a nun in Sant'Anna and whose death Tarabotti mourns in her letters.

Her last work, Che le donne siano della specie degli uomini (1651), was a reaction to a misogynist work, the Disputatio nova contra mulieres , which is attributed to Valens Acidalius . It was first published in Latin in 1595 under the title Whether the women are people or not? also in German. It claimed that women are not people. With biblical examples she refuted his examples. In doing so, she proved at the same time that she was able to hold her ground in theological and philosophical fields as well as in the literary field.

A work she hinted at with the title Purgatorio delle malmaritate and other works may have been lost. Tarabotti died in Sant'Anna at the age of 48.

reception

It was only from the pen of Emmanuele Antonio Cicogna that Tarabotti's first biography emerged in 1824. This was created on the occasion of the description of the family's tombstone created in 1546 in the Church of San Domenico . Cicogna says that the family became known mainly through Arcangela Tarabotti, but that the girl was 'only eleven years old when she was raped by her parents to take her nun habit'. Accordingly, it was only after her death and under a pseudonym ('Galerana Barattoti') that her La semplicità ingannata was published in Leiden . Even in Cicogna's time, the work was on the Librorum Prohibitorum index of the Catholic Church. According to Cicogna, the three manuscripts of the Inferno Monacale were still in the library of the patrician Francesco Veniero in the middle of the 18th century.

Editions

  • Letizia Panizza (Ed.): Paternal Tyranny , University of Chicago Press, 2004.
  • Elissa B. Weaver (ed.): Satira e Antisatira , Salerno, Rome 1998.
  • Francesca Medioli (ed.): L'Inferno monacale 'di Arcangela Tarabotti , Rosenberg & Sellier, Turin 1990.
  • Meredith Ray, Lynn Westwater (eds.): Lettere familiari e di complimento della sign. Arcangela Tarabotti , Rosenberg & Sellier, Turin 2004.

literature

  • Martina Checchin: Lo spazio claustrale e la riforma dei monasteri femminili a Venezia dopo il Concilio di Trento , tesi di laurea, Università Ca 'Foscari, Venice 2016 ( online ).
  • Giorgia Baldin: La figura del Muneghino nella Venezia del XVI-XVII secolo , tesi di laurea, Università Ca 'Foscari, Venice 2018 ( online ).
  • Vania Levorato: Monasteri femminili veneziani tra visite patriarcali e la Magistratura sopra Monasteri (Sec. XVI-XVII) , tesi di laurea, Università Ca 'Foscari, Venice 2016 ( online ).
  • Francesca Medioli: Rivalries and networking in Venice: Suor Arcangela Tarabotti, the French ambassador Gremonville and their circle of friends, 1645–1655 , in: Archivio Veneto CXLVI (2015) 113–138.
  • Emilio Zanette: Suor Arcangela monaca del Seicento veneziano , Istituto per la Collaborazione Culturale, Rome, Venice 1960.
  • Julie Robarts: Dante's “Commedia” in a Venetian Convent: Arcangela Tarabotti's “Inferno monacale” , in: Italica 90 (2013) 378-397.

Web links

See also

Remarks

  1. ↑ digitized version .
  2. ^ Emmanuele Antonio Cicogna : Delle Inscrizioni Veneziane , Vol. 1, Giuseppe Orlandelli, Venice 1824, pp. 135 f.
  3. ^ "In età di soli undici anni fu violentata da 'suoi parenti a vestir l'abito monacale" (Emmanuele Antonio Cicogna: Delle inscrizioni veneziane , vol. 1, Giuseppe Orlandelli, Venice 1824, p. 135).
  4. ↑ The lovers of nuns were referred to as muneghini or muneghi .
personal data
SURNAME Tarabotti, Arcangela
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Tarabotti, Elena Cassandra (maiden name); Baratotti, Galerana (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Venetian nun and author
DATE OF BIRTH February 24, 1604
PLACE OF BIRTH Venice
DATE OF DEATH February 28, 1652