Camilla Pisana (probably from Pisa - fl. 1515)[1] was an Italian courtesan, known as a letter writer and poet.
Biography
editCamilla Pisana became one of four courtesans installed by Filippo Strozzi in a villa near Porta San Gallo in Florence, where they served Strozzi and his friends, including Duke Lorenzo d'Urbino (father of Catherine de' Medici). She lived there with her friends and fellow courtesans Alessandra Fiorentina, Brigida, and Beatrice Ferrarese.[2] Among them Camilla seems, from her letters, to have assumed the role of matriarch of this unusual family.[1] Camilla and her companions could nevertheless enjoy a house decorated by the painter Rosso Fiorentino.[1]
Camilla was renowned for her beauty, musical and literary skills. She wrote letters to her friend Francesco del Nero (1487-1563),[3] who was Filippo Strozzi's brother-in-law and close business associate, complaining about her mistreatment at her lover's hands.[4][5]
“When this pleasant, though somewhat unconventional, household was dissolved after Strozzi lost interest in it, the girls went on to Rome, where from the rank of cortigiane oneste they soon sank to that of cortigiane piacevoli and even lower.”[6]
Works
editShe is known in literary history for the 33 letters she sent to Strozzi between 1516 and 1517. Her letters, together with those of Veronica Franco, are among the few and most important non-poetic writings that have come down to us from a courtesan of the Italian Renaissance.[7] “Camilla Pisana's letters seek to persuade their readers of the writer's self-worth by employing the culturally designated language of courtly compliment, suitably phrased.”[8]
According to Alfred Einstein, Camilla provided the words to poems set to music by the famous madrigalists Costanzo Festa and Philippe Verdelot.
Camilla, Filippo's mistress, was able to write poetry in the style of Bembo and Cassola[9] for which we may assume that Verdelot and Festa supplied the music.
It is also possible that this is the same Camilla Pisana mentioned by Aretino in La cortigiana (1534) and in the Ragionamento dello Zoppino.[11][12]
References
edit- ^ a b c d Pucci, Paolo (2011). "Camilla Pisana, la perfetta moglie?: tentativi di affermazione personale di una cortigiana del Rinascimento". Italica. 88 (4): 565–586. ISSN 0021-3020. JSTOR 41440474.
- ^ Budin, Stephanie Lynn (2021-05-30). Freewomen, Patriarchal Authority, and the Accusation of Prostitution. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-429-51667-2.
- ^ Francesco del Nero entry (in Italian) by Silvia Moretti in the Enciclopedia Treccani, 2014
- ^ Kaborycha, Lisa. "Camilla Pisana". Lisa Kaborycha. Retrieved 2022-02-20.
- ^ Crabb, Ann (2016). "Review of A Corresponding Renaissance: Letters Written by Italian Women, 1375–1650, Kaborycha Lisa". Renaissance Quarterly. 69 (3): 1020–1021. doi:10.1086/689045. ISSN 0034-4338. JSTOR 26559930. S2CID 163174177.
- ^ a b Einstein, Alfred. The Italian Madrigal. 3 vols. Translated by Alexander H. Krappe, Roger H. Sessions, and Oliver Strunk. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1949.
- ^ Orlando, Filippo; Baccini, Giuseppe (1891). Bibliotechina grassoccia: capricci e curiosità letterarie inedite o rare (in Italian). pp. 32–37.
- ^ Marotti, Maria (2010-11-01). Italian Women Writers from the Renaissance to the Present: Revising the Canon. Penn State Press. p. 73. ISBN 978-0-271-04125-4.
- ^ Luigi Cassola entry (in Italian) by Giuseppe Gangemi in the Enciclopedia Treccani, 1978
- ^ Cardamone, Donna G. (November 2007). "The Courtesan's Arts: Cross-Cultural Perspectives". Music and Letters. 88 (4): 650–652. doi:10.1093/ml/gcm027.
- ^ Yellig, Catherine L. (26 April 2007). Rethinking the Renaissance Courtesan. University of Cincinnati. p. 41.
- ^ Putnam, Samuel. "The Courtezan (La Cortigiana), Act II, The Works of Aretino, Act Second, Translated into English from the original Italian, with a critical and biographical essay by Samuel Putnam, Illustrations by The Marquis de Bayros in Two Volumes, by Samuel Putnam". elfinspell.com. Retrieved 2022-02-21.