(1571-1653)
Venetian poet. She spent her entire life in Venice, first as the daughter of a learned physician who gave her access to his library and thus made possible her liter-ary development, and then as the wife of a physician. She wrote both secular and sacred poems. Several of them recount the lives of saints, yet two of the most successful were pastoral dramas, Amore in-namorato e impazzato / Cupid in Love and Driven Mad by love (1598) and Felice Arcadia / Happy Arcadia (1605). Her principal po-etic work was an epic inspired by Torquato Tasso, L'Enrico overo Bisantio Acquistato / Henry, or Byzantium Won (1635). She also wrote commentaries on poetry, including her own Felice Arcadia, and a rebuttal of a harshly antifeminist poem by Giuseppe Passi.
Historical Dictionary of Renaissance. Charles G. Nauert. 2004.