Babel 2017

54 importance of chastity in his book Della vita civile: the woman’s greatest and absolute care must be both to refrain from copulating with another man, and to avoid the suspicion of such a repulsive wickedness […] it banishes honour, brings with it uncertainty about offspring, pollutes the family, brings hate and dissolves any connection.”151 Palmieri defines chastity and shows the consequences for the family: a husband will be unsure if his wife’s children are his own. Because it was widely believed that “[women] succumbed more easily to temptations of the flesh,” societal norms allowed for little female independence. A woman was always subordinate to a man, either her father or husband, so they could safeguard her chastity (unless she entered a convent, in which case she pledged a celibate life).152 Maclean explains in The Renaissance Notion of Women that “woman is debarred from speaking (because Eve’s words beguiled Adam), from teaching and from preaching (1 Tim 2:11-12).”153 Maclean points out the biblical basis for their subjection. In the same vein, Knox quotes the Venetian Nicolaus Jenson (1420-1480) who said a young woman should “keep her eyes down at all times […] should speak seldom and, when she did, she should do so slowly, softly, and briefly.”154 Jenson proposes restrictions on women's comportment, as a way of encouraging women to avoid Eve's sinful qualities. Correspondingly, female writers were required to navigate and circumvent social conventions that prohibited their speech and expression.

Chastity in the 16th-century required more than just refraining from extramarital sex, it governed all aspects of a woman’s relationship to sexuality; inciting desire in men or expressing desire for them was considered unchaste.

Agostino Valiero, Bishop of Verona from 1565 to 1606, explained that a woman “must show her modesty through her behaviour: through her eyes, by keeping them always lowered; through her mouth, by not talking if it is not necessary, through her clothes, by inspiring respect in men, rather than desire.”155 Similarly, another Renaissance author, Bernardo Trotto explains that a woman: should never cross the limits of agreeableness, nor should she touch the boundaries of lasciviousness […] because a lascivious woman, besides giving her husband reasons to be suspicious of her, is held in poor esteem by many […] [she should] be happy as a chaste wife Matteo Palmieri, Libro della vita civile (Venice, 1535): fols 74v-75r, quoted in Mary Rogers and Paola Tinagli, Women in Italy, 1350-1650: Ideals and Realities, a Sourcebook (Manchester: Manchester UP, 2005), 143.

152 King and Rabil, intro. Floridoro, xviii.

153 Maclean, The Renaissance Notion of Woman, 18.

154 Knox in Panizza, Women in Italian Renaissance Culture and Society, 6.

155 Agostino Valiero, Della istruzione del modo di vivere delle donne maritate (Padua, 1744): 21, quoted in Rogers and Tinagli, Women in Italy, 145.

151