Jeanette
M. Fregulia
Book
Review
Alessandra Macinghi Strozzi, Letters to Her Sons
(1447-1470).
Edited by Judith Bryce. The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe: The Toronto
Series, Vol. 46, ITER Academic Press & Arizona Center for Medieval and
Renaissance Studies (Toronto, Canada & Tempe, Arizona, 2016), 294 + xvi pp.
ISBN: 9780866985482
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With this first complete English translation of the seventy-three letters
penned by Alessandra Strozzi (c. 1406-1471), editor and translator Judith Bryce
provides more than just a much-anticipated contribution to the study of women’s
writing in the early modern era. With this collection, Bryce also opens a
window into the daily lives of women. Alessandra Strozzi, a widow from the
city’s mercantile patriciate, may be considered exceptional. To be sure, she
grew up in a prosperous family. More importantly, she received an education
that made possible her membership in a small but diverse group of female
writers in early modernity that included Margherita Datini (1360-1423), who
left behind over two hundred letters to her husband, the famed merchant
Francesco Datini, as well as a contemporary of Alessandra, Lucrezia Tournabuoni
(1427-1482). That she was literate also meant that Alessandra could write for
herself all that she wished to convey about her life in Florence to her sons,
living far away in cities such as Barcelona, Bruges, and Naples. A careful
reading of Alessandra’s correspondence, offered with clarity, precision, and
heart, also opens a window into the personal world of women who could not write
for themselves, or whose writings have since been lost to time, making Bryce’s
work not just a contribution to the study of women’s literary practices but
also to the history of women more generally, giving a voice to the shared
fears, joys, and trails that filled their daily lives. Perhaps the best example
of this is Alessandra’s reply to the news that her youngest son, Matteo, had
died while living with his brothers Filippo and Lorenzo in Naples. Writing of
“the sorrow and anguish I felt on the death of my sweet young son,” (85) a
death that would grieve Alessandra for the rest of her life.
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Married while still in her teens to Matteo Strozzi, son of one of Florence’s
leading mercantile families, Alessandra’s time as a wife would prove short,
only thirteen years, ending in sadness. The first challenge came in 1434, when
her husband Matteo was exiled to Pesaro, a town along Italy’s Adriatic coast,
by Cosimo de’ Medici (1389-1464), founder of the Medici political dynasty. A
short time after her husband’s departure from Florence, Alessandra took the couple’s
seven children and joined him in exile. Less than a year after their arrival, a
bout of plague struck Pesaro, taking the lives of her husband and three of
their children, leaving Alessandra, who was again pregnant, a widow. Following
this loss of her husband, Alessandra and her surviving children returned to
Florence. Without a father, Alessandra looked to her late husband’s cousins to
help her two surviving oldest sons, Filippo and Lorenzo, make their fortunes.
The brothers would be joined later, much to Alessandra’s dismay, by their
youngest brother, Matteo, the child with who Alessandra was pregnant at the
time of her husband’s death (11).
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Making an important contribution to the series, The Other Voice in Early Modern
Europe, this translation of Alessandra Strozzi’s personal correspondence
invites a broad readership of students and scholars, from those seeking a
deeper understanding of the epistolary practices of women in fifteenth century
Italy, to anyone curious about familial relations, particularly between mother
and sons, as there is no surviving evidence of Alessandra ever having written
to her daughters. This does not necessarily mean that Alessandra was not close
to her daughters Caterina and Alessandra, as indeed it is likely that she was. Not
only did both girls live in Florence after their marriages, but it was their
mother who played an important role in ensuring that her daughters married
within their family’s social network. News of the marriage of eldest is the
very first letter of Alessandra’s letters, dated 24 August 1447, in which she
writes to her son Filippo, then living in Naples that “our Caterina” was wed to
Marco Parenti, a “well-to-do” silk merchant (29). This is not the only mention
of the daughters, and suggests not only Alessandra’s presence in their lives
but also her wish that her sons be kept informed about the lives of their
sisters. Throughout the letters, readers will also find evidence of the trials
of widowhood and the sadness of a mother whose sons live far away, information
about the social, economic, and political world of fifteenth century Italy,
including the relaying of important news, such as the death of Cosimo de’
Medici, a part of Letter 36 in September 1464, and the arrival of yet another
recurrence of the plague in March 1463, (see letter 28).
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Far more than just a series of letters, Judith Bryce embraces the challenges of
translation, and while her own work is based primarily on the original 1877
Italian publication of the letters edited by Cesare Guasti (still available
both online and in print), Bryce brings her own fresh new translation of a
woman speaking for herself, as the majority of the letters she wrote herself.
The best examples of Alessandra’s voice include notes on illness, in which she
despairs also of “really getting old,” (letter 2, 34), to her ongoing quest to
find a suitable wife for her eldest son Filippo, who seems in no hurry to
leaved bachelorhood behind, as evidenced in Letter 52. In this letter,
Alessandra extols merits, and perhaps for the sake of honesty also hints at the
less desirable qualities, of Caterina Tanagli, described by Alessandra as
“attractive and has a good figure” While Alessandra continues that Caterina’s
“face is not one of those very beautiful ones (it) isn’t out of keeping with
the rest of her; and she’ll turn out beautiful” (177). This same letter reveals
more than just Alessandra’s desire to see her son married, it also suggests
that there was more to consider in a match than dowry, although Caterina’s
reported one-thousand florin dowry hardly made her a pauper. Alessandra seems
to be equally concerned with the prospective bride’s appearance, illustrating
that during the Renaissance marriage was not, necessarily, exclusively about
economic, political, and/or social gain.
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In addition to arranging marriages, mourning death, and passing along
information about the happenings in the city of Florence, Alessandra’s letters
reveal that she managed some her own financial matters, including contemplating
selling some land she owned to afford the tax on it (80). In this same letter,
number 16, we find in Alessandra more than just a doting mother, but also one
capable of chastising. Indeed, she begins this letter of 27 July 1459 to
Filippo in Naples with her dismay that he had not replied to her previous
letter “as quickly as I would have liked” (80).
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For all that Alessandra Strozzi was out of the ordinary in terms of her
abilities to read, write, and likely to complete simple math, she was also very
much a woman of fifteenth century Florence who looked mostly to her sons, and
at times her son-in-law, Marco Parenti, married to her daughter Caterina for
assistance with financial and family matters. Tempting as it might be to
dismiss Alessandra’s important for feminist scholarship, specifically because
she wrote exclusively to her sons, this would unfortunate. When thinking about
Alessandra’s place in history, it is important to keep in mind that neither
women nor men can be understood outside of the historic context in which they lived.
Despite some legal rights, including most importantly remittance of their dowry
upon widowhood, women did not have the same standing as men under the law. This
does not mean, however, that women such as Alessandra were powerless. As the
letters reveal, she arranged marriages for her daughters, and eventually her
two surviving sons, and she assisted some of the business transactions of
Filippo and Lorenzo as they were not in Florence. Thus, readers of her
correspondence should be mindful of the need to keep in mind the limitations
that Alessandra’s fifteenth century world placed upon her, and the gendered
perspectives that would have informed her writing.
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On one final note, I would call attention to the extensive notes that Bryce
provides with each letter. These can be helpful in understanding the larger
context, or gaining additional information, without interfering with the
letters themselves. Students and scholars will find within the letters great
insights into the lives of women, familial relations, and complexities of life
in fifteenth century Florence. Bryce must be commended for making Alessandra
and her world accessible to those who do not read Italian, allowing Alessandra
Strozzi to be heard on her own terms.
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Jeanette M. Fregulia is Associate Professor of History at Carroll College in Helena,
Montana. She holds an MA in Middle East Studies from the University of London
and a PhD in Renaissance History from the University of Nevada, Reno. Her
research interests center on women, commerce, and trade in early modern Italy
and the Mediterranean.
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APPOSITIONS:
Studies
in Renaissance / Early Modern
Literature and Culture,
Volume
Ten (2017): Artefacts
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