Renaissance Woman

A biography of Vittoria Colonna, confidante of Michelangelo, scion of one of the most powerful families of her era, and a pivotal figure in the Italian Renaissance Ramie Targoff’s Renaissance Woman tells of the most remarkable woman of the Italian Renaissance: Vittoria Colonna, Marchesa of Pescara. Vittoria has long been celebrated by scholars of Michelangelo as the artist’s best friend—the two of them exchanged beautiful letters, poems, and works of art that bear witness to their intimacy—but she also had close ties to Charles V, Pope Clement VII and Pope Paul III, Pietro Bembo, Baldassare Castiglione, Pietro Aretino, Queen Marguerite de Navarre, Reginald Pole, and Isabella d’Este, among others. Vittoria was the scion of an immensely powerful family in Rome during that city’s most explosively creative era. Art and literature flourished, but political and religious life were under terrific strain. Personally involved with nearly every major development of this period—through both her marriage and her own talents—Vittoria was not only a critical political actor and negotiator but also the first woman to publish a book of poems in Italy, an event that launched a revolution for Italian women’s writing. Vittoria was, in short, at the very heart of what we celebrate when we think about sixteenth-century Italy; through her story the Renaissance comes to life anew.

Renaissance Woman: A Sourcebook is an invaluable collection of accounts of women and femininity in early modern England. The volume is divided thematically into nine sections, each with an accessible introduction, notes on sources and an annotated bibliography. The sections are: * Theology * Biology * Conduct * Sexuality and Motherhood * Politics and Law * Education * Work * Writing and Speaking * Feminism Renaissance Woman: A Sourcebook brings together sources ranging from medical documents and political pamphlets to sermons and the Bible, as well as literary sources. Providing a historical context to issues of gender in the Renasissance, it will be essential reading for students of the period, gender studies and cultural history.

The Renaissance Diet 2.0 is not a fad. Instead, this hands-on guide presents a sports nutrition approach to eating for fat loss, muscle gain, and enhanced sport performance by incorporating current, comprehensive evidence—setting it apart from all the misinformation on nutrition available today. Within this book, you will read which parts of a diet determine results. Delving into calorie intake, food quality, meal spacing and timing, and supplement use, you will understand how to rank-order each part based on its relative contribution to diet, ensuring that you remain focused and avoid getting needlessly caught up in minute details. Next you will further explore why and how calories matter; how much protein is enough; whether snacking is a good idea or if intermittent fasting is better. Each of these questions and more will be answered, giving you the foundational knowledge to understand diet structure. Finally, you will learn how to design your individual diet by using the given step-by-step guidelines on how to modify your diet as your body adapts. Additional information about hunger management, diet psychology, and long-term diet planning is provided—all to achieve the best results. Also included are special diet considerations for a vegan diet, training multiple times a day, competition day, endurance sports, and women at different life stages, as well as information on the most pervasive diet myths and why they are wrong. By using the knowledge and tools in this book, you are guaranteed to achieve any fat loss, muscle gain, or performance goal. Renaissance Periodization has helped hundreds of thousands of clients across the world reach their fitness goals. Whether you want to lose fat, gain muscle, or improve sports performance, the experts at RP can help get you there. Foreword by Rich Froning.

During the Renaissance the nature of womankind was a major topic of debate. Numerous dialogues, defenses, paradoxes, and tributes devoted to sustaining woman's excellence were published, and in them history was rewritten to include the achievements of womankind. Often these texts demonstrate that women are capable of acting with prudence, temperance, fortitude, and justice, and thus are capable of being independent of male political and moral authority. Pamela Benson argues that the writers use literary means (genre, characterization, narrator, paradox, plot) to defeat the political challenge posed by female independence and to restrain women within a traditional role. The Invention of the Renaissance Woman is a study of the literary strategies used both to create the notion of the independent woman and to restrain her. Traditionally, the profeminism of most of these texts has not been taken seriously because their playful or extreme styles have been read as a sign that they were nothing but a game. Benson demonstrates that the flamboyant and frequently paradoxical style of these texts is the key to their successful profeminism. She defines the literary and conceptual differences between the Italian and English traditions and argues that two of the greatest literary works of the Renaissance, the Orlando furioso and The Faerie Queene, are major texts in the tradition of defense and praise of women. The Inventions of the Renaissance Women is the first substantial contextual discussion of the majority of the Italian texts and many of the English ones. Benson uses the insights of feminist theory and of cultural studies without subordinating the Renaissance texts to a modern political agenda. Among the authors discussed are Spenser, Boccaccio, Ariosto, Castiglione, Vespasiano da Bisticci, Thomas More, Thomas Elyot, Juan Luis Vives, Richard Hyrde, Jane Anger, and Henry Howard.

In this informative and lively volume, Margaret L. King synthesizes a large body of literature on the condition of western European women in the Renaissance centuries (1350-1650), crafting a much-needed and unified overview of women's experience in Renaissance society. Utilizing the perspectives of social, church, and intellectual history, King looks at women of all classes, in both usual and unusual settings. She first describes the familial roles filled by most women of the day—as mothers, daughters, wives, widows, and workers. She turns then to that significant fraction of women in, and acted upon, by the church: nuns, uncloistered holy women, saints, heretics, reformers,and witches, devoting special attention to the social and economic independence monastic life afforded them. The lives of exceptional women, those warriors, queens, patronesses, scholars, and visionaries who found some other place in society for their energies and strivings, are explored, with consideration given to the works and writings of those first protesting female subordination: the French Christine de Pizan, the Italian Modesta da Pozzo, the English Mary Astell. Of interest to students of European history and women's studies, King's volume will also appeal to general readers seeking an informative, engaging entrance into the Renaissance period.

An alternative history of the Renaissance—as seen through the emerging literature of beauty tips—focusing on the actresses, authors, and courtesans who rebelled against the misogyny of their era. Beauty, make-up, art, power: How to Be a Renaissance Woman presents an alternative history of this fascinating period as told by the women behind the paintings, providing a window into their often overlooked or silenced lives. Can the pressures women feel to look good be traced back to the sixteenth century? As the Renaissance visual world became populated by female nudes from the likes of Michelangelo and Titian, a vibrant literary scene of beauty tips emerged, fueling debates about cosmetics and adornment. Telling the stories of courtesans, artists, actresses, and writers rebelling against the strictures of their time, when burgeoning colonialism gave rise to increasingly sinister evaluations of bodies and skin color, this book puts beauty culture into the frame. How to Be a Renaissance Woman will take readers from bustling Italian market squares, the places where the poorest women and immigrant communities influenced cosmetic products and practices, to the highest echelons of Renaissance society, where beauty could be a powerful weapon in securing strategic marriages and family alliances. It will investigate how skin-whitening practices shifted in step with the emerging sub-Saharan African slave trade, how fads for fattening and thinning diets came and went, and how hairstyles and fashion could be a tool for dissent and rebellion—then as now. This surprising and illuminating narrative will make you question your ideas about your own body, and ask: Why are women often so critical of their appearance? What do we stand to lose, but also to gain, from beauty culture? What is the relationship between looks and power?

Isabella d’Este (Ferrara 1474 – Mantua 1539) was already defined in her lifetime as “The first lady of the world”, and emains today one of the most brilliant characters of the Italian Renaissance. The first-born daughter of Duke Ercole of Ferrara and Eleonora of Aragon, at only six years of age was betrothed to Francesco II Gonzaga, heir of the Lords of Mantua. At sixteen, when she arrived in Mantua, she created one of the most culturally refined courts of the Renaissance. Driven by her insatiable desire for all things of antiquity, she collected in her Studiolo a precious assortment of classical artifacts. Fully aware of her extraordinary virtues, both physical and intellectual, she trusted the most illustrious artist of her time to represent her, and was portrayed by both Leonardo da Vinci and Titian – a privilege ot bestowed upon any king, Pope, or Emperor. A demanding and discerning patron, she entrusted Andrea Mantegna, Lorenzo Costa, Pietro Perugino and Correggio to create a cycle of paintings forher Studiolo. As a refined trend-setter, she formed the fashion of her time according to her own tastes, and became a point of reference not only for all of the Italian courts, but also for aristocrats throughout Europe. From her astrological chart and emblems to her portraits and the canvases created specifically for her Studiolo, this book contains several clear and original perspectives that highlight and better define the profile of Isabella. Here we have a new view of a Renaissance woman.

Discusses the various roles women took on during the Renaissance.