LECTURE Julia Hairston
Foreign Lecturer, University of Rome "La Sapienza", and Visiting Assistant Professor, Duke University at the Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies on Rome

Salome or Sabine? Tullia d'Aragona and Issues of Identification in Sixteenth-century Italy

Thursday, 28 February 2002
Lecture Room - 6 pm

Issues of identification, from individualism to self-fashioning to the codification of roles and professions (the courtier, the prince, the secretary, or "woman" as in the querelles des femmes), have long characterized cultural criticism on the Italian Renaissance in a number of different disciplines. This lecture discusses two female identities - Salome and the Sabine women - in visual and literary material related to Tullia d'Aragona (1505/10 - 1556), a prolific, sixteenth-century Italian author, moreover much discussed for her activities as a courtesan. The overall aim of the talk is to explore how issues of identification specifically affect women in early modern Italy and play an important role in the history of women's writing in general.