Today we read Sdegna Clorinda a i femminili uffici, by Petronilla Paolini Massimi.
This sonnet belongs to the long tradition of poems by outspoken women that have no qualms in claiming their complete equality with men.
Petronilla Paolini Massimi uses two literary examples to support her stance.
The first quatraine is dedicated to Clorinda, a heroine-warrior in the super-famous poem La Gerusalemme Liberata by Torquato Tasso.
The second extols the intellectual prowess of Amalasonta, the daugher of Theodoric.
Her conclusion is clear: since Nature gives women the same abilities that it gives to men, it is men that deny women their due.
One cannot blame Petronilla for the strength of her denunciation: she lived a very unhappy life. Married off at the appalling age of ten to the instigator of the killer of her father, she was forced to live in Castel Sant’Angelo, literally a prison at the time, while all she wanted was to study literature and philosophy in a convent.
The original:
Sdegna Clorinda a i femminili uffici