Veronica Gambara
- LAST REVIEWED: 21 January 2016
- LAST MODIFIED: 21 January 2016
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195399301-0311
- LAST REVIEWED: 21 January 2016
- LAST MODIFIED: 21 January 2016
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195399301-0311
Introduction
Veronica Gambara (b. 1485–d. 1550) maintained a celebrated presence on the Italian literary landscape as a lyric poet throughout the first half of the 16th century. Equally significant to her literary repute was Gambara’s political standing as the dowager Countess of Correggio—a role she assumed upon the death of her husband in 1518 and held until her death in 1550. Though there is a hiatus in the circulation and possibly the production of her poetry between the years 1518 and 1529, likely attributable to the sudden death of her husband in battle, Gambara composed just under seventy vernacular poems throughout her lifetime. In the first stage of her career, beginning at the turn of the century and lasting until 1518, she composed love poems in the Petrarchan sonnet form. Gambara also experimented with popular musical forms such as the frottola barzaletta, and she was the first woman in the Italian tradition to publish secular vernacular lyrics upon the print of her madrigal “Or passata è la speranza” (Now hope has gone) in 1505. When Gambara returned to the public circulation of her verse in 1529, she drew upon her literary talent to engage in political discourses. Most notably from this period, Gambara composed a series of sonnets devoted to the theme of Charles V’s empire, including his return of Medici power to Florence and his military campaigns against the Ottoman Empire. In both stages of her poetic career, Gambara made effective use of her family’s cultural network to circulate her verse to prominent figures, most significantly through her correspondence with Pietro Bembo (b. 1470–d. 1547). Bembo praised Gambara’s literary talent in her youth, and he promoted Gambara alongside her contemporary Vittoria Colonna (b. 1492-d. 1547) in her mature years. Gambara herself praised Colonna in verse, and she was the first woman to commission a commented edition of Colonna’s spiritual poems in 1541. For further study of Colonna, see Abigail Brundin’s Oxford Bibliographies article Vittoria Colonna. Gambara also made use of her family’s political capital to buttress her somewhat precarious political position as a dowager connected to her fiefdom by marriage, rather than birth. Gambara staged her return to the public circulation of her poetry to coincide with her brother Uberto’s sojourn as papal governor of Bologna to oversee the coronation of Charles V as Holy Roman Emperor. Gambara’s literary activity throughout her governing years elucidates the interrelationship between cultural currency and political power so characteristic of Renaissance Italy, but seldom exhibited by women, thus emerging as one of the first female poet-rulers of the Early Modern period.
General Overviews
Gambara is well represented in catalogues of Early Modern poets in both Italian and English. There are a number of compendious biographical entries accompanied by a selection of sonnets that serve as a useful point of entry for new readers of Gambara, such as Costa-Zalessow 1982, Poss 1987, Russell 1994, and Stortoni and Lillie 1997. A volume of essays produced by a 1985 conference on Gambara provide excellent studies of Gambara’s emergence on the local cultural landscape of Brescia and Correggio; see Bozzetti, et al. 1989. For an extensive examination of Gambara’s rise to fame as a poet on the Italian landscape more broadly, see Cox 2005 and Cox 2008, which also delineate Gambara’s standing as a model for women writers in the second half of the 16th century.
Bozzetti, Cesare, Pietro Gibellini, and Ennio Sandal, eds. Veronica Gambara e la poesia del suo tempo nell’Italia settentrionale. Florence: Olschki, 1989.
Published in Italian, this collection of essays from a 1985 conference on Gambara assembles deeply researched studies on Gambara family history, the political and cultural contexts of Brescia and Correggio, and Gambara’s poetic and epistolary catalogue. This is an indispensable volume to Gambara studies given the range and depth of the assembled material.
Costa-Zalessow, Natalia. Scrittrici italiane dal XIII al XX secolo. Ravenna, Italy: Longo, 1982.
A short entry written in Italian that reviews Gambara’s biography and literary legacy, accompanied by a selection of poems and letters. A nice place to begin for first-time readers of Gambara.
Cox, Virginia. “Women Writers and the Canon in Sixteenth Century Italy: The Case of Vittoria Colonna.” In Strong Voices, Weak History: Early Modern Women Writers and Canons in England, France, and Italy. Edited by Pamela Joseph Benson and Victoria Kirkham, 14–31. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005.
A prologue to Cox 2008, here Cox examines the process whereby Vittoria Colonna gained entry into the male literary canon in the first half of the 16th century. Her analysis considers Gambara alongside Colonna as she delineates the factors that contributed to these poets’ canonization and their subsequent status as literary models for the next generation of women writers.
Cox, Virginia. Women’s Writing in Italy: 1400–1650. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008.
A comprehensive study of the emergence and decline of women writers in Italy between the 15th and early 17th centuries. Gambara’s literary fame, alongside that of her contemporary Vittoria Colonna, is contextualized within the rise of women’s participation in the new vernacular literary culture at the turn of the century. The study also meticulously documents Gambara’s role as a celebrated model for women writers in the century after her death.
Italian Women Writers Database.
The Italian Women Writers project provides a database to a corpus of literature written by Italian women authors. On the site one can find a brief biography of Gambara, a number of portraits, and an extensive list of editions of Gambara’s poems and letters.
Pizzagalli, Daniella. La signora della poesia: Vita e passioni di Veronica Gambara, artista delrinascimento. Milan: Rizzoli, 2004.
Pizzagalli’s work, published in Italian, is a popular retelling of Gambara’s life interspersed with readings of her poems.
Poss, Richard. “Veronica Gambara: A Renaissance Gentildonna.” In Women of the Renaissance and Reformation. Edited by Katharina M. Wilson, 47–66. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1987.
A short essay that balances Gambara’s biography with critical analysis of a selection of her poems, including original translations of the poems discussed. A useful introduction to Gambara for English readers.
Rabitti, Giovanna. “Lyric Poetry, 1500–1650.” In A History of Women’s Writing in Italy. Edited by Letizia Panizza and Sharon Wood, 37–51. Translated by Abigail Brundin. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
The essay introduces the exemplary Italian women poets of the 16th and early 17th centuries. Gambara is presented in comparison to her more famous contemporary Vittoria Colonna, while the analysis of her poetry emphasizes her Petrarchan sensibilities.
Russell, Rinaldina. “Veronica Gambara.” In Italian Women Writers: A Bio-Bibliographical Sourcebook. Edited by Rinaldina Russell, 145–153. Wesport, CT: Greenwood, 1994.
Divided into three sections—brief biography, major themes of poetry, and survey of criticism—this overview of Gambara’s life and poetry will benefit those looking to initiate research on the poet.
Stortoni, Laura Anna, and Mary Prentice Lillie, eds. and trans. Women Poets of the Italian Renaissance: Courtly Ladies and Courtesans. New York: Italica, 1997.
Original translations of a selection of Gambara’s poems follow a short essay that briefly reviews Gambara’s biography alongside some analysis of a selection of her poems.
Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content on this page. Please subscribe or login.
How to Subscribe
Oxford Bibliographies Online is available by subscription and perpetual access to institutions. For more information or to contact an Oxford Sales Representative click here.
Article
- Academies
- Aemilia Lanyer
- Agrippa d’Aubigné
- Alberti, Leon Battista
- Alexander VI, Pope
- Amsterdam
- Andrea del Verrocchio
- Andrea Mantegna
- Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt
- Anne Boleyn
- Anne Bradstreet
- Antwerp
- Aretino, Pietro
- Ariosto, Ludovico
- Art and Science
- Art, German
- Art in Renaissance England
- Art in Renaissance Florence
- Art in Renaissance Siena
- Art in Renaissance Venice
- Art Literature and Theory of Art
- Art Market
- Art of Poetry
- Art, Spanish
- Art, 16th- and 17th-Century Flemish
- Art, 17th-Century Dutch
- Artemisia Gentileschi
- Artisans
- Ascham, Roger
- Askew, Anne
- Astell, Mary
- Astrology, Alchemy, Magic
- Augsburg
- Augustinianism in Renaissance Thought
- Austria
- Autobiography and Life Writing
- Avignon Papacy
- Bacon, Francis
- Banking and Money
- Barbaro, Ermolao, the Younger
- Barbaro, Francesco
- Baron, Hans
- Baroque
- Baroque Art and Architecture in Italy
- Barzizza, Gasparino
- Bathsua Makin
- Beaufort, Margaret
- Bellarmine, Cardinal
- Bembo, Pietro
- Benito Arias Montano
- Bernardino of Siena, San
- Beroaldo, Filippo, the Elder
- Bessarion, Cardinal
- Bible, The
- Biography
- Biondo, Flavio
- Bishops, 1550–1700
- Bishops, 1400-1550
- Black Death and Plague: The Disease and Medical Thought
- Boccaccio, Giovanni
- Bohemia and Bohemian Crown Lands
- Borgia, Cesare
- Borgia, Lucrezia
- Borromeo, Cardinal Carlo
- Bosch, Hieronymous
- Bracciolini, Poggio
- Brahe, Tycho
- Bruegel, Pieter the Elder
- Bruni, Leonardo
- Bruno, Giordano
- Bucer, Martin
- Budé, Guillaume
- Buonarroti, Michelangelo
- Burgundy and the Netherlands
- Calvin, John
- Calvinism
- Camões, Luís de
- Caravaggio
- Cardano, Girolamo
- Cardinal Richelieu
- Cardinals
- Carvajal y Mendoza, Luisa De
- Cary, Elizabeth
- Casas, Bartolome de las
- Castiglione, Baldassarre
- Catherine of Siena
- Catholic/Counter-Reformation
- Catholicism, Early Modern
- Cavendish, Margaret
- Cecilia del Nacimiento
- Cellini, Benvenuto
- Cervantes, Miguel de
- Charles V, Emperor
- China and Europe, 1550-1800
- Christian-Muslim Exchange
- Christine de Pizan
- Church Fathers in Renaissance and Reformation Thought, The
- Ciceronianism
- Cities and Urban Patriciates
- Civic Humanism
- Civic Ritual
- Classical Tradition, The
- Clifford, Anne
- Colet, John
- Colonna, Vittoria
- Columbus, Christopher
- Comenius, Jan Amos
- Commedia dell'arte
- Concepts of the Renaissance, c. 1780–c. 1920
- Confraternities
- Constantinople, Fall of
- Contarini, Gasparo, Cardinal
- Convent Culture
- Conversion
- Conversos and Crypto-Judaism
- Copernicus, Nicolaus
- Cornaro, Caterina
- Cosimo I de’ Medici
- Cosimo il Vecchio de' Medici
- Costume
- Council of Trent
- Crime and Punishment
- Croatia
- Cromwell, Oliver
- Cruz, Juana de la, Mother
- Cruz, Juana Inés de la, Sor
- Dance
- d'Aragona, Tullia
- Datini, Margherita
- Davies, Eleanor
- de Commynes, Philippe
- de Sales, Saint Francis
- de Valdés, Juan
- Death and Dying
- Decembrio, Pier Candido
- Dentière, Marie
- Des Roches, Madeleine and Catherine
- d’Este, Isabella
- di Toledo, Eleonora
- Dialogue
- Diplomacy
- Dolce, Ludovico
- Donatello
- Donne, John
- Drama, English Renaissance
- Dürer, Albrecht
- du Bellay, Joachim
- Du Guillet, Pernette
- Dutch Overseas Empire
- Early Modern Period, Racialization in the
- Ebreo, Leone
- Edinburgh
- Edmund Campion
- Edward IV, King of England
- El Greco
- Elizabeth I, the Great, Queen of England
- Emperor, Maximilian I
- England, 1485-1642
- English Overseas Empire
- English Puritans, Quakers, Dissenters, and Recusants
- Environment and the Natural World
- Epic and Romance
- Erasmus
- Europe and the Globe, 1350–1700
- European Tapestries
- Family and Childhood
- Fedele, Cassandra
- Federico Barocci
- Female Lay Piety
- Ferrara and the Este
- Ficino, Marsilio
- Filelfo, Francesco
- Florence
- Fonte, Moderata
- Foscari, Francesco
- France in the 17th Century
- France in the 16th Century
- Francis Xavier, St
- Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros
- French Law and Justice
- French Renaissance Drama
- Fugger Family
- Galilei, Galileo
- Gallicanism
- Gambara, Veronica
- Gardens
- Garin, Eugenio
- General Church Councils, Pre-Trent
- Geneva (1400-1600)
- Genoa 1450–1700
- George Buchanan
- George of Trebizond
- Georges de La Tour
- Ghetto
- Giambologna
- Ginés de Sepúlveda, Juan
- Giustiniani, Bernardo
- Góngora, Luis de
- Gonzaga, Giulia
- Gournay, Marie de
- Greek Visitors
- Guarino da Verona
- Guicciardini, Francesco
- Guilds and Manufacturing
- Hamburg, 1350–1815
- Hanseatic League
- Henry VII
- Henry VIII, King of England
- Herbalism/Botany
- Herbert, George
- Hispanic Mysticism
- Historiography
- Hobbes, Thomas
- Holy Roman Empire 1300–1650
- Homes, Foundling
- Huguenots
- Humanism
- Humanism, The Origins of
- Hundred Years War, The
- Hungary, The Kingdom of
- Hus, Jan
- Hutchinson, Lucy
- Iconology and Iconography
- Ignatius of Loyola, Saint
- Infanticide
- Inquisition, Roman
- Ireland
- Isaac Casaubon
- Isabel I, Queen of Castile
- Italian Wars, 1494–1559
- Ivan IV the Terrible, Tsar of Russia
- Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples
- Jansenism
- Japan and Europe: the Christian Century, 1549-1650
- Jeanne d’Albret, queen of Navarre
- Jesuits
- Jewish Women in Renaissance and Reformation Europe
- Jews
- Jews and Christians in Venice
- Jews and the Reformation
- Jews in Amsterdam
- Jews in Florence
- Jews in Rome
- Joan of Arc
- Jonson, Ben
- Joseph Justus Scaliger
- Juan de Torquemada
- Juana the Mad/Juana, Queen of Castile
- Julius II
- Kepler, Johannes
- King of France, Francis I
- King of France, Henri IV
- Knox, John
- Kristeller, Paul Oskar
- Labé, Louise
- Landino, Cristoforo
- Landscape
- Last Wills and Testaments
- Laura Cereta
- Law
- Lay Piety
- Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm
- Leo X
- Leonardo da Vinci
- Leoni, Leone and Pompeo
- Leto, Giulio Pomponio
- Letter Writing and Epistolary Culture
- Libraries
- Literary Criticism
- Literature, French
- Literature, Italian
- Literature, Late Medieval German
- Literature, Penitential
- Literature, Spanish
- Locke, John
- London
- Lorenzo de' Medici
- Lorenzo Ghiberti
- Louis XI, King of France
- Louis XIII, King of France
- Louis XIV, King of France
- Lucas Cranach the Elder
- Lucretius in Renaissance Thought
- Luther, Martin
- Lyric Poetry
- Machiavelli, Niccolo
- Macinghi Strozzi, Alessandra
- Malatesta, Sigismondo
- Manetti, Giannozzo
- Mannerism
- Mantovano (Battista Spagnoli), Battista
- Manuel Chrysoloras
- Manuzio, Aldo
- Margaret Clitherow
- Margaret Fell Fox
- Margery Kempe
- Marinella, Lucrezia
- Marino Sanudo
- Marlowe, Christopher
- Marriage and Dowry
- Mary Stuart (Mary, Queen of Scots)
- Mary Tudor, Queen of England
- Masculinity
- Medici Bank
- Medici, Catherine de'
- Medici Family, The
- Medicine
- Mediterranean
- Memling, Hans
- Merchant Adventurers
- Merici, Angela
- Midwifery
- Milan, 1535–1706
- Milan to 1535
- Milton, John
- Mining and Metallurgy
- Mirandola, Giovanni Pico della
- Mission
- Monarchy in Renaissance and Reformation Europe, Female
- Montaigne, Michel de
- More, Thomas
- Morone, Cardinal Giovanni
- Music
- Naples, 1300–1700
- Navarre, Marguerite de
- Netherlandish Art, Early
- Netherlands (Dutch Revolt/ Dutch Republic), The
- Netherlands, Spanish, 1598-1700, the
- Nettesheim, Agrippa von
- Newton, Isaac
- Niccoli, Niccolò
- Nicholas of Cusa
- Nicolas Malebranche
- Nobility
- Opera
- Ottoman Empire
- Ovid in Renaissance Thought
- Panofsky, Erwin
- Paolo Veronese
- Papacy
- Papal Rome
- Paracelsus
- Paris
- Parr, Katherine
- Patronage of the Arts
- Perotti, Niccolò
- Persecution and Martyrdom
- Peter the Great, Tsar of Russia
- Petrarch
- Petrus Ramus and Ramism
- Philip Melanchthon
- Philips, Katherine
- Piccolomini, Aeneas Sylvius
- Piero della Francesca
- Pierre Bayle
- Pilgrimage in Early Modern Catholicism
- Plague and its Consequences
- Platonism, Neoplatonism, and the Hermetic Tradition
- Poetry, English
- Pole, Cardinal Reginald
- Polish Literature: Baroque
- Polish Literature: Renaissance
- Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, The
- Political Thought
- Poliziano, Angelo
- Polydore Vergil
- Pontano, Giovanni Giovano
- Pope Innocent VIII
- Pope Nicholas V
- Pope Paul II
- Portraiture
- Portugal
- Poulain de la Barre, Francois
- Poverty and Poor Relief
- Prince Henry the Navigator
- Printing and the Book
- Printmaking
- Prophecy
- Pulter, Hester
- Purgatory
- Purity of Blood
- Quirini, Lauro
- Rabelais, François
- Raphael
- Reformation and Hussite Revolution, Czech
- Reformation and Wars of Religion in France, The
- Reformation, English
- Reformation, German
- Reformation, Italian, The
- Reformation, The
- Reformations and Revolt in the Netherlands, 1500–1621
- Rembrandt
- Renaissance Poland-Lithuania, Art of
- Renaissance, The
- Reuchlin, Johann
- Revolutionary England, 1642-1702
- Rhetoric
- Ricci, Matteo
- Richard III
- Rienzo, Cola Di
- Roman and Iberian Inquisitions, Censorship and the Index i...
- Ronsard, Pierre de
- Roper, Margeret More
- Royal Regencies in Renaissance and Reformation Europe, 140...
- Rubens, Peter Paul
- Russell, Elizabeth Cooke Hoby
- Russia and Muscovy
- Ruzante Angelo Beolco
- Saint John of the Cross
- Saints and Mystics: After Trent
- Saints and Mystics: Before Trent
- Salutati, Coluccio
- Sandro Botticelli
- Sarpi, Fra Paolo
- Savonarola, Girolamo
- Scandinavia
- Scholasticism and Aristotelianism: Fourteenth to Seventeen...
- Schooling and Literacy
- Scientific Revolution
- Scotland
- Scève, Maurice
- Sephardic Diaspora
- Sforza, Caterina
- Sforza, Francesco
- Shakespeare, William
- Ships/Shipbuilding
- Sidney Herbert, Mary, Countess of Pembroke
- Sidney, Philip
- Siena
- Simon of Trent
- Sir Robert Cecil
- Sixtus IV, Pope
- Skepticism in Renaissance Thought
- Slavery and the Slave Trade, 1350–1650
- Southern Italy, 1500–1700
- Southern Italy, 1300–1500
- Spain
- Spanish Inquisition
- Spanish Islam, 1350-1614
- Spenser, Edmund
- Sperone Speroni
- Spinoza, Baruch
- Stampa, Gaspara
- Stuart, Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia
- Switzerland
- Tarabotti, Arcangela
- Tasso Torquato
- Tell, William
- Teresa of Avila
- Textiles: 1400 to 1700
- The Casa of San Giorgio, Genoa
- The Radical Reformation
- The Sack of Rome (1527)
- Thirty Years War, The
- Thomas Wyatt
- Titian
- Toleration
- Tornabuoni, Lucrezia
- Trade Networks
- Tragedy, English
- Translation
- Transylvania, The Principality of
- Traversari, Ambrogio
- Universities
- Urbanism
- Ursulines
- Valeriano, Pierio
- Valla, Lorenzo
- van Eyck, Jan
- van Schurman, Anna Maria
- Vasari, Giorgio
- Vega, Lope de
- Vegio, Maffeo
- Velázquez
- Venice
- Venice, Maritime
- Vergerio, Pier Paolo, The Elder
- Vermeer, Johannes
- Vernacular Languages and Dialects
- Vida, Marco Girolamo
- Virgil in Renaissance Thought
- Visitors, Italian
- Vives, Juan Luis
- Walter Ralegh
- War and Economy, 1300-1600
- Ward, Mary
- Warfare and Military Organizations
- Weyden, Rogier van der
- Widowhood
- Witch Hunt
- Wolsey, Thomas, Cardinal
- Women and Learning
- Women and Medicine
- Women and Science
- Women and the Book Trade
- Women and the Reformation
- Women and the Visual Arts
- Women and Warfare
- Women and Work: Fourteenth to Seventeenth Centuries
- Women Writers in Ireland
- Women Writers of the Iberian Empire
- Women Writing in Early Modern Spain
- Women Writing in English
- Women Writing in French
- Women Writing in Italy
- Wroth, Mary