TRA MOLLEZZA DELLA CARNE E SOTTIGLIEZZA DELL'INGEGNO (NEGATO): LA 'NATURA' DELLA DONNA NEL DIBATTITO CINQUECENTESCO

Abstract

As is well known, the Aristotelian understanding of gender identity, dominant in the scholastic culture of this period, proposed a sharp dichotomy between the social roles of the two sexes and the sets of virtues thought proper to them. Aristotle regarded these differences as essential, in that they derived from the supposed biological differences between the sexes. Some Renaissance treatises rejected the old stereotypes and conventional models of female behavior, and we see a project of gender revisionism and a confutation of Aristotelian gender norms. At the end of XVI century Camilla Erculiani, Moderata Fonte, Lucrezia Marinelli engage with the task of refuting scholastic philosophical arguments for female inferiority.