Anassilla: Stampa's Poetic Ecology*

The Romantic vision of Gaspara Stampa crying out, “io sola vinco l’infinito” (Rime 91, 14: “I alone defeat the infinite!”), is being corrected by scholarship that better understands her poetry alongside the social and literary environments in which it was produced. ¹ The present study suggests that Stampa herself invites such a reading through her choice of pseudonym, Anassilla. Derived from Anaxus, the Latin name for the River Piave that ran through the estate of her beloved Count Collaltino in the Veneto region of Collalto, ² Anassilla represents Stampa’s poetic voice as a confluence of actors and environments. While the adoption of a pastoral persona is itself unremarkable—it was a common practice in sixteenth-century Italian literary societies ³ such as the Accademia dei Pellegrini (Academy of the Pilgrims) and the Dubbiosi (Doubters) to which Stampa belonged ⁴ —the particular valences of Anassilla demand a more thorough analysis than criticism has thus far afforded it. Although the pseudonym has generally been understood as a “sign of devotion” to her beloved, ⁵ the dynamics of referentiality implied by her identification with Collaltino’s river betray a more complex self-representation than mere devotion conveys.