ABSTRACT

This chapter focuses on women members of the Arcadia, Elisabetta Graziosi commented on the very limited role played by women in Seicento academies, which she contrasted, in a brief paragraph, with the more liberal attitude visible in the Cinquecento. It argues that, notwithstanding the substantial achievements of women, and women writers, in Cinquecento Italy, and the space occupied by women in Cinquecento society, and by women characters in Cinquecento literature, there was, nevertheless, no liberal attitude towards women in Cinquecento literary academies. The line of development of the Cinquecento literary academy passes from the Intronati of Siena via the Infiammati of Padua to the Fiorentina, which came into being early in the 1540s. In Bologna, Veronica Gambara's membership of the Sonnacchiosi does not indicate a close tie between women and literary academies in the city, despite the fact that there may have been another woman member of this same academy in the 1540s, Diamante Dolfi.