Androgyny in Moderata Fonte’s Tredici canti del Floridoro

Abstract

Moderata Fonte, who is one of the earliest female authors to write chivalric romance in Italy, participates in the debate on women [querelle des femmes] with Il merito delle donne (1600). Tredici canti del Floridoro (1581), in which she defends the worth of women and equality between sexes, also documents Fonte’s concern for female issues. Within this framework, this paper aims to analyse Fonte’s protofeminism based upon the concept of androgyny. Drawing upon her thought about women in Il merito delle donne (1600) within the framework of the Italian patriarchal social context, it first discusses the social and theoretical implications of androgyny. It interprets the warrior heroine Risamante and the titular hero Floridoro as representatives of the androgyne examining how they deconstruct their assigned gender roles. It argues that Fonte utilizes androgyny to evince that there is no essential difference between sexes but the cultural assumptions and practices produce a hierarchical relationship between women and men. It concludes that Fonte, by means of androgyny, shatters rigid gender boundaries, and she advocates that both women and men should benefit from education and they should be treated equally. Tredici canti del Floridoro, thereby, manifests Moderata Fonte’s protofeminist opinion.

Keywords

• rönesans
• romans
• androjeni
• profeminizm
• moderata fonte
• renaissance
• romance
• androgyny
• profeminism
• moderata fonte