In recent years, partly because of the current political resonance of the relationship between Islam and the West, significant attention has been paid to the disturbing portrait of the prophet Muhammad in Inferno 28 and, more broadly, to the issue of Dante and Islam. In this essay I analyze Dante’s depiction of Muhammad in relation to its theological framework, arguing that the Muslims’ rejection of the dogma of the Trinity, which constitutes the central source of doctrinal dissension between Islam and Christianity, allows us to establish a link between Muhammad and Bertran de Born, the other main character in the gallery of sowers of discord presented in Inferno 28. As both sinners severed the tie between father and son, the former breached the principle upon which the unity of the Church is founded, whereas the latter violated the norm that undergirds the dynastic legitimacy of a kingdom. In contrast with Bertran’s and Muhammad’s language of division, Dante conceives his work as a vessel for peace and reconciliation between secular and spiritual authorities.

“The Orphan-Hero in Italian Renaissance Epic” investigates a commonplace present in epic poetry from antiquity to the Renaissance: the orphan-hero, a protagonist who grows up without the guidance of biological parents. The study traces this figure from its origins to the early modern period, beginning with classical epic in the introduction and focusing on 16th- and early 17th- century Italian poems in the body of the dissertation, namely Ludovico Ariosto’s Orlando furioso (1532), Torquato Tasso’s Gerusalemme liberata (1581), Tullia d’Aragona’s Il Meschino (1560), Moderata Fonte’s Floridoro (1581), Margherita Sarrocchi’s Scanderbeide (1623), and Lucrezia Marinella’s L’Enrico (1635). Through analysis of these works, I address the following critical questions: 1) What links orphanhood and heroism? 2) Why might poets deem this tradition worthy of continuation? 3) Do modifications to the orphan-hero by different Renaissance authors reveal or emphasize shifts in thinking during the period? In particular, to what extent do the female authors fashion their orphan-heroes to fit an early modern feminist purpose? I propose that the vulnerability inherent in the parentless state is significant to the subsequent development of heroic qualities in Renaissance epic heroes. Authors of epic choose orphanhood for their heroes not only to continue with tradition, which is all-important for the genre, but also to give certain heroes distinctive upbringings and acknowledge the social circumstances of contemporary orphans. I postulate that the prevalence of the orphan-hero in Renaissance epic speaks to a general anxiety about familial legitimacy during the period, a relevant issue in epic given its emphasis on genealogy and family dynasties. Lastly, using a comparative approach between the orphan-heroes of the two canonical male poets under consideration and those of their four lesser-known female counterparts, I elucidate how the female authors envision an alternative role for contemporary women, both inside and outside the family. The female authors modify their characters to give more agency, skill, and independence to women than were supplied by the canonical poets. For the female epic hero, as for the Renaissance female author, proving one’s legitimacy is more difficult and therefore even more crucial.

This dissertation is a comparative study of literary texts authored by sixteenth-century Italian women that treat female friendship across the genres of epistolary writing, lyric poetry, and heroic poetry. The primary works under consideration include the correspondence between Elisabetta Gonzaga (1471–1526) and Isabella d’Este (1474–1539), the lyric poems authored by women in Lodovico Domenichi’s anthology Rime diverse d’alcune nobilissime et virtuosissime donne (1559), and Margherita Sarrocchi’s heroic poem the Scanderbeide (1623). In addition to the long-standing classical and Christian notions of friendship that held strong in Renaissance Italy, the genres of epistolary writing, lyric poetry, and heroic poetry each had a distinct and mostly male literary tradition of friendship. The literary works in this study reveal the various ways early modern Italian women contributed to their respective genres, and moreover, to larger cultural discourses on friendship by inserting the female perspective and experience. Their writings not only illuminate their understandings and interpretations of female bonds but also demonstrate their use of writing to initiate and maintain friendships with other women.

Chapter 1 looks at women’s epistolary prose through the correspondence between two princesses who were sisters-in-law, Elisabetta Gonzaga, the duchess of Urbino, and Isabella d’Este, marchesa of Mantua. Focusing primarily on letters exchanged during the beginning years of their friendship, I show how the two noblewomen relied on letter writing to express and reciprocate sentiments of intimacy. Chapter 2 on the Rime diverse d’alcune nobilissime et virtuosissime donne, the first all-female lyric anthology edited by Lodovico Domenichi, analyzes the friendship poems—sonnet exchanges between women to celebrate and form literary friendships and single-authored lyric that depict women’s bonds—present in the collection. Looking at these two types of lyric in tandem, I argue that Petrarchism authorized women’s expressions and representations of female friendship. Chapter 3 focuses on the heroic poem of Margherita Sarrocchi (1560–1617). Drawing from her classical and Renaissance predecessors who in their heroic poems depict and highlight friendships between male warriors, Sarrocchi revises the tradition by portraying and celebrating the bond that develops between two of the poem’s female protagonists, Rosmonda and Silveria.

While much has been explored with respect to male friendship in Italian Renaissance literature, the topic of female friendship has remained mostly untouched. With this study, I therefore address this need to uncover women’s discourses on friendship by providing alternative perspectives and new insights on a subject that was traditionally understood in male terms.