Fathers or Sisters? Literary Genealogies from Petrarch to Veronica Gambara

Abstract

In Seniles V.2, Petrarch, in dialogue with Boccaccio, establishes a vertical hierarchy of the "three Florentine crowns," a ranking that would soon assert itself within the canon of vernacular literature. Although assigning first place—reserved for Dante—remains problematic, Petrarch sketches a new historiographical paradigm, distinct from the purely Greco-Roman framework of Canto IV of the Inferno. During the Humanist period, the "triumvirate" continued to attract both praise and criticism, yet their authority as literary "fathers" was never truly questioned. In the sixteenth century, however, thanks to Petrarchism, Italian literature opened decisively to the work of women writers, broadening the literary landscape and rendering the exclusively male genealogy inadequate. It is in this context that the two most important female poets of the century, Vittoria Colonna and Veronica Gambara, propose—through their sonnet exchanges—a form of openness that is not only thematic but also relational. Paternal authority and the transmission of legacy from father to son give way to a model of sisterhood, in which gender is no longer a basis for exclusion but a source of mutual support. With the backing of certain men of letters, including Pietro Bembo, the literary—and editorial—genealogies involving Colonna and Gambara take on a new and egalitarian character, where passion, affection, and pro-imperial political alignment replace rankings, quantitative assessments of genius, and municipal or ethno-linguistic rivalries.