Onorata Orsini and Other Sienese Female Readers of Francesco Petrarca in Fifteenth-Century Siena

Abstract

Building on a passage by Bernardo Ilicino in his commentary on the Trionfi of Francesco Petrarca – in which Onorata Orsini is identified as an exceptional interpreter of the poet’s verses – the essay undertakes a survey of selected works by the principal Sienese humanists of the fifteenth century. It seeks to examine the roles assumed by the women to whom these texts were inspired and dedicated, and to evaluate their function within the literary, civic, and political dynamics of the city.