Isabella di Morra

Isabella di Morra

Alleged portrait of Isabella di Morra
Born ca. 1520
Favale, Kingdom of Naples
Died 1545/1546
Favale, Kingdom of Naples
Occupation Poet
Subject Sorrow, loneliness
Literary movement Petrarchism

Isabella di Morra (ca.1520–1545/1546) was an Italian poet of the Renaissance. An unknown figure in her lifetime, she was forced by her brothers to live in segregation, estranging her from academies and literary salons. While living in solitude in her castle, she produced a small and sensitive work, which never circulated in the literary milieu of the time.

Her short and melancholic life ended when her brothers murdered her for a suspected affair. After her death, she gained a certain notoriety in the Italian Renaissance literature and was praised by some critics. Her opus is considered an impressive prefigurement of Romantic poetry.[1][2]

Biography

Early life

Isabella di Morra was born into a noble family in Favale (now Valsinni, in the province of Matera), at the time part of the Kingdom of Naples. She was the daughter of Giovanni Michele di Morra, baron of Favale, and Luisa Brancaccio, noblewoman belonging to a Neapolitan family. Her birthdate is uncertain but, according to Benedetto Croce, it was around 1520.[3]

As a child, Isabella was educated in literature and poetry by her father. She, her mother and her seven siblings (six brothers: Marcantonio, Scipione, Decio, Cesare, Fabio, Camillo and one sister: Porzia) were abandoned by Giovanni Michele when he was forced to seek refuge in France, after having supported the invading French army against the Spanish monarch Charles V. Scipione followed him shortly after and Marcantonio then took over power in Favale.[4]

Youth and death

Castle of Isabella di Morra in Favale (now Valsinni)

From the beginning, animosity marked the relationship between Isabella and her three younger brothers Cesare, Decio and Fabio, who presumably envied their gifted sister and the attention lavished on her education.[4] They forced her to live in severe isolation in the family castle of Favale, where she dedicated herself to writing poems, finding in poetry the only solace to her solitude.[2]

Nonetheless, she had the opportunity to befriend her learned neighbors, the Spanish poet Diego Sandoval de Castro baron of Bollita (the present-day Nova Siri) and his wife Antonia Caracciolo. Isabella and Diego Sandoval began a secret epistolary correspondence. Her brothers, after being informed of the letters, suspected an affair between their sister and the Spanish nobleman, although their relationship is a mystery to this day and it is unclear whether or not they were more than just friends.[4] They prepared a cruel punishment, believing also that Diego Sandoval would petion the governor of the Province of Basilicata to free her from their oppression.[5]

Decio, Cesare and Fabio murdered Isabella's tutor, who carried the letters acting as an intermediary, and Isabella was the second victim, as she was found with the letters in her hands. She was stabbed to death.[4] Fearing for his life, Diego Sandoval hired an escort in vain and the three assassins, with the help of two uncles and probably fueled by hatred against the Spaniards, killed him in the woods near Noja (today known as Noepoli) several months later.

Aftermath

The murderers were forced to flee the Kingdom of Naples to escape the wrath of Viceroy Pedro de Toledo, who ordered to scour the whole province. They joined their father in France, who allegedly died shortly after the tragedy. They were judged guilty in absentia.[5] Scipione, although shocked and disgusted by the massacre, resigned himself to helping his brothers. Decio became a priest, Cesare married a French noblewoman but there is no certain information about Fabio. Scipione, who was secretary to Queen Catherine de' Medici, was later fatally poisoned by other court members who were envious of him.[6]

Meanwhile, the remaining brothers were taken to trial. Marcantonio, who did not take part in the conspiracy, was imprisoned for some months and then released. The youngest brother, Camillo, who also had nothing to do with the murders, was absolved of complicity.[3] In 1629, her nephew Marcantonio, son of Camillo, published a family biography entitled Familiae nobilissimae de Morra historia, giving details regarding her life and death which were unknown until its release.

Poetry

Statue of Isabella di Morra in Valsinni

The poems of Isabella were discovered when the gendarmery entered her estate to investigate the murder. There are ten sonnets and three canzoni, which were published several years after her death. Despite the small corpus she left, her work is considered one of the most powerful and original poetic expressions of Italian literature from the XVI century.[2] Her poetry describes the grief she felt at being isolated, her separation from other literary people and missing her father, with nature as the primary interlocutor of her verses.[7] The topics she dealt with make her a precursor of Romantic poets.[2]

She was one of the first Neapolitan poets ever to be published by a prestigious commercial press in Venice and among the few women who were most frequently anthologized in the 1500s.[7] Some of her verses appeared in Book 3 of Lodovico Dolce's anthology, Rime di diversi illustri signori napoletani (1552), and were positively received.[3] The entire production was later included in Lodovico Domenichi's Rime diverse d’alcune nobilissime, et virtuosissime donne (1559).

However, Isabella was almost forgotten and ignored by critics over the centuries and her poetry was overshadowed by her tragic life. Authors like Angelo de Gubernatis and Benedetto Croce contributed to rediscover her work since the beginning of the 1900s, re-evaluating her figure in the Italian literary scene. Torquato Tasso's poem Canzone al Metauro (1578) bears resemblances with her style.[1] She is cited as a precursor to Giacomo Leopardi due to her depiction of the isolation in which she lived and her lament against "cruel fortune".[3]

Legacy

Isabella di Morra has been portrayed by Anny Duperey in the eponymous drama performed at the Théâtre d'Orsay, Paris, on 23 April 1974. It was written by André Pieyre de Mandiargues and directed by Jean-Louis Barrault.[8]

A literary park named after her was established in her hometown Valsinni in 1993, where theatrical and musical performances take place.[9]

The Io Isabella International Film Week festival is dedicated to her memory.

Notes

  1. 1 2 Grendler. Encyclopedia of the Renaissance. p. 193.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Marrone, Puppa. Encyclopedia of Italian Literary Studies: A-J. p. 1242.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Margaret E. Kern (2002). "Morra, Isabella di (ca.1520-1545/46)". University of Chicago Library. Retrieved 6 July 2016.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Robin, Larsen and Levin. Encyclopedia of women in the Renaissance: Italy, France, and England. p. 274.
  5. 1 2 Jaffe, Colombardo. Shining Eyes, Cruel Fortune. p. 150.
  6. ↑ Isabella di Morra, Isabella Musillo Mitchell. Canzoniere: A Bilingual Edition. p. 14.
  7. 1 2 Robin, Larsen and Levin. Encyclopedia of women in the Renaissance: Italy, France, and England. p. 275.
  8. ↑ "Isabella Morra d'André Pieyre de Mandiargues". lesarchivesduspectacle.net. Retrieved 12 July 2016.
  9. ↑ "Valsinni - Literary Park 'Isabella Morra'". aptbasilicata.it. Retrieved 12 July 2016.

Bibliography

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