FIRENZUOLA, Agnolo; PICCOLOMINI, Alessandro. [with] DOLCE, Lodovico.

First edition of this scarce collection of two works on women, one in praise, the other offering advice. Agnolo Firenzuola (1493-1543) was a cleric and the author of numerous literary works based on Aesop and other classical authors. He wrote ‘Le Bellezze’ in Prato, as he was recovering from malariaa and involved in the activities of a local scholarly accademia. Set in the form of a dialogue, the work focuses on women’s physical attributes, painted in an idealised manner, while citing as examples also women from classical antiquity and more recent times (e.g., Honorata Pecci, filosofa), and the opinion of famous authorities (e.g., Aristotle). A final section examines women’s clothes and accessories. ‘Female beauty and its platonic celebration was a fashionable subject in print at the time. Firenzuola toned down the theme of beauty qua harmony of the body where the pleasure of the senses turns into intellectual contemplation. Nonetheless, the veiled (but easily detectable) references to local ladies used as models for portraying ideal beauty elicited gossip and resentment, which caused Firenzuola to lose the patronage of local families’ (Diz. Biog. It.). The second, ‘De gli Ammaestramenti’, was first published in 1545, as ‘De la Institutione delle donne’, a book of advice to women, based on Juan Luis Vives’ ‘De Institutione feminae christianae’ (1523). Lodovico Dolce (1508-68) worked with the press of Gabriele Giolito de’ Ferrari in Venice. He composed comedies, tragedies and verses on mythology, influenced by Virgil, Ovid and Catullus. He also had a keen interest in art criticism. His book contained advice addressed to young girls (e.g., what kind of games they should play, what books are good to read, their regimen sanitatis, that they should avoid make-up, and how they should speak), married women (e.g., the nature of a wife’s love for her husband, marital harmony, jealousy, household management), and widows (e.g., chastity, and various virtues exemplified by the biblical Judith). Two scarce, interesting works.