A lecture by Lisa Kaborycha
“Whoever wants to do things as they wish ought to take care not to be born a woman!” Thus complains Lorenzo de’ Medici’s sister Nannina in a 1479 letter to their mother Lucrezia Tornabuoni. In other letters, Lucrezia reports to her husband on her inspection of the bosom of a prospective bride for Lorenzo; a dazzled Milanese courtier describes the splendour of the interior of the brand-new Medici Palace; Duke Cosimo I’s widowed mother Maria Salviati refuses to remarry, complaining of a suitor’s bad breath; the heart-rending illness of a little Medici princess is discussed by members of the ducal court. This evening Lisa Kaborycha shares these letters and more, bringing the world of the Medici family to life, with selections from her book Voices from the Italian Renaissance.
Lisa Kaborycha, Ph.D. in History, University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of three books: Voices from the Italian Renaissance, A Sourcebook (Routledge, 2024); A Short History of Renaissance Italy, (Routledge, 2023); and A Corresponding Renaissance: Letters Written by Italian Women 1375-1650, (Oxford Univ Press, 2016). She has been living in Florence since 2007 pursuing archival research and teaching at American universities
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