La Dichiaratione di Cristoforo Bronzini in difesa del Dialogo della dignità e nobiltà delle donne (1622)

Abstract

Cristoforo Bronzini’s Dialogo della dignità e nobiltà delle donne (Dialogue on the dignity and nobility of women), a monumental work in twenty-four volumes dedicated to Queen Margaret of Austria, was nipped in the bud by the Congregation of the Index immediately after the printing of its Parte prima in 1622. Starting with an analysis of Bronzini’s manuscript Dichiaratione in defence of his text, this essay aims to reconstruct the problematic loci that hindered the work’s dissemination from the outset, namely the author’s courageous reflections on the sacred scriptures, contrary to Decree II of Session IV of the Council of Trent on the interpretation of sacred texts. The analysis of the Dichiaratione allows scholars to enter into Bronzini’s readings, who makes use not only of the sixteenth-century philogynist line, as recognisable as it is problematic, but also of contemporary moral literature and patristic sources.