From Queen’s Librarian to Voice of the Neapolitan Republic: Eleonora de Fonseca Pimentel

A poetess, translator and journalist, Eleonora de Fonseca Pimentel was born in 1752 in Rome into a liberal family.1 When her family moved to Naples, she thrived in the Arcadic circles of a city favourable to learned women. Pimentel started her career as a court poet, and then became the Queen’s librarian. Following a tragic marriage and separation from her husband, she requested a state pension and translated from the Portuguese two books on economy and law, which supported specific political stances of the King. In 1798, she was accused of Jacobinism, imprisoned and deprived of her librarian post and pension. Her journalistic activity culminated in her becoming director and editor of the Monitore Napoletano (1799), the paper of the shortlived Republic, before being publicly hanged in August 1799. This chapter addresses the course of Pimentel’s writings in relation to her economic situation. It shows that her literary production evolved according to the development of her political thought, which, in turn, mirrored her economic status. Forsan et haec olim meminisse juvabit Perhaps, one day, even this will be good to remember Virgil, Aeneid, I, 203