Convent Paradise

In this volume, Meredith K. Ray and Lara Lynn Westwater present the first modern edition and English translation of Convent Paradise, Arcangela Tarabotti's first published work. Tarabotti is well known for her fierce opposition to forced convent life and unwilling monachization. From this point of view, Convent Paradise stands out because Tarabotti describes the joys of convent life that can be experienced only by those women who voluntarily chose to be nuns. Ray and Westwater give a very compelling interpretation of the role played by this text in Tarabotti's literary work by underlining that “Tarabotti's literary persona and the formulation of her social and political critique cannot be detached from her religious and spiritual experience, which emerge so clearly in Convent Paradise” (56).The exhaustive introduction makes the readership understand Tarabotti's text and become familiar with her biography and literary production. In the end, the “Editors’ note” underlines the goals and the methods adopted by the editor. This edition of Convent Paradise aims “to produce a volume that conveys the distinctive tone and style of Tarabotti's original prose while remaining thoroughly readable to a modern, English-speaking audience” (60).Convent Paradise is a first-person narration divided into three books. The dedication to Federico Cornero, a letter by Giovanni Francesco Loredan to Giovanni Polani, and a poem by Lucrezia Marinella where she praises the author open the text. There is “Soliloquy to God” as a prefacing text where Tarabotti commits to helping Christian souls and serving God in writing this book. All of these paratext elements appear in the original with English translation. In Book I, Tarabotti describes the convent as a heavenly place where the faithful marriage between nuns and God is superior to the mundane relationship between wife and man. However, she insists that convent life is a paradise only for willing nuns. In Book II, Tarabotti discusses the promise of chastity as an element of religious life. According to her, the untouched nuns can become angelic spirits because of their uncorrupted purity. She provides several examples of virginity among saints and martyrs, focusing on the example of the virgin Mary. Book III digs into the practice that nuns must follow. This book also focuses on contemplation and meditation. At the end of Book III, Tarabotti asks pardon from God and offers two of her life and her literary works as gifts. After Convent Paradise there are three encomiastic poems: the first one is an idyll called “Archangel” by an unnamed poet, the second one is a sonnet by Salvatore Cavalcanti, and the third one is another sonnet by Lucrezia Marinella.The notes in the margin are very useful because they allow the readership to understand the richness and complexity of Tarabotti's writing while also making it usable to an English audience. Tarabotti's text has a wide variety of quotations from the religious tradition (Song of Songs, Old and New Testaments, S. Ambrose, and San Bernard) as well as the secular Latin and Greek authors like Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, and Seneca and the Italian medieval and early modern authors like Dante, Petrarch, Ariosto, and Tasso. The explanatory notes to the translation cover people, works, and historical episodes that take into account notions that can be obscure for an English audience. The editors underlined the role of explanatory notes for religious references and the citations of biblical, philosophical, and literary texts. They provide the sources and modern editions for direct references, when possible. Furthermore, they suggest possible authors and titles for indirect references. The last two paragraphs of the note are about the treatment of quotations in Latin and the vernacular. The images embellish this introductory chapter. In particular, the reproductions of the papers in the State Archives of Venice constitute a valuable documentary record. Thanks to the excellent work done by Ray and Westwater, this edition makes Convent Paradise an enjoyable text for an academic audience as well as a non-specialist one without betraying the core of the original, not demeaning it to merely popularizing and trivializing work.