PICCOLOMINI, Alessandro.

by Alessandro Piccolomini

£2,450 · Offered by Sokol Books

.A good copy of this popular and interesting work on women, their youth, bearing, social life and adultery, which was considered quite scandalous in its day. First published in 1539, and also known as La Raffaella , it is here in its fifth ed., all early eds being scarce. Alessandro Piccolomini (1508-78) was a member of the Accademia degli Intronati, and his Dialogo was intended as a playful literary entertainment creating a topsy-turvy world in which the widsom of old age is not spiritual, but very material. In the work, Raffaella, an older woman, gives advice to a younger woman, Margarita, on ways to enjoy herself while she still has time. The incipt sets the light tone, with Raffaella answering to Margarita asking after her health in typical Italian fashion: Full of sins and fatigue, like all old women and Old, poor and with my head nearing the grave by the hour . Margarita s beauty reminds Raffaella of her own youth and the amusements she shunned at parties and feasts, till it was too late (i.e., age thirty). She explains that betraying one s husband is not sinful as marriages are combined with men who will never be their wife s true love. As clarified at the end, Raffaella s aim is to give advice as to how a woman can accomplish this adultery with cleverness and prudence so as to preserve secrecy (though the chosen man should not be married), as she becomes, at some point, the anti-model of a confessor , giving advice on sinning (McClure, pp.36-7). Tthese observations co

• Binding: Hardcover

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