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Conversing on Love: Text and Subtext in Tullia d'Aragona's Dialogo della Infinità d'Amore
Author(s): Lisa Curtis-Wendlandt
Source: Hypatia, Vol. 19, No. 4 (Autumn, 2004), pp. 77-98
Published by: Wiley on behalf of Hypatia, Inc.
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Conversing on Love:
Text and Subtext in Tullia d'Aragona's
Dialogo della Infnita d'Amore

LISA CURTIS-WENDLANDT

Few philosophical topics are as intertwined with gender questions as

love, which moved center-stage in the diverse literary and philosophic
of the Renaissance. Situated in the rich cultural environment of Cinq
Tullia d'Aragona's Dialogo della Infinita d'Amore offers not only a un
bution to Renaissance theories of love, but also forces a reexaminatio
and methods of communication, and provokes a reflection on philosop
(male) self-conception.

Tullia dAragona (ca. 1510-1556), the once-famous Roman writer

san of the Italian Renaissance, has not yet received much attentio
philosophic discourse. While research on dAragona's life and work
an integral part of such disciplines as literature, history, and gen
her work has rarely been recognized as relevant to the canon of
Besides a few edited translations of the Dialogo della Infinita d'Am
on the Infinity of Love) in a number of languages, and some mentio
scoped studies on Renaissance culture and theories of love, no sin
study centers around a detailed interpretation of the philosophic
d'Aragona's work. In this paper, I hope to show that this is an unju
tion, and that Tullia dAragona's work deserves to be more than j
discourse in philosophy.
I will first offer a close reading of the Dialogue on the Infinity of
ing that the concept of love proposed by dAragona is not just a
restatement of Neoplatonist doctrine, but deviates importantly

Hypatia vol. 19, no. 4 (Fall 2004) ? by Lisa Curtis-Wendlandt

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78 Hypatia

Neoplatonism of other contemporary dialogues and treatises.' What is unique

about dAragona's work, I will argue, is the way in which her discussion of love
is tied to a concern about communication and the procedures of philosophic
discourse itself. My attention will then shift to an analysis of the particular
relation between content and form of the text. Is the dialogue genre of episte-
mological relevance for the philosophical content of dAragona's work? If so,
in what way does the literary form influence the semantics of the text? The
answers to these questions, I hope to show, will not only emphasize the special
significance of Tullia dAragona's dialogue for a feminist history of philosophy.
If we are willing, they will also be an invitation to join the dialogue about
the discipline of philosophy itself, and how its boundaries and limitations are
conceptualized today.

1. CONVERSING ON LOVE

1.1. PREPARING THE GROUNDS:

ARISTOTELIAN TERMINOLOGY AND PLATONIC THEMES

Tullia dAragona's Dialogue on the Infinity of Love was first published in the
original Italian by the Venetian publishing house of Giolito de'Ferrari in 1547.2
It is centred around a conversation between the characters of Benedetto Varchi
and Tullia-the latter, obviously, referring to the first name of the author.3 The
setting is Tullia's own home, where she is in the middle of a conversation with
Signor Lattanzio Benucci and some other gentlemen. The dialogue begins
with Varchi's arrival at the scene, and Tullia invites him to solve a question
the assembled company had not been able to solve so far: "Is it possible to love
within limits?" (dAragona 1997, 58).
In Aristotelian fashion, Varchi begins his response by defining the terminol-
ogy for their debate. The words limit and end are established as synonymous, so
that something without an end must also be without a limit. But when asked
for the words love and to love, Tullia denies their synonymity on the grounds
that one is a noun and the other a verb, and "verbs imply time, whereas nouns
connote meaning without time" (1997, 61). With their "extended [temporal]
reference" (1997, 62), Tullia assumes, verbs should be considered to have a higher
status than nouns. Insisting on the Aristotelian distinction between essence and
accident, Varchi objects that the temporal implication of the verb to love is only
one of its accidental properties. Love as a noun and to love as a verb, he argues,
are still in their essence the same. If anything, verbs should be considered less
perfect than nouns, because verbs cannot refer to the activity of loving without
the substance of love contained in the noun love.
Varchi is here alluding to the Aristotelian concepts of matter and form, of
which the latter was traditionally considered to be of superior value.4 Through

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 Lisa Curtis-Wendlandt 79

analogy, Varchi relates this Aristotelian distinction to the human body and
soul and asks Tullia which one she views as the most perfect, "form alone
without matter, or form united to matter?" Quite provocative in her seemingly
naive dismissal of the traditional superiority of the soul over the human body,
she asks: "Is anyone ignorant of the fact that the whole, body and soul taken
together, is more noble and more perfect than the soul by itself?" (1997, 65).
Without explicitly criticizing the philosophical tradition, Tullia's question car-
ries far-reaching implications for her later definition of human love. She supports
her point by reminding Varchi that, according to his own logical principles,
the soul and the body taken together must at least be of the same value as the
soul taken by itself, because even if the body was to add no value to the soul,
"it still doesn't have to reduce it to any degree." The soul would still "exert the
same power united with the body as it would by itself" (1997, 65). Varchi dis-
agrees on the grounds that the mixture of body and soul decreases the purity
of the latter. The soul alone is nobler "in just the same way as a lump of gold
has greater purity taken by itself than if it is soiled by mud or mixed in an alloy
with lead" (1997, 65). For now, the hierarchy of body and soul is established in
the text and will serve as a prerequisite to the following distinction between
spiritual and sensual love.
When asked what love is, Tullia defines it as "a desire to enjoy with union
what is truly beautiful or seems beautiful to the lover."5 The verb to love, on
the other hand, means "to desire to enjoy, and to be united with, either what
is truly beautiful or what seems beautiful to the lover" (1997, 69). According to
Varchi, her description of love and to love shows that "both of them constitute
an identical effect" and thus can be expected to have an identical cause as
well. As to this cause, Tullia believes beauty to be the "mother" of love and
the knowledge of that beauty to be love's "father" (1997, 70).6 Varchi, however,
claims it to be exactly the other way around. He derives this from the idea that
love is a movement, which needs an external agent as its cause. Varchi argues
that the beloved is this agent, evoking love's desire in the lover. Thus, as the
active part, the beloved is said to be nobler than the lover.
A terminological dichotomy is established by using the opposites of activ-
ity and passivity as indicators of perfection and imperfection. Following the
Aristotelian tradition, perfection and imperfection are associated with the
superiority of masculinity over femininity.7 If the active part is more perfect and
thus male, then the father of love must be beauty, as Varchi states (1997, 70).
For the beauty of the beloved activates love in the lover, whose "knowledge of
that beauty" is a passive-and thus feminine-quality of the lover's receptive
mind. But if the lover's love is a movement that needs an external agent as its
cause, what happens to love if it ceases to be caused? From the Aristotelian
claim that no single thing can set itself in motion, Varchi concludes that every
lover must have an "end" in mind as the cause that moves him. If there was no

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80 Hypatia

such end moving the lover toward the beloved, there would be no desire and
thus no love. In form of a logical syllogism, Varchi argues: "If all lovers have
an end in mind, and if all those who reach their end no longer move, that is,
cease from their purpose, it necessarily follows that all lovers who attain their
aim become satisfied and no longer love.... Hence, love has an end, and it is
therefore possible to love within limits" (1997, 88-89).
Tullia, too, makes a point in favor of the finiteness of love. From her own
experience, she knows that men not only fall in love, but also that they fall out of
love again: "Because of anger or some other feeling... they have stopped loving
and jilted the women they had loved" (1997, 72). In this case, however, Varchi
objects that theirs is not true love: "Their real fault is that they give the most
beautiful and precious label to what is just a vile and sordid act" (1997, 75). The
next section examines the distinction between two different kinds of love.8

1.2. BETWEEN NATURE AND REASON: VULGAR AND VIRTUOUS LOVE

Despite Tullia and Varchi's arguments for the finite nature of love, there is a way
in which love can also be considered infinite. Tullia explains how "the desires
of people in love are infinite, and they can never settle down after achieving
something. This is because after obtaining it, they long for something else, and
something else again, and something more after that" (d'Aragona 1997, 84).
Following Varchi's example of clearly defining the terminology of the debate,
Tullia reminds him that "this word 'love', since it can stand for various types
of loving, is a polyvalent noun" (1997, 89). With a division of love into two
types-"vulgar" and "virtuous"9-she claims love to be both finite and infinite.
Vulgar love is described as a matter of low-minded people who simply desire
physical pleasure and the procreation of the species. It is generated by "a desire
to enjoy the object that is loved" (1997, 90) and is said to cease once that desire
is satisfied. Since the end of vulgar love can be attained, this type of love is
finite. Honest love, on the other hand, is a sign of an individual's nobility.'0 It
is not generated by desire but by reason, and its main end is "the transforma-
tion of oneself into the object of one's love, with a desire that the loved one be
converted into oneself" (1997, 90). According to Tullia, this transformation is
a spiritual process in which "the principal part is played by the 'spiritual senses',
those of sight and hearing and, above all... the imagination" (1997, 90).
The emphasis on the role of the "spiritual senses" in the lover's transfor-
mation was a common theme in Renaissance literature on love. As John C.
Nelson explains, many Renaissance writers "chose to treat love 'Platonically' as
an intellectual, nonsexual, or even anti-sexual phenomenon.... The appetite,
which follows the other senses, is not love, but lust or frenzy" (1958, 70). Tullia,
however, follows this doctrine only to some extent. Although her concept of
virtuous and vulgar love is borrowed from a Christianized idea of Platonic love,
she emphasises that the lover also desires a "corporeal union besides the spiritual

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 Lisa Curtis-Wendlandt 81

one, in order to effect a total identification with the beloved" (d'Aragona 1997,
90). But while the total penetration of the lover and the beloved is possible
for their souls, a complete corporeal unity is impossible. Since human bodies
cannot fully merge into one another, the lover will never be able to satisfy his
desire to become the object of his love and thus "he cannot love with a limit"
(1997, 90). Physical love is here an integrated part of even the virtuous kind
of love, and necessary for Tullia's conception of it as infinite.l The admission
of both spiritual and physical aspects into a "virtuous" definition of love must
have been a crucial point to drive home for d'Aragona as an intellectual and
as a courtesan.12
Near the end of the Dialogue on the Infinity of Love, Varchi raises three final
questions regarding Tullia's definition of vulgar love. Although proposed as
minor doubts, they are really what Russell calls important "corollaries to the
main thesis" (dAragona 1997, 34). Firstly, Varchi wants to know why vulgar
love is called "vulgar." Secondly, he asks how the love of men for boys can be
explained; and finally, why even in the case of vulgar love, the satisfaction of
physical desire often seems to increase rather than to end the physical appetites.
Tullia's reply to the first question leads to an important modification of her
definition of love.
While her initially established dichotomy between the two loves claimed
vulgar love to be reprehensible, she now specifies that humans should not be
blamed for "the instinctive drives that arise from our nature." Suddenly, the
physical, procreative kind of love that humans have in common with plants
and animals should not be called lascivious or "dishonest." Instead, humans'
physical love should be praised for its ability to generate "offspring of a more
noble and worthy calibre than plants and animals." "Nature" appears as a force
worthy to be supported rather than denied. Just as "no one deserves censure for
eating and drinking, but rather should be congratulated... so people should be
praised for generating offspring that are similar to themselves, thus perpetuat-
ing themselves in the species." Tullia's only proviso is moderation: the natural
desires should not become excessive, "unbridled and overpowering," as this
would entail a subordination of reason to the senses, a sign of "rational men
turning into brute animals." The distinguishing feature that separates humans
from animals is the self-controlling power of reason. Thus, reason is depicted
as the bond between nature and morality: as long as reason acts as the "queen
of the body" (1997, 94) and remains in control of its "nature," sensual desires
can be satisfied without decreasing a person's nobility.
Here, dAragona clearly modifies the orthodox Neoplatonist position in its
goal of overcoming the physical aspects of love. However, although her dialogue
introduces a more naturalistic tone, the common dichotomy between reason
and nature, and the superiority of the former over the latter, are maintained.
Furthermore, the goodness of physical love is still tied to procreation, which
serves as its main justification. D'Aragona's text offers neither what Ann

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82 Hypatia

Rosalind Jones has called a "coerced repetition" or a "romantic rejection of

literary models," but should rather be understood as occupying a "negotiated"
position (1990, 4): while key elements of the dominant ideology-such as the
familiar Aristotelian terminology and (Neo)Platonist themes-are employed
in the text, both are transformed and modified in order to serve dAragona's
own philosophical voice.

1.3. BLURRING BOUNDARIES: THE CONNECTEDNESS OF THE Two LOVES

With Varchi's two remaining questions in mind, Tullia proceeds to explain

why vulgar love sometimes does not cease after the "carnal appetites" have
been fulfilled. In her original definition of the two loves, a defining feature
of vulgar love was its finiteness, which was due to the satiability of the lover's
physical desire to simply "enjoy" the loved object.'3 "Why is it," Varchi thus
wonders, "that sometimes ... [vulgar love] changes into hatred and sometimes
into greater love?" (1997, 103). The reason Tullia offers for love's turning into
hatred is surfeit: the "material" (rather than "spiritual") senses of touch and
taste responsible for bodily pleasures occasionally get overly satisfied. This "too
much" of sensual stimulation can turn love into hatred. On the other hand,
vulgar love might turn into even greater love after physical union, either through
jealousy or through the transformation of vulgar into virtuous love.
While jealousy is a pervasive topic in Italian Renaissance literature on love,'4
Tullia's second explanation is much less common, and of central importance:
"vulgar" love, she explains, might burn even brighter after physical union,
because it is not that different from "virtuous" love after all-that is, it is not
cut off from it essentially. The different types of love become different stages of
love. Vulgar love, Tullia describes, "may include a wide variety of possibilities: it
may indeed allow for several different levels ... so that this vulgar and lascivi-
ous strain of love can... give rise to a chaste and virtuous love, just as a moral
and virtuous love, because of some fault in either the lover or the beloved, may
turn into one of the vulgar and lascivious variety" (1997, 103-104). The differ-
ent levels of love are still hierarchically organized, but they have now become
permeable. An individual can freely move from one stage of love to another
in both directions. Tullia compares this transmutation process to a plant that
can go from wild to domestic or from domestic to wild, implicitly suggesting
that what changes is not the essential nature of the plant (or, analogously, of
love) but its appearance and its social acceptability. In Aristotelian terms, one
would be tempted to say it changes merely its accidental properties. Vulgar love
could then be described as already possessing in potentiality the nobility and
virtues of honest love. Whenever this potential is actualized, it can be seen in
what Varchi describes as the increasing love after physical intercourse. Varchi's
question has thus allowed Tullia to draw her final, most important-and maybe

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 Lisa Curtis-Wendlandt 83

most controversial-conclusion, the modification of her theory of the two loves.

Although originally dichotomous in their character and described with the
Aristotelian terminology of opposite pairs, honest and vulgar love are finally
drawn closer together, and their clear-cut boundaries become blurred. For each
individual, the transition from one stage of love to the other is possible: vulgar
and honest love appear as variable features in all of us.

2. DISCOURSES ON DISCOURSE

2.1. GENDER AND REASON:

AGAINST THE FEMALE CONTEMPLATIONIS DEFECTUS

Having followed the development of Tullia and Varchi's debate on the topic of
love, I will now shift attention to another prevalent theme running through
their discussion: the explicitly gendered debate on the aims and methods of
communication and the procedures of discourse itself. The Dialogue on the
Infinity of Love provocatively opens by raising the gender question when Tullia
asks Varchi whether he would feel uncomfortable having a conversation with
a woman. She points at his "complex philosophical reasons for considering
women less meritorious and intrinsically less perfect than men" (1997, 55-56),
forcing Varchi straight into defense. His response, however, is more revealing
than consoling. Women have power over men, Varchi admits, "thanks to their
spiritual qualities and, even more, to the beauty of their bodies" (1997, 56). This
is rather a statement of the common stereotype of the time than any true admis-
sion of women's equality to men. Women's main domain, as Varchi's statement
reconfirms, is the physical domain, and they are more powerful over men with
their bodily beauty than with their intellectual qualities.
Although dAragona introduces the gender topic forcefully, she is quick in
removing it from the scene again, through Varchi's words: "We'll have plenty of
time to discuss this matter on another occasion" (1997, 56). The reader is made
to believe that the discussion on gender relations is not going to occupy much
of the dialogue's textual space-a literary tactic dAragona presumably adopted
not to appear too explicit. It is, however, a strategy of distraction rather than
elimination, as the topic continues to play a central role throughout the dialogue
in various ways. To a great extent, the question of gender relations simply moves
underground, into the sheltered realms of the subtext. But whenever it comes
back to the surface of the conversation again, it tends to get mixed up with the
philosophical debate about love.
When Tullia criticizes Varchi for his "tricky" method of philosophical argu-
mentation, for example, he devalues Tullia's critique by drawing attention to
her sex. Just like every woman, she would argue for the sake of the argument,
rather than the truth: "What a splendid way women have! They reinterpret

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84 Hypatia

everything after their own fashion. Whoever they deal with ... the uppermost
thing in their minds is to come out the victors" (1997, 58). That women do
not have truth as the paramount concern in their minds seems to have been
a common opinion in the Renaissance, connected to the belief that women's
powers of reason are more limited than men's. As Ian Maclean reminds us, "truth
... relates to speculative reason, and there seems in the Renaissance to be little
support for the incursion of women into this sphere. Women are associated with
a privation of meditative powers (contemplationis defectus) which make them
... ill suited to intellectual disciplines" (Maclean 1980, 63-64).
Interestingly, this essentialist assumption of women's intellectual inferiority is
challenged during Tullia's and Varchi's discussion of male homosexuality. When
Varchi asks Tullia to explain the love of men for boys, she hastily condemns
it as an "ugly, wicked and hideous vice" (d'Aragona 1997, 95), assuming that
Varchi is talking about a physical relationship. The argument of procreation,
which had helped her to justify corporeal love as "natural" and praiseworthy
between men and women, cannot be applied to the relationship between men.
Thus, Tullia argues that men are "not following the true dictates of nature"
(1997, 95) and deserve punishment. Besides the argument of procreation, Tullia
has no other philosophical argument at hand that would have been acceptable
for elevating corporeal love above the realms of brute vice. Varchi (who in real
life was sometimes accused of pursuing erotic relationships with his pupils)
boldly replies to Tullia that the kind of love between men praised as long ago
as Plato has nothing to do with sensual pleasures: Socrates and Plato "did not
love them [male youths] the way that people commonly interpret." Although
they too long to procreate something resembling themselves, their way of pro-
creation is not a corporeal one. "Just as pregnant bodies long to generate, so
do pregnant souls, and even more so" (1997, 96, emphasis added). Just as nature
is inferior to reason, natural offspring are inferior to the offspring of the soul:
Accordingly, it is the female who gives birth to natural children, but the man
who gives birth to the superior creations of the mind. This, Varchi claims, "is
the real and authentic virtuous love. It is as much worthier than the other as
the soul is worthier than the body. These lovers deserve far more praise than
the others, just as generating a beautiful soul is far more commendable than
giving birth to a beautiful body" (1997, 96-97).
Once Varchi has compared the dichotomy of body and soul with the hier-
archical order of humans' (pro)creative powers, Tullia wonders why this most
virtuous type of intellectual love is typically depicted as happening between two
men, rather than man and woman. Why, she questions, should a woman not
be loved with this type of love? "For I am certain that you don't wish to imply
that women lack the intellectual soul that men have and that consequently
they do not belong to the same species as males, as I have heard a number of
men say."' Varchi reassures Tullia that such an intellectual form of love is not

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 Lisa Curtis-Wendlandt 85

only possible with women, but should actively be pursued (1997, 97). The anti-
essentialist insistence on a gender-neutral intellective soul places women's power
of reason on an equal par with men's. This, rather than a simple condemnation
of homosexuality, should be considered d'Aragona's paramount motivation for
raising the topic of male love in her dialogue. Of course, her condemnation of
its physical aspects is undeniably strong, and there might not even be a need to
question the genuineness of her disapproval. But it is crucial to remember that
d'Aragona wrote under, or even in response to, pressing sociopolitical conditions
in her own life. D'Aragona's condemnation of homosexuality, I believe, must
therefore be understood in the context of her negotiated position as an author,
in which the "strategic adoption of a prestigious discourse" (Jones 1990, 4)-or
rather opinion in this case-served to legitimate her writing. By appropriating
the discourse on male love for her own end, dAragona challenges the tradi-
tional topos of men's superior rationality and creativity, and establishes her own
philosophical voice as one explicitly concerned with gender.

2.2. A CONSTANT STRUGGLE:

THE ART AND UNEASE OF COMMUNICATION

Portraying Tullia and Varchi's struggle with communication, the Dialogue on

the Infinity of Love is to a large extent a discourse on discourse itself. At first,
this might not seem connected to the core debate, but a closer look reveals that
Tullia's steady reference to the problems of communication is closely linked to
the topic of love. The choice of characters, too, helps this connection. Since
d'Aragona and Varchi were lovers in real life, their struggle with communication
in the text suggests itself as the struggle of two lovers in their relationship: The
issues of communication and love are thus deeply intertwined. Not surprisingly,
it is Tullia, the woman, who is struggling with the discourse patterns. While
Varchi is trying to discuss the official question in "proper" Aristotelian fash-
ion, she permanently interrupts him, questioning his very methodology. The
dialogue's concern with communication is presented as gender-dependent, and
alludes to the connection between language and power. Virginia Cox has sug-
gested that the use of the dialogue form is the "symptom of an unease with the
conventions which govern the transmission of knowledge within a society, and
a desire to reform them by returning to a study of the roots of persuasion" (Cox
1992, 7). But if this unease with communication was already part of the era's
cultural elite who usually wrote and read these dialogues, how much stronger
must it have been felt by a woman like dAragona within that society?
In the Dialogue on the Infinity of Love, Tullia appears mainly in the role of
the learning student (or so it seems at first), while Varchi takes on a teaching
position. Not surprisingly, Varchi himself hardly ever questions the discourse
procedures as such-only to remind Tullia to "behave" and to stick to his

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86 Hypatia

method of discourse. Cox has noted that "the paradigm of argumentation, for
late sixteenth-century writers of dialogue, is not discussion but teaching and
the very language they use-the language of Aristotelian science-implies a
magisterial conception of knowledge, as a body of doctrine to be communicated,
rather than a fund of wisdom to be enriched by creative exchange" (1992, 98).
In d'Aragona's dialogue, it is Varchi to whom we can attribute this concept
of processing knowledge, and who embodies the language and doctrine of
Aristotelian science.
Right from the start, he sets out to define the terms of Tullia's proposition (see
1.1), later on repeating Aristotle's rule "that you should not begin a discussion
with someone who uses undefined terminology" (dAragona 1997, 81). As Cox
has observed, "the process of definition ... was regarded with almost fetishist
reverence" (1992, 100) in many late sixteenth-century dialogues. And although
Tullia (the character) continuously interferes with Varchi's Aristotelian meth-
odology, d'Aragona (the author) has good reasons to carefully construct a
thorough Aristotelian argument in her text. Since the language of Aristote-
lian science was a prestigious code of philosophic discourse, the inclusion of
this "language of power" helped d'Aragona to promote herself as a competent
philosophic author. However, her implicit and explicit criticism of Varchi and
his methodology disrupts the flow of the text and makes impossible any linear,
continuous argumentation. Varchi's obsession with order and definition is led
into absurdity, for example, when he realizes "that solely in order to define our
question, we shall probably run out of time" (d'Aragona 1997, 71).
Ironically, the method claiming to provide better grounds for the solution
of philosophic problems is here depicted as leading into an endless line of defi-
nitions preventing a meaningful debate. In another passage of the dialogue,
d'Aragona's criticism of the Varchian discourse method comes as an intertextual
reference. In Socratic fashion, Tullia proposes: "I don't seem to know anything,
except that I know nothing" (1997, 66). It is important to note the addition of
the word "seem" to the traditional wording of the phrase, since it hints at the
difference between appearance and truth. Although Tullia might seem to know
nothing, d'Aragona appears to imply that this impression is not necessarily con-
gruent with reality (see 2.3). Following the obvious connotation of her phrase,
Varchi remarks on Tullia's similarity with Socrates. But Tullia denies that this
is what she had in mind: "I didn't mean that mine was the Socratic ignorance"
(1997, 66). Rather, it is Varchi who is painfully lacking a touch of "Socratism"
in his handlings of philosophy, and who needs to be reminded of the discourse
methods of this ancient Greek: "If Socrates was so wise and virtuous, why don't
you make a practice of imitating him? For as you know, he discussed everything
with his friend Diotima and learned all manner of wonderful things from her,
especially concerning the mysteries of love" (1997, 66).16 Tullia not only criticizes
Varchi for "imparting lessons" rather than adopting a "learning stance" (1997,

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 Lisa Curtis-Wendlandt 87

66), but also associates herself with Diotima from Plato's Symposium, implying
that if Varchi would only listen to her, Tullia could teach him a great deal about
love. But due to Varchi's disposition to lecture rather than to listen (which is
depicted as a philosophical imperfection), Tullia's knowledge of love remains
unshared and is thus withheld from the reader. While the curiosity about this
hidden knowledge grows, the reader's impatience is likely to be directed toward
the un-Socratic Varchian behavior that prevents its revelation. D'Aragona has
arranged the strings perfectly. "I am sorry," she seems to smile at the reader in
between the lines: "How could I possibly share the mysteries of love with you
while speaking to someone like Varchi!" Under these circumstances, it seems,
there is no space for the story of love to be told her way.
This is about how far Tullia's explicit metacritique goes concerning the
problems of her and Varchi's communication. This is where she leaves it: she
does not get to teach Varchi, Diotima-like, the mysteries of love, since Varchi's
un-Socratic demeanor does not change. Through her identification of Tullia
with Diotima, d'Aragona is alluding to a possible reversal of the traditional
gender-roles ascribed to the hierarchical teacher-student relationship, which is
humorously reproduced in her text. The fact that Tullia does not quite proceed
as far as Diotima and that her story of love remains untold is surely represen-
tative of the ideological restrictions imposed on d'Aragona as an author, and
on women in general at the time. However, the traditional cultural silence of
women philosophers is beginning to be voiced: D'Aragona's textual strategy
of "hinting-but-not-telling" draws attention to the existence of a woman's
(Tullia's) untold story-and by doing so, highlights the circumstances under
which this story cannot be told. Varchi's philosophic complacency and lack
of "Socratism" that prevent Diotima-Tullia from teaching him "all manner of
wonderful things ... concerning the mysteries of love" (1997, 66) can be seen
as symbolic of a general cultural ignorance toward, and silencing of, women's
philosophical voices of the time. Through Tullia's negotiations of her gendered
position within the text, d'Aragona draws attention to the difficulties incurred
by women's speaking up in the arena of philosophy.

2.3. POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY: LANGUAGES OF TRUTH?

Connected to the hint at Tullia's "untold story" and the correlated criticism of
the Varchi-Aristotelian language and methodology is d'Aragona's questioning
of the relationship between language and truth in different forms of discourse.
Attention is drawn, for example, to the possibility of a difference between
thought and spoken word, when Tullia says: "Perhaps I erred in my spoken
expression while my mind stayed on the right track" (dAragona 1997, 70).
Tullia's mind, we are explicitly alerted, could contain thoughts different from
those put forward in her words. If transferred to the level of authorship, this

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88 Hypatia

"warning" serves to discourage the reader from taking d'Aragona's dialogue

simply at face value, and again points at the complex problem of the author's
negotiated speaking position. The discussion on love has already shown various
examples of the problematic relationship between Tullia's actual beliefs and
those verbalized in her conversation with Varchi (see 2.2.). But truth is not
only depicted as problematic in relation to Tullia's (un)spoken discourse. There
is also the implicit question as to which discipline-and thus "language"-is
best suited to truthfully express what love is.
As I have shown above, Tullia permanently challenges and jokes about
Varchi's Aristotelian methodology. The philosophical discourse procedures
of logic, which he represents, are examined in regards to their ability to reach
true knowledge. Tullia is very keen to prove to Varchi that his logic "doesn't
always work out!" (1997, 62) and emphasizes that logicians "hardly lay off until
their side of the argument gets the upper hand, whether rightly or wrongly"
(1997, 59).17 Masters of argumentation, Tullia's comment seems to imply, are
not necessarily masters of the truth.18
Varchi's concept of truth appears at times as cold, abstract, and detached
from human life, which is reflected in Tullia's recurring demand for examples: "I
don't quite understand it.... I'd like to see an example of this" (1997, 63). On
the one hand, this is playing on her image as that of the learning student and
flirting with the stereotype of women as lacking the ability for abstract thought.
On the other hand, her apparent lack of understanding, and her probing for
further explanations, seem to echo the ironic tone of Socratic ignorance. When
Tullia says to Varchi: "I want you to bow to experience, which I trust by itself far
more than all the reasons produced by the whole class of philosophers" (1997,
71), she is not so much establishing a radically new idea in the philosophical
search for truth as making the point that one cannot adequately talk about
"love" without taking into consideration one's own experience of it. The abstract
reasoning of philosophic logic is thus questioned as the appropriate language
for the discourse on love.
By referring to Boccaccio and Petrarch, Tullia leads the discussion away
from a purely philosophical perspective and introduces poetry as an alterna-
tive approach. Petrarch, she states, "towers incomparably over all others in the
description of the pangs of love" (1997, 84). Poets, it is suggested, have a potential
to capture certain "truths" of the human experience of love that philosophers
fail to achieve. We are here reminded of the division between arts and sciences,
which was represented in the separation of such disciplines as philosophy and
poetry. As Joan Gadol has observed: "Down to the Renaissance, the practice
of art had been subordinated to the 'higher' cognitive activities of the mind"
(Gadol 1969, 128); and belonging to the arts, poetry would not have been
considered as primarily providing truthful knowledge. "If you write sonnets,"
Varchi describes, "people believe ... that you are capable of nothing... a person

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 Lisa Curtis-Wendlandt 89

full of nonsense and idle talk, not to say someone witless and crazy" (d'Aragona
1997, 86). D'Aragona, however, defends poetry as a worthy and noble discipline.
Through Varchi's words, she announces that writing sonnets "is not something
for everyone to do-for it requires the knowledge of many subjects, besides
intelligence and good judgment" (1997, 86). Furthermore, it is a remarkable
fact that, although many philosophers are mentioned by name throughout her
dialogue, the only direct quotations included in the text are taken from the
poetic works of Petrarch and Dante, rather than from philosophical authors. By
this strategy of quotation, d'Aragona secures an accentuated place for poetry in
her dialogue: poets and poetry, she seems to suggest, deserve a prominent role
in the discourse on love.
Interestingly, however, the very accentuated presence of literary elements
in love treatises and dialogues of the Italian Renaissance has led some scholars
to question their philosophical value. Nelson, for example, judges the works
of Pietro Bembo, Marsilio Ficino, and Leone Ebreo to be those "which almost
alone of that vast body of treatises have philosophical importance." He bases
his opinion on the observation of a "preponderance of the literary motive over
the philosophical" in most other writings, which is indicated in the fact "that
the most frequently quoted author is not Plato, but Petrarch!" (1958, 73). The
question is, however, whether literary motives are always just literary motives,
and thus necessarily unphilosophical. Nelson's criticism seems to dismiss the
thought that an emphasis on literary elements in a text can itself be meant as
a philosophical contribution. In the Dialogue on the Infinity of Love, I believe,
quotations of Petrarch should be seen as supporting a philosophic point, namely,
d'Aragona's unsettling of the dichotomy of poetry and philosophy as two mutu-
ally exclusive discourses. Nelson's comment might thus reflect the very opinion
d'Aragona was trying to challenge: To say that an emphasis on literary motives
devaluates the philosophical relevance of a work is to presuppose the irreconcil-
able nature of the two kinds of discourse. It is like claiming for another domain
what Varchi had said about the relation of body and soul, where a lump of gold
(the soul) is purer taken by itself than "in an alloy with lead" (1997, 65). In the
same way as Tullia had opposed Varchi on this point and secured a place for
the body beside the soul without decreasing the nobility of the latter, I believe
d'Aragona invites poetry to enter the arena of philosophy, and to participate
in the quest for a true definition of love based on human experience. Since
d'Aragona was primarily known as a poet in real life, her admission of poetry
into the philosophic discourse on love parallels her own appropriation as a
woman of the traditionally male space of philosophic authorship.

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90 Hypatia

3. IMPLICATIONS OF THE FORM

3.1. A SPECIALTY OF THE GENRE: THE FICTION OF REALITY

After the ancient Greek and Roman authors (especially Plato, Lucian, and
Cicero) had made extensive use of the dialogue form, the genre experienced a
remarkable revival during the European Renaissance. A specialty of the Italian
Cinquecento dialogues was their claim to depict a historically "real" situation,
most commonly modeled on the documentary dialogue-style of Cicero. Typical
for the Ciceronian dialogues was, as Cox describes, "the choice of speakers of
a relatively high social status, a close attention to historical accuracy and an
overwhelming concern with decorum" (1992, 14). While Plato's dialogues were
still set in the streets and marketplaces of Athens, depicting spontaneously
occurring conversations between slaves, strangers, philosophers, and youths,
Cicero's dialogues were "a far more exclusive affair, frequently set in a patrician
villa: the gathering of a chosen few" (1992, 13).
As Cox argues, the reason why Italian Cinquecento writers adopted the Cice-
ronian dialogue model was sociological rather than philosophical or literary:

The attitude of the elite to the circulation of culture in

Cinquecento Italy was ... far closer to that which informs the
dialogues of Cicero than those of Plato. ... Especially as the
Counter-Reformation gained momentum ... it was increas-
ingly felt that the spread of learning below a certain stratum
of the social hierarchy was something which could only lead to
imbalance and dissent. (1992, 14)

The "elitist stamp" of the Ciceronian dialogue, Cox concludes, "guaranteed the
form's success in the cultural economy of the Italian courts" (1992, 21). Since
d'Aragona suffered from the consequences of this increasingly tense socio-political
and ideological climate in her own life,19 one could expect her dialogue to
conform as much as possible to the prevailing Ciceronian style.
However, there are a number of remarkably un-Ciceronian elements in
her text. Although the setting of her dialogue represents "the gathering of a
chosen few" of famous humanists and literati and thus depicts a cultural elite,
d'Aragona's inclusion of a female interlocutor into her text is a significant
deviation from the Ciceronian tradition. Furthermore, the female character
Tullia is not a member of the aristocracy, but, given d'Aragona's profession as
courtesan in real life, easily associable with a rather dubious social status.20
She appears, nevertheless, as host and leader of the conversation with her
distinguished guests. Another un-Ciceronian feature appears, at times, when
Tullia's argumentation follows Platonic ethics. As Cox remarks: "Where Plato
characterizes his speakers by their 'life' and 'learning' . . . Cicero is far more

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 Lisa Curtis-Wendlandt 91

likely to do so by their 'breeding' and 'career"' (1992, 13). During her discussion
of virtuous love, Tullia is eager to clarify that the nobility of the soul is not a
matter of social status or birth: while vulgar love can be found in all sorts of
individuals, "whether they come from noble or insignificant stock," so too all
kinds of people can be virtuous, "whether they be rich or poor" (dAragona
1997, 89-90). As dAragona proposes in un-Ciceronian manner, there is no
social barrier for virtuous love and the nobility of the human soul. She thus
offers an implicit justification of her own position as an author and courtesan
capable of virtuous love.
This implicit reference to the self of the author is greatly assisted by the use
of real historical characters as interlocutors within the text: the boundaries
between Tullia (the character) and d'Aragona (the author) begin to blur. As
Muzio Iustinapolitano, a contemporary of dAragona, claims in his introduction
to the print version of her text, the Dialogue on the Infinity of Love presents a
disputation that "really took place" (dAragona 1997, 52). But although many
characters of so-called documentary dialogues might coincide with real histori-
cal figures, the works as a whole should still be seen for their essentially fictional
nature. By using real historical figures as interlocutors, Cox argues, a text can
gain a "crucial level of meaning from the identity of the protagonists" (1992,
9) and the "off-stage" discourse of their lives outside the text. For dAragona,
an important role of this additional level of meaning would have been to lend
authority to the argument in her text, and to herself as its author. Varchi reminds
Tullia, for example, how "Sperone ... and Muzio ... have written so much,
and in such style, about you, that their texts 'will last as long as the universe is
in motion"' (dAragona 1997, 56).21 Here, Tullia's profile is implicitly raised by
Varchi's reference to the famous Italian humanists Sperone Speroni and Muzio
Iustinapolitano, who were, in real life, d'Aragona's lovers and friends-a fact
that would have been known to most readers. The strategy of self-legitimation
works indirectly through Muzio and Sperone's praise of Tullia, and relies on
their fame and authority in real life. Thus, the historical reality of the charac-
ters represented in the text is used as the semantic background against which
d'Aragona constructs an ideal literary image of herself.

3.2. PHILOSOPHY AS DIALOGUE:

THE EPISTEMOLOGICAL RELEVANCE OF THE GENRE

An inquiry into the history of philosophy would not be complete without asking
for the epistemological implications of the particular genre of the text in ques-
tion. We have to ask, then, what the dialogue form means for the philosophical
content of dAragona's Dialogue on the Infinity of Love. As I briefly mentioned
above, the Italian Renaissance dialogue, and the literarization of philosophy
in general, have often been associated with a weakening of the philosophic

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92 Hypatia

quality of a text. The complexity of philosophical thinking, one could argue,

was diluted to serve the courtly ladies' and patrons' appetite for prestigious
education and entertainment. And indeed, the Italian Renaissance dialogue of
the Cinquecento reflects a remarkable popularization of philosophy. As can be
seen in d'Aragona's work, the neo-Aristotelian terminology experienced a great
revival and found its way into the writings of the time: "After half a century of
tireless volgarizzatione, not only the 'materie' and 'forme'... but far more techni-
cal scholastic terminology had become acceptable in the dialogue. Philosophers
... had begun to become a popular choice as the principal speakers of dialogues,
dealing out lightly popularised doctrine to their willing auditores" (Cox 1992,
89). But even if dialogues were regularly addressed to a semi-educated audience,
does that mean they had nothing to offer but a cheap popularized version of
complex philosophical doctrine? Was the literarization and popularization of
philosophy synonymous with its "unprofessional" developments?
An advocate of this view is Albert W. Levi, who claims that "philosophy's
literary involvement is almost directly inverse to the degree of its professionalization."22
His comment is related to that of Nelson, who criticized the literary motives in
Renaissance dialogues for devaluing their philosophical quality (see 2.3). What
Levi seems to dismiss is the fact that no philosophical text can be without liter-
ary involvement. As Mark Jordan observes: "It would be more correct to say
that no work of philosophy is not literary. It is rather that there are different
genres. Some genres employed by the moderns pretend disingenuously not to
be genres, but that is just one of their generic features" (Jordan 1981, 206). All
philosophical discourse, we can thus say, is discourse in one or another literary
genre, and philosophy cannot be written without making use of specific literary
devices. The Italian Renaissance dialogue should therefore not be denied its
philosophical worth for reasons of "literary involvement" per se.
The question remains, however, if and how the form of a text is related to its
message. Can certain things be done philosophically in a dialogue that cannot
be done in another genre? Or, in other words: "What thought thinks itself as
a dialogue?" (Jordan 1981, 205). One of the dialogue's unique features is its
intrinsic representation of the act of communication. While processing philo-
sophic ideas at an often rather unfinished stage, it offers a portrait of philosophic
activity itself.23 In the open, not merely didactic, form of the dialogue, knowledge
is not a ready-made product available to the reader; philosophical doctrine is
searched for, rather than categorically provided. To the earlier humanists of the
Quattrocento, the dialogue seemed like "a 'provocation' to the reader: a form of
argumentation which deliberately eschewed the self-sufficiency of the treatise
form, and actively challenged its readers and critics to pursue the quest it had
begun" (Cox 1992, xii). While readers were encouraged to actively participate
in the argument, the interactive quality of the dialogue conveyed to them a
conception of "knowledge as a collective enterprise" (Cox 1992, 62).

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 Lisa Curtis-Wendlandt 93

Between reader and text, and more or less between the characters of the dia-
logue, discussion appeared as a prerequisite for the joint discovery of truth. Cox
is right in saying that "this interactive quality in the dialogue form would have
particular value ... to a reading public with particular reason to be sensitive to
the 'tyranny' of monological written discourse" (1992, 44). Her statement could
be applied to match dAragona's case: the interactive quality of the dialogue
form had particular value to a female writer like dAragona with particular
reason to be sensitive to the "tyranny" of monological male written discourse.
Although the dialogue practices changed during the Cinquecento in favor of
a more didactic, less discussion-based form, the Dialogue on the Infinity of Love
from 1547 still reveals a deep concern with the ways in which knowledge is
presented. Remarkably, dAragona's dialogue does this through both its form
and its content.
While the "foregrounding of the act of persuasion" (Cox 1992, 6) is an inher-
ent trait of the form of all dialogues, the official subject-matter discussed in the
text was often quite independent of such meta-communicational considerations.
Not so, however, in dAragona's work. I have shown how various aspects of the
topic of communication are raised explicitly throughout Tullia and Varchi's con-
versation, and are closely intertwined with their discussion on love. The broad
extent to which the problem of communication becomes the actual subject
matter of the text must thus be recognized as a specialty of the Dialogue on the
Infinity of Love. This coinciding of the semantics of form and content cannot be
found in many other love dialogues of the time and highlights the importance
the topic must have held for dAragona. Her deep concern with the patterns of
discourse and the practices of philosophy, we can conclude, were thoughts that
would have "thought" themselves most clearly as a dialogue.

4. TRANSCENDING THE LIMITS:

CONCLUDING WITH A NOTE ON IMITATION AND INNOVATION

In d'Aragona's Florentine days, the breeze of repression and conformism that

became symbolic of the late sixteenth century had already begun to blow,
and public discourse became increasingly restricted by the cultural elite. As
Cox describes: "A concerted attempt by the spiritual and secular authorities
to tighten their grip on the circulation of ideas, complemented by an under-
standable tendency to self-censorship in writers, resulted in a situation in
which-although much discussion took place-... one cannot help forming
the impression that there was little of weight to be discussed" (1992, 31). While
Cox's criticism might not do justice to some of the more courageous writings of
the time, it draws attention to the authors' increasing necessity of negotiating
their discourse. Under such restrictive conditions, one might expect a severe
silencing of unsettling voices, including those of women philosophers. Yet in

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94 Hypatia

her dialogue dAragona circumvents the cultural exclusion of women from

philosophy in a specifically negotiated way.
By appropriating the pervasive strategies of imitation and innovation
common to Renaissance literary production, I suggest, dAragona establishes
her own philosophic standpoint. The (sometimes subtle) originality of her posi-
tion is overlooked by critics like Nelson who claim that important aspects of
d'Aragona's definition of love are paraphrased from Leone Ebreo's work (Nelson
1958, 131). As much as this might be so, it is crucial to remember that during
the Renaissance, imitation and commentary-not only of classical authors,
but also of celebrated contemporaries-was by no means reprehensible, but
rather a desirable literary aim. Even if Nelson is right and dAragona's dialogue
contains crucial elements of imitation, they cannot serve as indicators of a lack
of philosophic originality per se. Only by comparing the whole of Ebreo's work
to d'Aragona's can we see the significant differences in both texts and their
ways of defining love.24
The intricate dynamics of imitation and innovation in Renaissance liter-
ary production deserve special attention, even more so in a study on women
philosophers. To further understand the specificity of d'Aragona's voice in the
particular climate of the Italian mid-Cinquecento, we need a broader compara-
tive study of these literary and methodological aspects and their philosophic
import in the works of d'Aragona and her contemporaries.25 Such intertextual
analyses, I believe, present a promising opportunity for future research, and will
help to further elucidate the specificity of dAragona's (gendered) place within
the philosophic discourse of her time. I thus agree with Jones that sixteenth-
century women writers "need to be read in relation to the male writers and
male-defined discourses of their time," and further, "that reading women with
and against their sixteenth-century male contemporaries brings new aspects of
the writing of both sexes into view" (Jones 1990, 6).
I would like to add, however, that we need to read women writers with and
against the works of their female contemporaries, too. Compared to other
women writers of the time, Tullia dAragona is certainly not the most radical
and outspoken critic on the topics of love and gender relations. She is quieter
than the Venetian Veronica Franco, for example, another famous intellectual
and courtesan, who wrote in a more openly oppositional and provocative way
on matters of gender, love, and sexuality.26 I hope to have shown, however,
that d'Aragona's dialogue fits far from smoothly the Neoplatonist tradition
of her time, and that we can find in it a subversive, disruptive force. Beyond
her unique contribution to Renaissance theories of love and the remarkable
complexity with which she forces a reexamination of the aims and methods of
communication, dAragona also provokes a confrontation between philosophy
and its very own (male) self-conception. In Fiora Bassanese's words: "The funda-
mental transgression of the courtesan must be recognized. She appropriates the

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 Lisa Curtis-Wendlandt 95

language, thereby the essence, of a social class and intellectual group to which
she does not belong.... By addressing the elite, the woman writer necessarily
addresses the canon itself and, at a profound level, her own place within it" (Bas-
sanese 1999, 79). Through d'Aragona's work and persona, philosophy is invited
to reflect on itself-on its disciplinary boundaries, values, and identity.

NOTES

1. This paper is not primarily a comparative study. For a broader philosophical

comparison of Renaissance theories of love, see John Charles Nelson 1958.
2. As Rinaldina Russell argues, it is likely that Tullia d'Aragona had started writing
her dialogue at least a year earlier (see Russell in d'Aragona 1997, 25-26).
3. I will subsequently distinguish between the author and the character in the
dialogue by referring to the author as "d'Aragona" and the character as "Tullia."
4. Ian Maclean has described Aristotle's tendency of producing conceptual duali-
ties in which one element is superior over the other: "The male principle in nature
is associated with active, formative and perfected characteristics, while the female is
passive, material and deprived, desiring the male in order to become complete. The
duality male/female is therefore paralleled by the dualities active/ passive, form/matter,
act/potency, perfection/imperfection, completion/incompletion, possession/deprivation"
(Maclean 1980, 8). Maclean refers to Aristotle's Physics, 1.9 (192a 22); De generatione
animalium, 1.20 (729a 25ff); and Historia animalium, IX.I (608a 21ff).
5. The concepts of love and beauty are closely connected in Platonic and Neo-
platonic philosophy: "Since Platonic love theory involves a whole system of ethics,
beauty is a key concept in the moral realm. By its association with truth and goodness,
beauty is related to the gnosiological field as well. The beauty which one loves cannot
be unknown. Some Renaissance writers use the terms 'love' and 'beauty' almost inter-
changeably" (See Nelson 1958, 80-81).
6. For Plato's discussion of the "mother" and "father" of love, see his Symposium
(203a-204b).
7. There is some debate as to the sexist status of Aristotle's philosophy. Maclean's
view (see above, n. 4) that some of Aristotle's theoretical concepts are intrinsically
biased against women has been contested, for example, by Charlotte Witt: "If ...
Aristotle's theories are intrinsically biased against women ... it is unlikely that they
can have any value for feminists. Alternatively, as I have argued elsewhere, one might
conclude that the suspect gender associations between Aristotelian matter and form
are extrinsic, and therefore removable from Aristotle's theories without substantially
altering them. If this interpretation is correct, then Aristotle's theories might have value
for feminist philosophers" (1996, 4).
8. The distinction between two kinds of love is a common theme in Neoplatonist
Renaissance literature, going back to Plato's Symposium.
9. "Vulgar" love is also referred to as "dishonest" love, and "virtuous" love is also
referred to as "honest" love.

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96 Hypatia

10. The hierarchical division into two kinds of love parallels the Renaissance divi-
sion of prostitutes into two kinds: the honest courtesan and the common prostitute.
As Stortoni and Lillie point out: "The low-class courtesans ... or della minor sorte
. . . were numerous, but did not have much education or refinement. The cortegiane
honorate, or upper class courtesans, were extremely well educated" (Stortoni and Lillie
1997, xviii-xix).
11. Discussing the Aristotelian concepts of actuality and potentiality, Tullia had
earlier concluded that love was infinite potentially, not in actuality (1997, 84).
12. A comparable naturalistic tone can be found in slightly earlier writings like
Sperone Speroni's Dialogo d' Amore (written ca. 1520-28). By the time d'Aragona wrote
her dialogue, however, the increasingly tense sociopolitical climate of the Counter Ref-
ormation had already begun to make itself felt. A reemphasis on the more naturalistic
elements of love was thus riskier than it had been during the earlier decades of the
Renaissance. In Sperone Speroni's Dialogo d'Amore, Tullia herself is depicted as one
of the main interlocutors. For a discussion of the role of Tullia's character in Speroni's
Dialogo, see Robert Buranello (2000, 53-69). For a brief analysis of Speroni's dialogue
in the wider philosophical context of Renaissance theories of love, see Nelson (1958,
127-29).
13. The lover's desire to simply "enjoy" the loved object is opposed to his seeking
a total identification with, and transformation into, the beloved, which is impossible
and thus characteristic of infinite virtuous love (see 1.2.).
14. The discussion on jealousy goes back to Plato's Phaedrus. See Russell in
d'Aragona (1997, 109-110n80).
15. We should not forget how important d'Aragona's question really was. As Stortoni
and Lillie remind us, during the end of the sixteenth century (just a few decades after
the publication of d'Aragona's dialogue) viciously misogynist treatises gained immense
popularity again (see Stortoni and Lillie 1997, xxiv).
16. See Plato's Symposium (201d-212b).
17. Tullia is here reversing an accusation that Varchi had earlier directed at the
female sex (see 2.1).
18. Tullia does distinguish, however, between the "proper brand of logic" and the
"bogus sophistry which is all the modern vogue" (d'Aragona 1997, 60).
19. Just before the publication of her dialogue, she was denounced by the authorities
for not wearing the yellow veil courtesans were required to wear in public. With the help
of Benedetto Varchi, who was trained as a lawyer, and Cosimo de'Medici, to whom her
dialogue is dedicated, she was luckily exonerated on the grounds of her "rare knowledge
of poetry and philosophy." The legal documents relating this case have been preserved
in the Archivio di Stato of Florence. Petition and deliberation can be read in Salvatore
Bongi (1890, 184-85; 1886, 89-99). See Russell in d'Aragona 1997, 26 and n. 14.
20. The profession of cortegiana honorata also offered freedom and social prestige to
women. Bassanese is right in saying that "prostitution was one sixteenth-century path
to upward mobility for ambitious women born poor, illegitimate, or untitled" (Bassa-
nese 1999, 70). However, the tolerant climate this required had begun to be seriously
undermined by the time dAragona wrote her dialogue.
21. Varchi is quoting from Dante's Inferno (1.60). See Russell in dAragona 1997,
56n7.

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 Lisa Curtis-Wendlandt 97

22. See Levi (1976, 17-18). The original remark is italicized. The quotation is taken
from Jordan (1981, 206).
23. See Levi's comments on "philosophic activity" as opposed to "philosophic
doctrine" (Levi 1976, 14-15).
24. For Leone Ebreo's dialogues on love, see Ebreo 1929.
25. Another strand to pursue in further research, and of imminent interest to
modern feminist philosophy, I believe, is the evidence we get from the Tullia-Diotima
passage (see 2.2) of the view of Renaissance women writers on Plato's theories. Can we
conclude that d'Aragona's reading of Plato's Symposium, for example, offered her what
we might call a "feminist" perspective today? Recent discussions on the feminist content
of Plato's work have been far from uncontroversial. As Charlotte Witt has suggested,
"The fact that feminist interpretations of canonical figures are diverse reflects, and is
part of, on-going debates within feminism over its identity and self-image" (1996, 8).
In the context of today's feminist reevaluation of the traditional canon, Witt argues
that neither Plato's "egalitarian position in the Republic [n]or the resources of other
dialogues like the Symposium have been sufficiently explored" (1996n32). By more closely
analyzing how women writers like d'Aragona read and understood Plato, we can gain
new insights for the current evaluative debate on the philosophical canon. For further
readings on the question of Plato's feminism, see Nancy Tuana 1994.
26. For an excellent analysis of Veronica Franco's writings in the context of her life,
see Maragaret F. Rosenthal 1992.

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98 Hypatia

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