by Gaspara Stampa

Along with Vittoria Colonna, Veronica Franco, and Veronica Gambara, Gaspara Stampa is considered one of the most important female poets of the Italian Renaissance. Only fragments of Stampa’s life have been sufficiently documented. She was born in the northern Italian city of Padua around 1523. The daughter of an impoverished Milanese family, Stampa was educated in the fine arts in the Republic of Venice. Becoming a skilled musician and cantatrice (“singer”), she performed regularly in the fashionable salons of the Venetian aristocracy. Venice at the time was famous for its love of luxury and pleasure, and Stampa quickly gained a reputation as a virtuosa (fifteenth- or sixteenthcentury woman skilled in fine arts, especially the performance of music in salons). In 1548 Stampa fell in love with a Venetian count and began to document the turbulent “love story” in poetic form. Their different social standings doomed the...