Performing for strangers: Women, dance, and music in Quattrocento Florence (*).

Contrary to a tradition of scholarly insistence on the invisibility of Florentine patrician women outside the domestic sphere, it can be argued such women did in effect perform a significant, public, or quasi-public, function in the negotiation of relationships between the Republic and other Italian, and European, elites. This article assembles fragmentary evidence concerning dancing and musical performance by women directed towards the entertainment of visiting notables in the second half of the Quattrocento, and uses modern concepts of gendered performance and the performance of gender to speculate on the nature of that experience for the women involved.

On the arrival of Pope Pius II in Mantua for the Congress of 1459, among those waiting outside the Cathedral to greet him, strategically positioned on a specially constructed platform, were Barbara of Brandenburg, wife of Lodovico Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua, and Bianca Maria Visconti, wife of Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan, the latter accompanied by her children, including the thirteen-year-old Ippolita Sforza, and a retinue of "noble girls and women" (nobili fanciulle e gentildonne). The following day, Ippolita famously delivered a Latin oration to the Pope and his entourage. (1) In 1471, by contrast, when the next Duke and Duchess of Milan, Galeazzo Maria Sforza and Bona of Savoy, visited Florence with a large following, no Florentine women (contrary to the account of the Milanese historian Bernardino Corio), were among the formal welcoming party with Riccardo Fubini commenting that the presence of women in public was contrary to Florentine customs. (2)

There is, of course, a degree of truth in the notion of Florentine patrician women's difference from their aristocratic sisters elsewhere, but the contrast is sometimes presented in terms which are perhaps too stark to be really useful in the continuing enterprise of exploring women's lives in Renaissance Florence. Some patrician women did, after all, have the opportunity of meeting such high-ranking visitors. In 1471, the venue was the ambiguously private space of the Medici Palace, "where there were many women waiting to greet the Duchess," (4) but a significant number of them did, at times, enter the public arena, notably with their involvement in the official balls or dances held at fairly regular intervals throughout the century and attended by visiting, non-Florentine, and largely male, elites. Richard Trexler, as so often, gives the lead with the incontrovertible statement: "governments knew that without girls and women, there was no dance" (1980, 236). Such public dancing will constitute the primary f ocus of the present study, although the notion of "public" will be extended to incorporate examples of what one might term "semi-private" occasions when women danced, in their own domestic space or elsewhere, with or for visiting strangers.

Given the close correlation between dancing and other forms of social behavior such as vocal and instrumental performance, however, the article will also go on to consider examples of these latter by Florentine women occurring in the same, or very similar, contexts. (5)

Before considering a range of possible interpretative approaches relating to women's visibility in the dance, we should have before us some concrete examples of the kind of information available in the Quattrocento sources, information which is, in fact, surprisingly substantial. What emerges is a long tradition of festive dancing in public by Florentine women with the major moments of the dancing year falling between January and June, and frequently associated with major festivals: Carnival, Calendimaggio, and the feast of the city's patron saint, San Giovanni Battista. The principal venue, at least in the fifteenth century, appears to have been the Mercato Nuovo, but Piazza della Signoria was also used, with events in 1414, 1419, 1421, 1454, and 1466 glimpsed through the brief descriptions of contemporary diarists such as Bartolommeo di Michele Del Corazza and Giusto d'Anghiari. (6) In the dominio, too, Florentine women publicly celebrated their city's feast days, for example at a dance for San Giovanni in Pisa in 1441 described in a private letter dated 24 June to Giovanni di Cosimo de' Medici from Rosello Roselli who was awaiting the arrival of the Florentine galleys. Along with the rest of his companions, Roselli prays for them to be delayed,

so that the Bischeri girl won't go away, because I swear that she keeps the company entertained, and everyone is in love with her. A great festa was held today in her honor attended by all the ladies in Pisa, and a magnificent ball was held in the Consuls' loggia. Two prizes were awarded, one for the women and the other for the men. The former was a beautiful scarlet headdress won by the Bischeri girl; the latter, a fine hat, went to a relative of mine. (7)

This letter offers a comparatively rare opportunity to identify an individual woman in such a context: "the Bischeri girl" is almost certainly Filippa di Bartolo di Noferi Bischeri whose family belonged to the Florentine economic elite and who married Filippo di Leonardo Strozzi in that same year. (8) The case of Filippa Bischeri links in to the larger subject of the public visibility of Florentine women, its opportunities and its problems, and we shall mention her again later on, but for the purpose of the present study we should now concentrate more specifically on those dances organized by the commune in honor of high-ranking, non-Florentine visitors, although the presence of these latter could, and sometimes did, coincide with events in the regular festive calendar. (9)

Some idea of the number and identity of foreign visitors (principally male, but also occasionally female), passing through fifteenth-century Florence comes from letters, from ricordanze, or from public records, notably the Libro cerimoniale covering the second half of the century. (10) These visitors range from royalty and nobility - the Emperor, the King of Denmark, the Queen of Cyprus, the Dukes of Milan or Calabria, and brides such as Ippolita Sforza and Eleonora d'Aragona on their way to join their husbands - to condottieri such as Roberto da Sanseverino and Federico da Montefeltro, ambassadors, and churchmen, both popes and cardinals. Of the many possible examples of public dances organized for or attended by such visitors, two in particular offer the sort of detail most suited to our purposes. These date from 1433 and 1459, the visits, respectively, of ambassadors of the Emperor Sigismund with their suites, and of Galeazzo Maria Sforza, eldest son of the Duke Francesco Sforza of Milan. In 1459, as in so many instances, the women involved in public dancing with visitors remain anonymous, but we have two names in connection with the 1433 visit: that of Francesca, daughter of Antonio di Salvestro Serristori, and Alessandra, daughter of Bardo de' Bardi and Alessandra de' Rinuccini, as revealed in the account composed later in the century by Vespasiano da Bisticci. (11)

Sigismund himself was in Siena for many months before proceeding on his way to Rome for his eventual coronation by Pope Eugene IV in May 1433. The Florentine government, which had denied him entry to the city, was nevertheless involved in negotiations, and in January 1433 sought to honor his ambassadors, identified by Giovanni di Jacopo Morelli as a German, a Hungarian, and the Genoese diplomat and imperial councillor, Battista Cicala. (12) In Vespasiano's words, the Florentines "did them every possible honor, and to provide them with some entertainment, and so that they might see the beautiful, chaste women the city possessed, and also its fine young men, they decided to hold a ball." (13) The venue on this occasion was Piazza della Signoria where a large stage was constructed with seating covered in rich fabrics and a display of tapestries. The young men were given a green livery covered with pearls while the young women, naturally all very beautiful in Vespasiano's patriotic, idealizing account, were bedec ked with jewels (2: 477-78). Francesca Serristori and Alessandra de' Bardi, the latter then in her mid-teens and already engaged to Lorenzo di Palla Strozzi, are identified by the writer as the most beautiful and the most skillful dancers: consequently, they partnered the leading ambassador in a trio. Vespasiano also stresses Alessandra's skill and grace in serving the visitors with confetti and wine. At the end of the evening, a group of young men and women accompanied the ambassadors to their lodgings (the Osteria della Corona in Borgo degli Albizzi according to Giovanni di Jacopo Morelli (107)). The first ambassador presented rings to Alessandra and her companion (Francesca?), and the young women were in turn accompanied home (Vespasiano, 2: 479).

In late April 1459, extensive festivities were organized for Pope Pius II and members of his court on their way to the Congress of Mantua, and for members of the Italian nobility visiting Florence in connection with the Pope's passage. A ball was duly organized, with fifteen-year-old Galeazzo Maria Sforza as the principal guest. (14) This took place in the Mercato Nuovo on Monday 30 April, the day after a joust on Piazza Santa Croce, and invitations were extended to young people of the city's elite who made a brave showing in their finery including quantities of pearls and other jewels (Trexler, 1978, 77). On this occasion, however, other more detailed descriptions. survive, namely a letter of Galeazzo Maria dated the same day, and two anonymous verse narratives in terza rima. (15) In Sforza's estimation, around 150 women participated, both married and unmarried ("maritata", "pulzella", "donna", "fanciulla"). None are identified. After the entry of the women, heralded by fanfares, came the grand entry of Gale azzo Maria himself (Smith, 1: xv-xvi), and general dancing commenced involving the women and sixty splendidly dressed young men. Two young women then approached Galeazzo Maria, bowed, and invited him to dance a "danza peregrina" (Rossi, 1895, line 22), afterwards leading him back to his seat (the information in the poem is confirmed by Sforza's letter). This trio would seem to have danced alone because the other dancers are described as rising and bowing whenever they passed by (lines 20-21). Sforza in turn invited a pair of women (line 26), as did some of the "gran singnori [sic]" in his suite, of whom the only named individual is the condottiero, Count Tiberto Brandolini (line 32). (16) From Galeazzo Maria's letter, however, we learn of the participation in the trio-dancing of unidentified members of his own party as well as of the ambassadors of the Duke of Burgundy, one of whom may have been Simon de Lalaing whose presence in Florence is mentioned by Georges Chastellain. (17) The dancing lasted an hour an d was followed by refreshments, with silver dishes bearing elaborate symbolic confections in the shape of vipers and lions carried by a large number of pages (Rossi, 1895, line 73). Galeazzo Maria was personally served by two young women (line 86).

In the three sessions of dancing which took place that day, the "saltarello" is highlighted as the principal dance, but also mentioned by the poet are balli such as "la chirintana", "Lioncel", "bel riguardo", "la speranza", "angiola bella", and the "danza del re", while still others are not identified (lines 130-34). Virtually all of the named dances are to be found in the contemporary treatises of Domenico da Piacenza, Antonio Cornazzano, and Guglielmo Ebreo (Giovanni Ambrosio), all three working in the ambit of the northern Italian courts) (18)

Earlier in the visit, the Medici women had had an opportunity to entertain Galeazzo Maria at the family villa at Careggi, this time with single-sex dancing, the event being described by him as "a women's festivity" (una festagliola de done). (19) The dancers were more varied in age than seems to have been the case in the Mercato Nuovo: Lucrezia Tornabuoni, wife of Piero di Cosimo de' Medici, one of her daughters, probably the elder, Bianca, then aged not quite fourteen, the latter's aunt, Ginevra di Niccolo Alessandri, wife of Giovanni di Cosimo, Laudomia di Jacopo Acciaiuoli, wife of Pierfrancesco di Lorenzo de' Medici, and "a young woman of the Strozzi family who, if she is not the most beautiful in the city, is at least surpassed by very few" (una giovane di Strozi, quale se non la piu bella di questa cita, almancho e avanzata da puoche, Buser, 348). This latter is very likely to have been Marietta di Lorenzo di Palla Strozzi, then probably aged about ten or eleven, the daughter of Alessandra de' Bardi who had danced with the Emperor's ambassadors in 1433. Five years later, Marietta was to be singled out for her beauty by Marco Parenri, and placed in the same category as Lucrezia Donati, admired and celebrated by Lorenzo de' Medici. (20) These patrician women were joined by "some local women" (alcune villane), and all danced "in the Florentine style, very elegantly, with leaps and quick changes of step" (a la fiorentina, con said et scambieti a la polita, Buser, 348), a different sort of performance from the more courtly and widely-known dances chosen for the Mercato Nuovo. (21)

Less than a year later, early in 1460, on the papal party's return journey from Mantua to Rome, in a fascinating letter recently published by William Prizer, we catch sight of Bianca de' Medici dancing with Rodrigo Borgia, the future Pope Alexander VI, then in his late twenties, already a cardinal and Vice-Chancellor of the Church. (22) Apostolic Protonotary Teodoro da Montefeltro describes the event in some detail for the benefit of Barbara of Brandenburg, Marchioness of Mantua. Bianca, said (correctly) to be aged fourteen, fair, lively, and a good dancer (although, we are to understand, not as good as Ursolina, one of Barbara's servants!), was in the company of her younger sister, Nannina, and a group of women related to Piero and Jacopo di Andrea de' Pazzi. This was the family into which Bianca was to marry later that same year, having been engaged to Guglielmo di Antonio Pazzi, a nephew of Piero and Jacopo, since the previous summer. (23) The encounter involved both musical performance, to which we shall return later, and dancing which continued "until about 7:30, first balletti, then saltarelli, and finally the ballata." (24)

The writer is also interested in the manner of salutation used with the Florentine women by Borgia, and by the other distinguished visitor who met them earlier that day, Cardinal Guillaume D'Estouteville, Archbishop of Rouen and Piccolomini's rival for the papal tiara in the 1458 conclave. (25) D'Estouteville, encouraged by the Pazzi, kissed all ten women in the French style, whereas Borgia conformed to the Italian practice of touching Bianca's hand in spite of the Pazzi's insistence that he, too, follow the French fashion. (26) One presumes that the family's eagerness in this matter, as in the whole encounter, is not unrelated to actual or potential financial relations between cardinals as prestigious clients and the Pazzi as international merchants and bankers. (27) It seems that considerations of this sort outweighed the potential danger to their women of a man of Borgia's reputation. (28)

One last example will suffice. The likelihood that Bianca and Nannina de' Medici were again involved is strong but no individual name is offered by the available sources. Marco Parenti describes the visit to Florence in June 1465 of Ippolita Sforza on her way south to Naples to marry Alfonso, Duke of Calabria, eldest son of King Ferrante. She was accompanied by Alfonso's brother, Federico, and by "molte damigelle" (whom Parenti cannot resist comparing unfavourably with "le nostre" (77). Ippolita's stay at the Medici Palace coincided with the public festivities for San Giovanni, but the party also enjoyed their own entertainments with Ambassador Nicodemo Tranchedini offering a first-hand account. They had, for example, played "some of the respectable games which we are wont to play in Milan. Several young women from the best families in the city were present." He continues: "After supper, the visitors watched several of these young women dancing to the bagpipes till after sunset in the house of Antonio de Pazo [but in fact Pucci?], where Roberto [da Sanseverino] is staying: and one couldn't have wished for better although they apologized to me, saying that they did not know what else to do to please the guests." (29) Further dancing took place later at the house of Giuliano Vespucci in Ognissanti, followed by the possibility of still more at the initial venue.

With such examples in mind, it is now time to leave description behind in order to explore what is happening in such events which involve the marshalling of Florentine women into performing with, or for, non-Florentine, usually male, visitors, whether in public or in private. Women, like a city's monuments and other resources, are fundamental components of its honor or prestige, and, like them, can be pressed into the service of the state and the promotion and enhancement of civic identity as, for example, does Gregorio Dati: "Florence has girls and women of such refinement and manners, so respectable, virtuous, and marvelously beautiful as to appear angels descended from heaven" (ella [Firenze] ha fanciulle e donne di tanta gentilezza e di be' costumi, oneste e vertudiose e belle a maraviglia che paiono angeli discesi da cielo, 119-20). Furthermore, as well as constituting objects of real exchange between men in the Florentine marriage market, women function as capital for symbolic exchange in the wider cont ext of the perennial Florentine anxiety about the negotiation of relationships with non-Florentine social superiors. (30) The positive reactions of high-ranking visitors (or the attribution of such reactions) to the public display of the beauty, grace, talents, civility, or nobility of Florentine women as a component part of the city's resources, is clearly deeply gratifying to the authors of the Libro cerimoniale: "And those from outside the city were particularly impressed by the quantity of noble women, the orderliness of the young men, the manner of dancing and celebrating with great propriety and civilized enjoyment." (31) Similarly, both Vespasiano and the anonymous poet of the 1459 celebrations see, in the one case, Alessandra de' Bardi and Francesca di Antonio Serristori, and in the other, a number of anonymous fanciulle and donne, as special conduits for the two-way (albeit asymmetrical) transmission of honor between the city and its visitors. The Emperor's ambassadors in 1433, "having been accorded such great honor, could not wait to return to Siena to tell the Emperor what they had seen." (32)

The dance symbolizes the Republic's temporary gift of its women to high-ranking visitors, not only for visual consumption (the female body is more visually available in dance than in other forms of activity), but also to touch, something which is licit only through the conventions of dance (arousal but not satisfaction of desire), or through the forms of salutation which are of such intense interest to the Pazzi in 1460 as well as to the letter-writer and, presumably, to his addressee, the Marchioness of Mantua. (33)

In spite of Vespasiano's liberal use of the word "nobile" (Alessandra is "born of very noble stock, both on her father's and her mother's side, in fact among the noblest in the city"), (34) such visitors, whether imperial, regal, ducal, or simply more conventionally aristocratic, outdo the Florentines in social status. The city's mercantile patriciate is characterized by a simultaneous sense both of superiority and inferiority, of difference as free citizens in a free republic, and of anxious aspiration to equal, or at least to hold their own, with regard to their social superiors. Social credit can be accumulated through the adoption of the honor-bearing codes and behaviors of the aristocratic cultures which predominate elsewhere in the peninsula and, indeed, in Europe. (35) On the rare occasions when Florentine male narrators see women at all, and in fact require their visibility in order to construct a less parochial image of Florentine Republican identity, habitually perceived as male and therefore exclus ionary of women, they naturally have recourse to an aristocratic discourse which permits women's honorable public presence, even "en pleine rue" (out in the streets), to use Georges Chatellain's loaded phrase (220).

Further meanings suggest themselves in relation to the public display of women by elite families or by the commune, ranging from the social and demographic to the economic. Ciappelli speaks of "socializzazione prenuziale" (prenuptial socialisation) and rites of passage for nubile girls (153 n. 138; 276). Although most of our named examples have been young women already engaged to be married, we know that Alessandra Strozzi made use of the additional visibility of unattached young women during public festivals to scrutinize a prospective daughter-in-law, Caterina di Francesco Tanagli: "I'll see if I can get a look at her during the festive period" (ingegnerommi, s'io la potro vedere in queste feste, Strozzi, 529, 21 December 1465).

The age of the women dancing in the Mercato Nuovo - girls ("pulzelle", "fanciulle"), and young women -- the marriageable, the engaged-to-be-married, and the young married -- the activity itself, and very frequently the time of year, all emphasise fertility and thus display to the city and to outsiders Florentine women's reproductive potential through which the polis renews itself -- a particularly sensitive issue in these anxious decades of recurring plague and consequent demographic crisis. (36)

If female sexuality can be converted into honor or into demographic benefits, it can also, crudely, be converted into profit. Of his 1459 visit, Pius II remarked: "the women's clothing seemed very rich with an incredible variety of local and foreign styles. The whiteness of their faces clearly betrayed the use of cosmetics." (37) It is a description which is echoed and clarified by Galeazzo Maria's letter of 30 April. (38) The contemporary custom of changing outfits two or three times during a ball only increased the advertising power of such events, which inevitably attracted an influx of potential customers. The rich clothing of the women, and indeed of the men (Piccolomini, 1: 365), formed part of the larger festive scene which saw the festooning of the facades of palaces, churches and botteghe with tapestries and rich fabrics. None of this was, of course, a purely Florentine custom, but whereas other centers may have used it to advertise their purchasing power, Florence did so to advertise its commercial capability, and contradictory contemporary views on ostentatious luxury presumably resolved themselves in favor of permissiveness, with sumptuary laws temporarily suspended. (39) The Mercato Nuovo, the favorite dancing location of the fifteenth century, with its conspicuous concentration of banks and botteghe associated with cloth production, notably silk, became a shop window or fashion show for the conscious display of the luxury fabrics which were central to the Florentine economy and the wealth of its citizens, and all the more important as the city was unable to put on a show of military or other feudal/aristocratic forms of power, or at least to do so both convincingly and unambiguously. Such display, inevitably inducing ambivalence in external spectators apt to meditate upon the ignoble aspect of mercantile activity, underlies the Sienese pope's malicious play on words as he describes Florence as both mercantile city and harlot. (40) The fact that the area around the Mercato Vecchio, a few minutes' wal k away, was associated with truly public women (donne pubbliche) displaying their bodies for sale reminds us of another use of the female body in the patriarchal economy of exchange, and also that prostitution was a business run by some of the city's major families. (41)

In availing themselves of the multivalent power of women's bodies, the community needed to ensure as far as possible the existence of controlled conditions which made clear the distinction between the licit and the illicit - women in public versus public women. (42) It was a potentially hazardous enterprise, as the citizens were well aware, and male organizers and narrators all evince the need for control, containing their celebration of female beauty both literally within protective fencing (the steccato which, with the palco/palchetto (stage) and, in 1459, a rich cloth canopy overhead, creates the illusion of a temporary "court"), (43) figuratively with the non-verbal language of etiquette (the Pazzi and their women), and through language itself. The frequent recurrence of the talismanic word, onesto, emphasizes the licit, controlled aspect of women's sexuality, while the description of them as angels in/from paradise (44) attempts to desexualize them altogether. The bourgeois transformation of the courtly tradition which is the predominant tone of such a verse narrative does, however, also allow the poet to indulge fairly comfortably in speculation as to the erotic opportunities afforded by the event. During the first dance session in April 1459: "love tied more than one knot" (45) --presumably purely from a male perspective -- but such sentiments are safeguarded and ennobled by their association with the elevated realms of courtly love. In a private letter, however, the need to maintain such a facade or to deploy such a myth is absent, and Rosello Roselli responds to the memory of Filippa Bischeri dancing at Pisa in 1441 in a text pointedly described as "written in bed" and accompanied by erotic Latin verse, while a few weeks after the encounter with Bianca de' Medici, the behaviour of Rodrigo Borgia during Sienese festivities from which male relatives were reputedly absent, led to a transgression of fragile behavioral norms and codes. (46)

It is of course that sense of fragility which partly informs the largely negative view of contemporary moralists and churchmen on dancing, a view which would have permeated the consciousness of all practitioners, female and male. Domenico Cavalca attacked women who destroyed the souls of young men with their songs and seductive dances. (47) More balanced was Saint Antonino Pierozzi, the city's archbishop from 1446 until his death in 1459 just weeks after the visit of Pius II. For Antonino, dance and other entertainments were not mortal sin but mere vanities and a waste of time, although he too warned that "mortal sin may ensue by accident, either because of some consequent evil, or through the perversity of human intention, as when someone, seeing women dancing, is induced to desire them." (48) "Here," as Rosello Roselli irreverently said, describing Filippa Bischeri, "is Paradise" (qui e el paradiso, Flamini, 608).

The same sense of fragility also undoubtedly informs the exaggerated exemplarity of Alessandra de' Bardi as she is presented by Vespasiano in a biography which works overtime to offer an idealized image of a comparatively recent golden age of female comportment which is now lost: "their dresses were not low-cut as they are today, but had high necks and were very beautiful and elegant" (non erano le veste loro iscollate come sono oggi, ma accollate et venusrissime et ornatissime, 2: 478). On feast days, Alessandra's mother would take her to visit convents: "she was not in the habit of doing what most women nowadays do, namely, instead of taking their daughters to visit holy women, they take them to weddings and dances and such vanities, and they go to great lengths to hire masters to come to the house to teach them dancing, not thinking that respectable women ought to learn other things than being able to move their feet in time to music." (49) Asessandra's dancing, according to Vespasiano, although in public (for the greater good of the city!), stayed within the limits of propriety, dignity, and honor, with regularly recurring adjectives such as "pudica" and "pudicissima" (modest) standing guard over the narrative. Moral beauty combined with physical beauty is an obsessive leitmotif in his description.

In spite of Vespasiano's disapproval of the fashion for dancing lessons for women from professionals and his insistence that Alessandra de' Bardi had been well taught, apparently by her mother (2: 474 and 479), we must assume that some, and possibly a good deal of instruction and rehearsal went into the success of the public events in particular, both in order to uphold civic honor, and to ensure that individuals and their families did not lose face. This raises issues relating to the training processes undergone by Florentine girls and young women before dancing in the Mercato Nuovo. The 1459 event seems to have had a clear competitive element to it, with dancers (both male and female?) subject to a selection process. (50) Was such training a worthwhile investment, therefore, and were such skills regarded as neither exceptional nor anomalous in the daughters of the Florentine mercantile elite? Alessandra Strozzi, still researching Caterina Tanagli as a possible bride for her son, Filippo, sought information from neighbors such as Costanza, wife of Pandolfo Pucci, "and when I asked if the girl had anything uncouth about her, she said no, that she has her wits about her, and knows how to dance and sing" (e domandando se l'aveva del zotico, dicemi di no, ch'ell'e desta, e sa ballare e cantare, Strozzi, 464, 31 August 1465). This has the ring of a topos used in describing and measuring the qualities of such young women and brings to mind the much earlier example of Mea Morelli (b. 1365), "who was very skilled in singing and dancing, and would have served guests at table as deftly as a young person accustomed to performing similar services at weddings and similar events." (51) As we have seen, the graceful serving of festive food and drink, as well as expert dancing and the elegant performance of reverential gestures, were all required of the women performers of 1433 or 1459.

According to Timothy McGee, no record has been found of an official dancing teacher employed by the commune, while information on teachers from private sources is still relatively scarce. (52) Who, for example, taught the young daughters of cathedral organist Antonio Squarcialupi, described as stunning dancers in a letter of 8 July 1455 from Ginevra Alessandri to her husband, Giovanni di Cosimo de' Medici? (53) Christiane Klapisch-Zuber portrays Florentines as harboring suspicions about unknown men invited into the home as teachers ("the wolf in the fold", il lupo nell'ovile), but she does offer one or two concrete examples of specialists in dance, music, and singing as being employed by well-off families. Francesco di Matteo Castellani, for example, "has someone to teach dance to his daughters aged seven and ten" (7 July 1460), the teacher's name in this case being a piffero-player called Bernardo di Santi. (54)

It is worthwhile pausing with the Castellani sisters for a moment. Their mother was Lena di Francesco di Piero Alamanni, Francesco's second wife, whom he married in 1448. Maria, the eldest daughter, was born in March 1450, Margherita in December 1453, and a third child, Ginevra, in April 1456. (55) As in the case of Filippa Bischeri, luck is on our side for, in addition to the sparse references in their father's Rico danze, they emerge from obscurity on at least two other occasions which are relevant to our subject. Firstly, in August 1469, nearly ten years after the dancing lessons, Marco Parenti, in search of a wife for his younger brother-in-law, Lorenzo Strozzi, mentions them, if only to dismiss them immediately on grounds which remain unclear: "Then there's Francesco Castellani's second daughter: the first, who is engaged [or married?], is not an attractive prospect, and they say the second one is worse." (56) The eldest, Maria, married Giovanni di Niccolo Cavalcanti that same year, while in 1473 Margher ita married Bernardino, one of the sons of the family's lawyer, Otto Niccolini, who had been a major figure in Florentine public life (Castellani, 1:29). Among the latter couple's wedding gifts appears to have been one of the few surviving Florentine chansonniers of this period. (57)

What is also interesting in Parenti's letter is his discussion of suitable and unsuitable brides in terms of rustichezza or gentiliezza. The specific context is that of a Florentine bride destined for a man living and working in the rather different social environment of the Kingdom of Naples, but one is also tempted to relate the terms of such a debate to social transformations and shifts within Florentine society itself in the course of the century. Coming from a patrician family ("patrician" in Florentine terms), with dancing and musical skills, Margherita and her sister, whatever their other faults, were presumably not among the "rustiche" in the sense of lacking social graces. (58)

To return to the matter of dancing teachers, and the availability of individuals with particular dancing, or indeed, musical skills for employment in households on a casual basis, we have the example of a certain "ser Lina" whom Giovanni di Cosimo de' Medici was being encouraged to see in 1445 as being an expert in these matters, and well known to Italian rulers including the Duke of Urbino. (59) More concretely, Frank D'Accone has located a harp player named Mariotto di Bastiano di Francesco, declaring the renting of a room for the purpose of teaching dancing in his tax return of 1446. (60) Of particular interest, however, is the tantalizing information about a school set up by Giuseppe Ebreo da Pesaro and Francesco di Domenico da Venezia in 1467 with the aim of teaching dance and music to both sexes, either in their own homes or in premises rented for the purpose. (61)

The most eminent masters of the Quattrocento, authors of the principal surviving dance manuals of the period, Domenico da Piacenza, Guglielmo Ebreo, and Antonio Cornazzano, all associated with the northern Italian courts, seem not to have operated in Florence, but Lorenzo de' Medici attended the Milanese festivities for the wedding of Ippolita Sforza in 1465 in which all three men were involved, and his interest in the dance culture of his day is attested by his own work as a choreographer, namely the two bassedanze included in Guglielmo's manual De pratica seu arte tripudii vulgare opusculum. A fourth master, Giuseppe Ebreo da Pesaro, one of whose dances also appears in some of the manuscripts of Guglielmo's manual, was, however, in contact with Lorenzo in the late 1460s, the period which saw the former's proposed launch of the dancing school mentioned above.

It is through connections of this kind that more sophisticated notions of the contemporary art of social dance with its developed (and gendered) set of aesthetic criteria, must have percolated down through Florentine mercantile society. (62) For Florentine women, however, there remained a problem of available female aristocratic models, given the preponderance of males among visitors to the city and Florentine women's lesser mobility as compared to men. In this sense, the brief residence of Ippolita Sforza and her ladies in Florence in June 1465 must have provided a comparatively rare opportunity to a relatively restricted number of women from the city's social elite. (63) One might also speculate about the presence, in Ippolita's entourage, of Guglielmo Ebreo himself, known to have attended the new Duchess in Naples. (64)

Timothy McGee has investigated the interest shown in Lorenzo's wedding in June 1469 by Guglielmo, by Giovanni Ebreo, and also by Filippus Bussus or Filippo di Biandrate who taught the children of the condottiero, Roberto Sanseverino, Prince of Salerno, among others. In a letter of 10 April 1469, which is an important indicator of contemporary practice, Bussus offered to come to Florence eight or ten days in advance of the wedding to teach Lorenzo, Giuliano, Bianca, and Nannina (the latter by then wives and mothers), "some noble, beautiful, and dignified 'balli' and 'basse danze', fit for people of your elevated status rather than just anybody." (65) The bride, Clarice Orsini, was already having dancing lessons in Rome. (66) The preparations for dancing at this wedding (and indeed other Florentine weddings) involved many more women than just those belonging to the immediate family, however, as we know from a derailed contemporary description and as we can surmise from a remark made by Marco Parenti to his brot her-in-law: "They want to organize the biggest event that Florence has ever seen, and have made the arrangements accordingly. They will need a large number of young men and women to be involved in the festivities." (67) In short, it seems that weddings provided some of the practice, and the training, for more public occasions, both in terms of dancing and of the serving of festive food and drink.

As we have seen, and as we would indeed expect, in Florentine, as in other societies, dancing, singing, and the playing of musical instruments, frequently appear as a trio of closely related activities, both in the public and the private events described in our sources. The next section of this study will concentrate on marshalling the even more fragmentary evidence which reveals the musical skills and activities of individual Florentine patrician women in this period and the ways in which these skills were deployed in relation to visitors to the city. (68)

The sacred lauda in its simplest (monophonic) form would, one can safely assume, be central to the vocal repertoire of virtually everyone, male or female, whether musically trained or not. (69) Furthermore, the cantasi come tradition meant the existence of a repertoire which spanned the two realms of sacred and secular, with sacred texts set to secular music (and the reverse). (70) Lucrezia Tornabuoni's laude are in this tradition, but in March 1445, not long after her marriage to Piero de' Medici in June 1444 we find Rosello Roselli suggesting to her brother-in-law, Giovanni de' Medici, that a certain ser Francesco teach her a piece of secular(?) music sent by Roselli, while in April she is reported as having learned a monophonic ballata (the same piece?), seemingly written by the organist Antonio Squarcialupi who enjoyed close relations with the Medici throughout his life. (71) Although there is no concrete evidence, musicologists tend to assume that Squarcialupi was an important figure for the musical trai ning of the Medici family. (72) This certainly seems a fair assumption in the case of Lucrezia's eldest daughter, Bianca, whom we find performing for visitors on the positive organ on several occasions in the late 1450s and early 1460s. To entertain Galeazzo Maria Sforza in the Medici Palace in April 1459, for example, Cosimo de' Medici "had one of his granddaughters play a pipe organ which was very pleasant to listen to ... in fact she has played every day since I have been here." (73) Indeed, Sforza remarked to his father on the degree of "intimacy" (domestichezza) experienced as a guest of the Medici, judged precisely by the presence of the women. (74) Perrens views these arrangements as "a matrimonial overture" on the part of the Medici (149). Although the events described precede Bianca's engagement to Guglielmo de' Pazzi, this interpretation seems unlikely. It does, however, appear to confirm that performance or display by women, or even purely the fact of their presence, is intimately linked to the neg otiation of relationships among men.

Early in the following year, when members of the Papal Court again stopped off in Florence on their way back to Rome after the Congress of Mantua, Bianca played the organ for Cardinal Guillaume D'Estouteville, as we know from the important letter published by William Prizer. The location, "in salla," may conceivably refer to the Sala del Papa or adjacent rooms of that part of the Santa Maria Novella complex where the Pope himself was housed. Teodoro da Montefeltro's report to Barbara of Brandenburg was unreservedly complimentary: "she plays it very well with fine phrases and proportions and impressive rhythm." (75) The organ she played later that day for Rodrigo Borgia, at the express wish of her Pazzi in-laws, is described as located "in camera," possibly in Borgia's lodgings which were apparently not in Santa Maria Novella, and the instrument is specifically identified as one gifted to Antonio Squarcialupi by King Alfonso of Naples as a token of the latter's esteem. (76) Having tuned the instrument, and ass isted by her sister Nannina, who operated the bellows, Bianca performed two pieces named as "Fortuna" and "Duogl'angoseus" (Deuil angoisseux [Sorrow and anguish]), followed by a third, tantalizingly described as "tropo singulare" (Prizer, 1991, 53-54). The second named piece can be identified as being by the Franco-Netherlandish composer Gilles Binchois (c. 1400-1460), and was originally a setting of one of the Cent ballades of Christine de Pizan. (77) The fact is striking in the present context, and one can only regret that there are no real grounds for arguing that Bianca might have been aware that she was performing a piece based on a poem composed by a woman. There is nothing to suggest that she sang accompanying herself on the organ, but rather it seems that her performance was purely instrumental. (78) It is very probable, however, that she also knew Deuil angoisseux in its vocal guise, since it appears among the chansons transcribed in the manuscript gifted by her father to Piero di Arcangelo de' Bonav enturi of Urbino, probably during the latter's diplomatic mission to Florence in 1451, a copy of which presumably remained with the Medici family. (79)

In fact, vocal performance also had its place that day. After the dancing, which has already been described, and a supper, Bianca again played the organ before singing a canzonetta with Nannina. A third, unidentified young woman (one of the Pazzi daughters? see note 23 above), then sang (by herself?), "Moum cuer chiantes ioussement" (the rondeau, Mon cuer chante joyeusement [My heart sings joyfully]), again by Binchois, and again present in the Bonaventuri manuscript, raising issues of performance practice in general and of Italian performances in French in particular, which continue to exercise modern musicologists. (80)

The importance of the information provided by Teodoro da Montefeltro's letter is emphasized by the contrasting scarcity of other relevant sources, although the lack of evidence need not necessarily oblige us to regard these Florentine women's musical skills as uncommon. (81) The letter from Nicodemo Tranchedini to Francesco Sforza, cited earlier apropos of the visit of Ippolita Sforza and Federigo d'Aragona in June 1465, reveals that the former's residence in their natal home once again gave the daughters of Lucrezia Tornabuoni an opportunity to perform for high-ranking visitors: "as soon as they have eaten, Piero's daughters will play various instruments in the Duchess's chamber" (Disnato che haverano se sonera parechij instrumenti per le figliole de Piero in Camera de Madona, Rochon, 104 n. 58). This sort of social ritual would have been familiar to Ippolita who, when she was just eight years old, had herself sung French songs for Rene, Duke of Anjou, visiting Pavia in 1453. (82)

As in the case of dancing, so too in the case of musical performance, the question of women's training in Quattrocento Florence needs to be addressed. As has already been suggested in relation to the lauda repertoire, much solo vocal music performed by both sexes would have depended on oral transmission rather than on a more sophisticated musical literacy. For polyphonic vocal music, however, and particularly for instruments such as the organ, the lute, and the viola, training was required and consequently some outlay of money. As with dancing, this was an expense which some Florentine men, at least, were prepared to countenance in relation to the women in their household. And not only for a Bianca de' Medici, but for less exceptional young women, as we can see from examples from the archives cited by Christiane Klapisch-Zuber: in 1419 Doffo Spini paid out four forms to a singing teacher for his daughter, Simona ("un maestro di canto che 'nsegna cantare alla mia figliuola Simona"), while in 1477 Bartolommeo S assetti paid for organ lessons for his daughter-in-law. (83) There was certainly no lack of potential teachers, between Florentine amateurs and professionals, or non-Florentine professionals such as the singers at the Baptistry, the Cathedral, or Santissima Annunziata, many of them recruited by Florentine merchants in the Low Countries and versed, one might suppose, in both the secular and the sacred repertoires of Northern Europe, as well as being capable of supervising the pronunciation of French texts. (84)

D'Accone laments the lack of information concerning the formal musical training of [male] Florentines in this period, even in Cathedral schools and monasteries: "No reports of the typical musical curriculum have survived, but it seems reasonable to assume that solmization and methods of vocal production, the basic principles of mensural notation and perhaps even some elementary counterpoint were taught to youngsters" (1992, 280). As regards lay amateurs, the example he offers is that of Guido Machiavelli writing to his father, Niccolo in 1505 about lessons in "'singing, playing and writing 3-part counterpoint'" with Bartolomeo degli Organi, a successor of Squarcialupi as Cathedral organist (280-81).

We can add more information on women's musical training, at least within a religious context, thanks to Kate Lowe's work on the nuns of the Benedictine convent of Le Murate. Her source, a late sixteenth-century history of the convent by Giustina Niccolini, reveals the introduction by one of the nuns of training in plainsong delivered by two priests, and the community's graduation to "polyphonic singing, learning counterpoint, the rules of harmony, and everything else about the art of singing" (Lowe, 216). A portable organ and an organist were introduced, and the organist taught some of the nuns. In 1461, a nun lately arrived from Viterbo became choirmistress, and her consorelle gained expertise in singing Masses and Vespers. Giustina also mentions the employment of singing teachers. In 1480, during a formal visit to the convent, Ferrarese ambassadors and other dignitaries praised both the nuns' organ-playing and singing, one of the visitors reporting back to Duke Ercole d'Este that the women were comparable w ith contemporary male chapel choirs ("bastaria ad una capella," Kent, 1995, 358). The Duke himself visited Le Murate on his way to Rome in April 1492. (85) Three years later, however, in May 1495, Savonarola was to describe the nuns' musical activities as satanic (Lowe, 216). We have come back full circle to the hazards involved in women performing for strangers and the inevitable linking of female performance with female sexuality.

The nature of female performance as hazardous but, nevertheless, within precisely (male-) defined limits as sometimes socially acceptable, and even politically and economically advantageous, can be seen as simply constituting a conscious (and/or unconscious) patriarchal manipulation and exploitation of women in which the latter are positioned and, more insidiously, position themselves, as objects. The "visibility" of Florentine women in such contexts may be somewhat greater than has been traditionally argued, but there are few grounds for claiming that such visibility constituted a challenge to the social status quo, remaining rather within the first of the four categories of performance and inter-gender relations proposed by Ellen Koskoff, namely performance that "confirms and maintains the established social/sexual arrangement" (10). Even if we are tempted to adopt a different perspective from which to view the activities described in this study, namely as offering opportunities to be exploited by women the mselves -- as empowering to some degree -- problems will arise. For example, the exploitative male gaze has effectively dominated much of this article, but what happens if we shift the emphasis to the women involved? Exposure, however brief, to the company of powerful, sometimes glamorous, exotic, or even dangerous men, from the adolescent son of the Duke of Milan to Count Tiberto Brandolini and Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia, brings women a form of unaccustomed, yet socially sanctioned, visibility which is, potentially at least, a pleasurable experience, engendering a sense of self-worth as well as a sense of the power of their femininity; This is a power which has been regarded as highly problematic, even illusory, from a modern perspective, but it is certainly a seductive notion for Bianca's mother, Lucrezia Tornabuoni, whose Salome is precisely such a powerful female figure ("I knew how to dance so well that the King wants to give me half his kingdom"), whom her author must nevertheless, perhaps reluctantly, rel inquish as constituting a negative exemplum. (86)

In their public or semi-public performances, these women were playing for high stakes (in relative terms), living as they did in a society which had a passion for judging and ranking, a practice in which they were themselves involved, but with a high degree of internalization of the male-dominated gender norms of their society. (87) We might imagine, for example, an element (perhaps a strong element) of rivalry among the participants and their relatives as regards the events in the Mercato Nuovo -- who were selected in the first place, who were the most beautiful, the best born, the best dressed, the best dancers, who danced first with the most important visitor and who played the honorable role of handmaid to the distinguished guest or guests -- but such competition has most often been viewed as serving and sustaining male hegemony, with women isolated from one another, hopelessly trapped in the discourses of patriarchy relating to gender roles. (88)

The private agenda of Bianca de' Medici, performing to please Cardinals D'Estouteville and Borgia, may well have been dominated by chiefly male concerns -- the furthering of her brother Giuliano's ecclesiastical career or of her new family's business interests -- but even a more personal agenda, for example in terms of identity and self-worth, must have been strongly influenced and shaped by hegemonic male views and values, both secular and religious. (89) Her sister Nannina's outburst in a letter to their mother dated 12 July 1479: "don't be born a woman if you want to have your own way" (non si vole nascere femina chi vuole fare a suo modo), offers what is, at present, a rare example of Florentine women's consciousness of their own subject condition. (90) But that seeming denial of agency is a topos which perhaps hides the extent to which there was room for manoeuvre in terms of the stretching or manipulation of gender rules, rules frequently promoted by this society but never in reality uniformly applied o r adhered to. The attractive argument in favour of r1estoring to women a degree of agency, and thereby counteracting their prevailing presentation in terms of helpless passivity, can perhaps be cautiously entertained but tempered by allowing for its existence primarily within the patriarchal arena. Returning to Richard Trexler's remark cited near the beginning of this study, namely that "without girls and women, there was no dance," we might argue for a female manipulation of this necessity in order to gain greater access to the public arena and greater possibilities of what might have been experienced as personal freedom in terms of dancing in public spaces ("en pleine rue") and flouting current sumptuary laws by enhancing their publicly displayed bodies with jewellery, luxury clothing, and makeup, the latter noted critically, as we have seen, by Pius 11. (91)

Bianca de' Medici, Filippa de' Bischeri, Alessandra de' Bardi and her daughter Marietta Strozzi, or indeed Alessandra Scala playing the title role in Sophocles' Electra in Greek in the family palace in 1493, are all silent as to the nature of their experience of performance, and any consideration of that performance as a vehicle for a specifically female self-expression would be purely speculative.92 One thing they must have shared was an awareness of their culture's insistence on the thin line dividing virtuous performance (Koskoff's "public performance without compromising moral standing," 6-7) from its opposite (Salome), chaste display (or at least the appearance of chaste display) from blatant exhibitionism, and order from disorder. Alessandra de' Bardi, at least in the (male) record that has come to us, stands on one side of that line: Filippa Bischeri, lusted after by Rosello Roselli, and criticized years later by Alessandra Strozzi as a transgressive woman dangerously out of male control, probably stan ds on the other. (93) Just how this symbolic polarization relates to necessarily complex lived realities, obscuring an element of personal negotiation and agency on the part of either woman, remains elusive.

(*.) Thanks are due to the readers for this journal, including Timothy McGee and Michael Rocke, for their helpful comments, to Stephen J. Milner for checking references in Florence, and to Tony Antonovics, as always, for sharing his bibliographical expertise. All translations are mine unless otherwise stated.

(1.) Piccolomini, 1:417. For male reactions to Ippolita's performance, see Magnani, xxiii, doc. 29, 28 May 1459, Otto del Carretto to Francesco Sforza.

(2.) Fubini, 171, contrasts the erroneous description of the event by Corio who rewrites Florentine social customs in terms of Milanese ones (among those who went out to meet the Duke and Duchess were "the married women of the city, then the young girls"; le matrone de la bella cita, puoi le pulcelle), with a first-hand account by a Mantuan, Barrolomeo Bonatto, writing to Lodovico Gonzaga on 17 March 1471 (193). Women were, however, presumably among the anonymous crowds also mentioned by Bonatto: "in the city, all the streets, windows, and roofs were packed with people" (in la terra tucte le strate, fenestre et coperti erano carichi de populo. Ibid., 193), and see, too, no fewer than three references made by Galeazzo Maria Sforza to his father on the subject of the richly dressed Florentine women seen during his entry into the city in 1459 (Magnani, xii-xiii, doc. 20, 17 April). For very similar attention paid to the public presence of women, see the valuable first-hand account of the Burgundian chronicler, G eorges Chastellain: "at all the windows were ladies and young women, who delighted the eyes of the visitors as they entered the city, for there were so many, and of such excellent beauty, that all eyes and hearts were captivated" (toutes fenestres estoient garnies de dames et de belles damoiselles de la ville, dont l'aornement et la specieusite ammusoit les yeulz des entrans, car en y avoit si grant nombre et de si diverse beaulte que les yeulz ne s'en poolent ravoir ne les ceurs distraire. 220).

(3.) See the fundamental contributions by Klapisch-Zuber, 1985 and 1990. Recent bibliography which expands our knowledge of the particularities and paradoxes of women's experience in Quartrocento Florence would include Kuehn; Cohn; Chabot; Strocchia; and Rosenthal. For example, the latter's balanced position on the issue of women's agency particularly recommends itself in the present context. See, too, Bryce.

(4.) Bonatto in Fubini, 193: "dove era de molte done per accogliere Madona."

(5.) Consideration of social dancing at purely private parties and at the nearby spas which were frequented by considerable numbers of Florentine patrician women will be deferred to another occasion, and similarly, with one notable exception, dancing at Florentine weddings.

(6.) See Trexler, 1980, 235 ff., and also, among a number of recent books on the city's festive life, Ciappelli, particularly the section "I balli" (147-53) in chap. 3, "I comportamenti 'pubblici'", and the related bibliography. According to Del Corazza, for example, on 26 February 1420/1, "a group of young citizens organized an event in the Mercato Nuovo, that is a dance, and they invited many women, and young men" (una brigata di giovani cittadini feciono una festa in Mercato Nuovo, cioe di ballare, e invitarono molte donne e giovani e garzoni. 277, and see also 254 and 276). Giusto d'Anghiari's unpublished diary is extensively used by Garew-Reid.

(7.) Flamini, 607-09: "Et tucta la brigata qui fanno priego a Dio, che mai non possino venire, accio che questa fanciulla dei Bischiri [sic) non se parti, che per mia fe essa tiene in festatutta la brigata, et non e veruno che di lei non sia intabacchato; er per suo amore oggi qui e suta facta una notabile festa, ave sonno state tucte le donne di questa terra, et nella loggia dei Consoli s'e facto uno magnifico ballo, et dati doi honori, uno alle donne et l'altro agli omeni: quello delle donne, che fu uno bello balzo de chermisi, l'ebbe quella dei Bischeri; quello degli omeni, che fu uno bellissimo cappello, I'ebbe uno mio parente." For Roselli, see also ibid., 278 ff.

(8.) See Fabbri, 21, 37-38, 105, 192, and 209. By a lucky chance, we glimpse Filippa again some twenty-five years later, this time through the critical eyes of Alessandra Strozzi who uses the Bischeri/Strozzi match as a negative exemplum due to Filippa's "flightiness" (cervellaggine), and her husband's failure to control her (Strozzi, 470, letter to her son, Filippo, of 13 September 1465). After her mother's death, and before her marriage, Filippa went to live with messer Manno Temperani, but "behaved in such a way that they couldn't wait to get rid of her" (fece ta' portamenti, che parve loro mill' anni de levarsela dinanzi, Ibid.). Interestingly, Alessandra uses the same verb as Roselli ("intabaccare"/"attabaccare") to describe Filippo di Leonardo's feelings towards his wife, but again in a spirit of criticism. Filippa was widowed in 1449 (Strozzi, 56, letter of 4 December 1449).

(9.) Ciappelli, 153. He raises the problem of determining the public/private nature of such events and the financial and organizational responsibilities involved (150-51).

(10.) Trexler 1978. Trexler supports Gene Brucker's view on changes in the Florentine attitude towards receiving such visitors in the fifteenth century (1980, 304-05).

(11.) For the "Vita dell' Alexandra de' Bardi composta da Vespasiano et mandata a Giovanni de' Bardi", see Vespasiano, 2: 467-99 (in particular, 477 ff.).

(12.) See Giovanni di Jacopo Morelli, 107-08, and Nuti, 293-97. In 1434, according to Nuti, Cicala was accorded Florentine citizenship.

(13.) Vespasiano, 2: 477: "feceno loro tutte le specie degli onori Si potessino, et per dar loro qualche ricreatione et perche vedessino e ll'ornatissime et pudicissime donne aveva la citta et il simile gli ornatissimi giovani, diterminorono fare un ballo." For Florentine relations with the Emperor, see ibid., 2: 273-74, and also Gregorovius, vol. 7, 1:34 ff. Trexler reminds us that when Frederick III visited Florence in 1451/2 on his way to Rome, this was the city's first imperial visit for centuries and he stresses its impact on Florentine cerimonial practices. See Trexler, 1980, 259, 300, and 310, and also Mantini, 95-96.

(14.) During his stay in Florence, Galeazzo Maria was a guest of the Medici in Via Larga. As well as Magnani, xiii if., doc. 20, see Hatfield.

(15.) Sforza describes the event as "one of the finest women's festivities I think I've ever seen" (una de le piu belle feste de done ch'io credo che se vedesse may, Magnani, xxi-xxiii, doc. 28, 30 April 1459 to Francesco Sforza). Partial transcriptions of one of the poems (Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze (hereafter BNCF), Magl.VII, 1121), are in Rossi 1895, and recently in Smith, 1: xiv-xix. Where the same text is available in both sources, I have given preference to Rossi's reading. Another verse account of the 1459 festivities is in Volpi, 1907, based on BNCF, Magl. XXV, 24, and see also Volpi, 1902, 12, where diarists who mention these events are listed. The 1459 festivities are referred to by virtually all modern scholars writing about festival and dance in Renaisance Florence/Italy. For examples of the visual record of events of this type see, for example, Padovan, 1987, and Sparti.

(16.) On Brandolini, see Partner, 43-47. Initially in the service of the Venetians, Brandolini took Polisena, daughter of Gattamelata, as his first wife. He changed to the service of Milan in 1452/3. A decade later, he died in a Milanese prison, accused of treachery.

(17.) Among "i miei", identified by Galeazzo Maria as dancing at Firenzuola between Bologna and Florence on 15 April, are Tiberto Brandolini, Piero da Gallarate, Federico Pallavicino, Antonio Trotto, and Niccolo da Tolentino (Magnani, xi, doc. 19, to Bianca Maria Sforza). For Simon de Lalaing, see Chastellain, 220, and Magnani, xxii.

(18.) See Smith, 2: 51, "La chirintana"; 2: 286, "Lioncello"; 2: 283, "La Speranza"; and 2: 83-84, "Danza del re." Brandolini was well acquainted with the work of Guglielmo Ebreo, who had attended his second wedding a year earlier in 1458 (Smith, 1:177). The difficulties of interpreting the information on dancing offered by such sources are mentioned by most scholars including Smith and Sparti. The "danza peregrina" performed by Galeazzo Maria with two female partners may be the dance called "La Pellegrina" (see Smith, 1: xvi and 2: 237-40, but cf. Sparti, 49 n. 6). The mysterious line, "missero amendue gli arrosti in danza" (Rossi, 1895, 16, line 131) may refer to the dance called "Rostiboli Gioioso" (see Smith, 2: 267-72, and Heartz, 360).

(19.) Letter of 23 April 1459 from Galeazzo Maria to Francesco Sforza (Buser, 347-48). It is possible that Tiberto Brandolini was also present (ibid., 347).

(20.) Describing a possible bride for his brother-in-law, Filippo Strozzi, Marco Parenti writes: "she doesn't have the looks of Ardinghello's wife [Lucrezia Donati] or messer Palla's girl [Marietta Strozzi]" (il viso non e di quella dell' Ardinghello [Lucrezia Donati] o di quella di messer Palla [Marietta Strozzi], Parenti, 95, letter of 27 July 1465). Yvonne Maguire identifies the girl as Marietta without any further ado (67). For Marietta Strozzi see, too, Martelli, 1980, 245-54. She eventually transferred to Ferrara with her uncle and married Count Teofil Calcagnini. For Lucrezia Tornabuoni, see note 71 below. For Ginevra Alessandri and Laudomia Acciaiuoli, see Pieraccini, 1: 87 ff, and 1:154-55.

(21.) Similar entertainment had already been offered to Sforza on 15 April at Firenzuola: "some pretty girls danced in the Florentine manner with leaps and quick changes of step, which gave the whole company great pleasure" (si ballo per alcune belle pute al modo fiorentino, saltando et facendo scambieti, di che per tuta la compagnia se priso uno grande piacere. Magnani, xi, doc. 19, Galeazzo Maria to Bianca Maria Sforza). This was followed by a "a round dance" (a "ballo retondo") with singing.

(22.) See Prizer, 1991, 3-4 and 53-54. The letter is dated from Siena, 6 February 1460, and is in the Archivio di Stato di Mantova, Archivio Gonzaga, busta 1099, fols 603-04. My thanks to Professor David Fallows for drawing my attention to this artide. For Borgia, see Mallett.

(23.) See Strozzi, 155, 20 July 1459. For Bianca's date of birth, 10 September 1445, see Rochon, 58-59 n. 159. For her marriage in June 1460, see Giusto d'Anghiari, f. 78v. The original reference was in Carew-Reid, 24, but my thanks to Dr. Stephen Milner for checking the month. The terms used in the letter, "maridara", "spossa", may refer to her status as engaged to be married but may also mean that the marriage was not yet consummated or that she had not yet transferred to her husband's house. I am grateful to Michael Rocke for pointing out these latter possibilities. Compare, too, Vespasiano, 2: 478: "l'Alexandra era maritata in quell'anno et non era andata a marito." Nannina de' Medici became engaged to Bernardo di Giovanni Rucellai in 1461 and married him on 8 June 1466 (see Rucellai, 28). Among the possible Pazzi women attending the 1460 event are some of Piero's seven daughters: Carerina, Alessandra, Costanza, Oretta, and Marietta (ASF, Manoscritti 402, Pazzi, "Donne uscite").

(24.) Trans. Prizer, 1991, 4 (fino hale doe hore he mesa, prima baleti, poi saltareli, finalmente la balata. Ibid., 54).

(25.) A hostile Pius II describes D'Estouteville as having conducted his election campaign for the papacy in the Vatican latrines (Piccolomini, 1:201-03, 205), as being "pingue e carico d'anni" (2:1529), and "amante piuttosto dei piaceri e dell'ozio" (2:2455). For a recent study of D'Estouteville's patronage, see Gill.

(26.) Compare Rosello Roselli to Giovanni di Cosimo de' Medici: "I was thinking of coming to see you, but because I hear that there are ladies there (at Petrioli), in order not to go astray by kissing them, as they do in France... I decided to await your arrival" (lo deliberava de venirti a vedere; ma perche intendo che cost (a Petrioli) sono donne, accio che non mi venisse errato, come si fa in Francia, a basciarle... o deliberato de aspettare la venuta tua. Flamini, 281 n. 2).

(27.) With banking operations in Rome, Lyon, Avignon, Marseilles and Bruges, the combined households of Jacopo de' Pazzi and the sons of Antonio de' Pazzi are reckoned by Dc Roover to have rivalled the Medici in wealth in the late 1450s (30 and passim). Other Pazzi assets included their legendary connection with the taking of Jerusalem in 1099, and their consequent status as significant players in the ritual life of the Florentine Republic (Ciappelli, 168 ff.), something they may have exploited in the light of the crusading zeal of Pius II and the subject under discussion at the Congress of Mantua.

(28.) In Mantua, Borgia had been involved in "galant adventures" and was so again in Siena in May 1460 at festivities for a baptism from which husbands and other male relatives were reported to have been absent. A letter of censure from Pius II followed on 11 June. See Ady, 238, but also Mallett, 88-91, who argues that historians have overreacted to this story and consequently exaggerated Borgia's reputation for immorality.

(29.) Rochon, 104 n. 58: "poy disnare fecero alcuni onesti giuochi de quelli nostri de la: a quali se trovarono parechie Zovene de le principale de questa Cita.... Cenato che ebero videro balare parechie de queste Dame al logiamento del Sig.r nostro Roberto in casa de Antonio de Pazo, fin a mezzora de nocte, et fecero queste Zovenette cum tanta liberalita quel sepero chiedere questi nostri fin a la cornamusa: che meglio non se poria dire: scusandose meco, che non sapevano che far piu per contentargli." Guasti, citing the letter in his edition of Alessandra Strozzi's letters (Strozzi, 431), and Marrese, in her recent edition of Marco Parenti's letters (Parenti, 87 n. 59), both suggest Antonio Pucci rather than Pazzi. Parenti (82) remarks that, due to continued mourning for his father, Cosimo, Piero did not wish his visitors to dance in the Medici Palace.

(30.) See Trexler, 1980, particularly 236. Within the context of feminist scholarship, on women as objects of exchange see the seminal article by Rubin (women are "the most precious of gifts," 173), and also Irigaray who stresses the point that we are talking exclusively about relations among men: "Reigning everywhere, although prohibited in practice, hom(m)o-sexuality, is played out through the bodies of women, matter, or sign, and heterosexuality has been up to now just an alibi for the smooth workings of man's relations with himself, of relations among men" (172).

(31.) Trexler, 1978, 77: "E maxime a gl'esterni parve cosa mirabilissima la quantita delle nobili donne, 1'ordine de' giovani, el modo del danzare e festeggiare con ogni genere d'onesta e civile allegrezza."

(32.) Vespasiano, 2: 479: "sendo suto loro fatto si grande onore, pareva loro ogni di mile, per tornare a Siena, a narrate allo 'mperadore quello avevano veduto."

(33.) The notion of the licit (and therefore the illicit) in connection with women's public display of their bodies, is clearly expressed by Lorenzo de' Medici (175): "in walking and in dancing, and in those things in which it is permissable for women to utilize their bodies... she was elegant and attractive" (e nello andare e nel ballare e nelle case che e lecito alle donne d'operare il corpo ... era elegante e avenente). On issues of dance and gender in a broader historical context, I owe a debt to Hanna and to Thomas.

(34.) Vespasiano, 2: 474: "nata di nobilissimi parenti, cost per padre come per madre, de' piti nobili della citra."

(35.) See, for example, Becker, 94 ff.

(36.) See, for example, Herlihy.

(37.) Piccolomini, 1: 349: "L'abbigliamento delle donne appariva molto ricco; stupenda era la varieta delle vesti di foggia locale e straniera; la bianchezza dei volti mostrava chiaramente l'uso di cosmetici."

(38.) Magnani, xxii, doc. 28. All the women were "bejewelled and richly dressed, some in cloth of gold, some in velvet, others in damask, some in one type of silk, some in another. In short, none were wearing woollen cloth. Fifty had rail headdresses in the French style, all embroidered with pearls and silver, with such fineness and elegance that it would be difficult to express oneself adequately. The others had Florentine headdresses or some other style, all richly adorned. One would not have believed it if one had not seen it" (azoiate et ornatissimamente vestite, chi de drapo d'oro, chi de veluto, chi de demaschio, chi de una seta, chi de un'altra. Insomma, senza vestiti alcuni di panno, tea li quali gli ne era circa cinquanta con le fogie di testa alte a la franzese, tute ricamate di perle et d'argento, con tanta polideza et ligiadria che difficile cosa saria exprimerlo. Le altre, quali fogia di testa a la fiorentina, quali ad uno altro, tute ornate diligentissimamente et in modo incredibile a chi non le ha viste). See also his letter of 17 April (Magnani, xii-xiii, doc. 20), which alludes to the rich clothing and head gear of the women our to view his entry into the city.

(39.) See Hughes, 90: "Sumptuary law was frequently lifted... to allow citizens properly to fulfil their civic (and highest social) function." She gives the example of the Venetian Senate in 1459, who "in order to welcome and impress the French ambassadors to the city, voted to require all women in attendance to appear in bright dresses and wear the jewels and ornament generally prohibited by the law." She also mentions (93) that sumptuary restrictions in most cities were less severe for young, unmarried girls. See, too, Kovesi Killerby, esp. 118-19.

(40.) Piccolomini, 1:663: "citta mercatrice per non dir meretrice." See also ibid., 1:365.

(41.) See Mazzi, 347 ff., and also Trexler, 1981, who adopts the Pope's play on words as an epigraph to his study on Florentine prostitution. See, too, Hughes on sumptuary distinctions "between meretrix and matrona" (92-93).

(42.) Compare the contemporary Ferrarese context in which Deanna Shemek finds two kinds of contrasting sexual activity: "the state-condoned, family-oriented, contained sexuality of lawful society and the punishable transgressions of open and ignoble sexual commerce" (44). See also Irigaray (180) on women's "two irreconcilable 'bodies': her 'natural' body and her socially valued, exchangeable body, which is a particularly mimetic expression of masculine values."

(43.) See, for example, Vespasiano, 2: 477. The anonymous poet, published in part by Rossi, 1895, speaks of the separation of a high-status arena within the Mercato Nuovo from the mass of people outside. The latter are nevertheless spectators of the city's social triumph and benefit from its largesse as the remains of the festive food are distributed to them: "they threw sweet things here and there to the people who were making a tremendous noise. Some threw them to the windows, some to the stand, and some to women and men up on the roofs" (gittavano qua e la di quel confetto/ al popol, che facea un gran romore./ Chi'l gitta alle finestre, chi al palchetto/ e chi al tetto alle femmine e maschi. Rossi, 1895, 17, lines 15861). This again is a detail to be found in Galeazzo Maria's letter of 30 April (Magnani, xxii).

(44.) E.g. Rossi, 1895, 12, lines 37-42.

(45.) "Amore strinse piu d'un nodo" (ibid., line 44). See, too, Smith, 1: xvii.

(46.) Compare note 28 above for Michael Mallett's reservations. Irrespective of the historical truth of what occurred in Siena, however, gossip and rumor operate to form contemporary opinion, constituting a historical reality.

(47.) Cavalca, chap. XXVII, 25 9-69, "De vani, e dissoluti balli, e canti" and chap. XXVIII, 269-75, "De molte ragioni, che anco ci biasimano questo peccato, e come queste ballatrici fanno contra tutti i sette Sagrimenti della Chiesa."

(48.) "E tuttavia il peccato mortale puo esservi per accidente, a causa di un qualche male che ne possa conseguire o per la pervesita dell'intenzione, come accade quando qualcuno dalla vista di donne che danzino viene spinto a desiderarle." Cited by Martelli, 1994, 83 n. 50. On religious attitudes to dance, see also Ciappelli, 147-48.

(49.) Vespasino 2: 474: "nonne usava quello usavano le piu de tempi nostri, che in luogo di menarle a vicitare le santissime donne, le menano alle noze et a' balli et alle vanita et mettono grandissimi studii in casa di farvi venire maestri, che insegnino loro ballare et andare a tempo, et non pensino all' onestissime donne convenirsi altro, die imparare a porre i piedi second i suoni."

(50.) Trexler cites Pietrobuoni who was, in turn, echoed by Cambi in saying that the young men and women who were chosen were "the most apt at dancing" (Trexler, 1980, 235 n. 72). From Del Corazza comes an interesting detail, namely that women could act as dance judges: "they elected four women who had to judge the women's prize and they had to sir in a more elevated position like judges. Similarly they elected a judge to decide on the men's prize. The former prize was awarded to the daughter of Filippo... d'Amerigo del Bene, and the latter to the son of Bernardo Gherardi" (Elessono quattro donne che avessino a giudicare l'onore delle donne, e stettono a sedere alte come giudicatori; e cosi elessono chi avesse a giudicare quello de' giovani. Quello delle donne dierono alla figliuola di Filippo ... d, Amerigo del Bene, e quello de' giovani al figliuolo di Bernardo Gherardi, 276, 2 February [1420]). The Magl. VII, 1121 poet specifically refers to some of the deselected (at least as regards dancing), who are sea ted on the sidelines: "women for whom dancing is inappropriate whether through age, pregnancy, or because they are widows" (donne che non sono atte a ballare per tempo o per grossezza o vedovato. Smith, 1: xv). Compare Smith's translation.

(51.) Giovanni di Pagolo Morelli, 153: "sapea perfettamente cantate e danzare, e arebbe servito a una mensa d'uomini o di donne cosl pulitamente come giovane use e pratico a nozze o a simili cose."

(52.) See McGee, 1988, 210 n. 18. Ciappelli, 151, mentions the financial contribution of the commune as regards festive events organized for foreign visitors. In connection with 1459, see the information provided by Benedetto Dei (67) which might suggest that transactions, including the payment of dancing teachers, could be located in the private accounts of the designated festaioli.

(53.) "For your information, I went to Fiesole with Piero and Lucrezia, and Agnolo della Stufa and the singers of San Giovanni. And there was a fine festa and as for the daughters of ser Antonio, don't ask ["they danced" is deleted] for they performed miracles, things out of this world, which sent the spectators wild with enthusiasm, and we stayed so long that it was two hours after sunset before we got back to Florence" (Avisoti chome andammo a Ffiesole Piero et la Lucrezia e Angniolo della Stufa e chantori di San Giovanni c anno fatto una bella festa e le fanciulle de ser Antonio non domandare [cassato: "ballaro"] che anno fatto miracoli e chose dell'altro mondo che inpazzava chiunce v'era, che stemo tanto a vedere che era du'ore di notte inanti tonassimo a Firenze. Giacomelli, 267 n. 31). The girls were Ginevra, Maria, and Lucrezia born in 1445, 1446, and 1448 respectively. Tita (b. 1450) was presumably still too young (see Parigi, 53-54).

(54.) "Fa dare delle lezioni di danza alle figlie di 7 e 10 anni" (Klapisch-Zuber, 1984, 789 n. 68). For the full reference, however, see Castellani, 1995, 105. My thanks to Timothy McGee who was able to disprove my initial speculation that Bernardo might have been one of the musicians in the employ of the Signoria, although he indicates the existence, earlier in the century, of an official piffero-player, Santi di Gherardo, possibly Bernardo's father. For the moral dangers of dancing and fencing schools for young Florentine males, see Rocke, 158-59. One such dance school was actually run by a known sodomite (ibid., 161 and note 75).

(55.) See Castellani 1992, 16, 19, and 21. Francesco's first wife, Ginevra di Palla Strozzi, was the sister-in-law of Alessandra de' Bardi whom we have seen dancing in Piazza della Signoria in 1433.

(56.) Parenti, 197, 11 August 1469: "Ecci la seconda di messer Francesco Castellani; la prima, ch'e maritata, non piace a verun modo, e la seconda dicono che e peggio."

(57.) The songbook, consisting largely of untexted French chansons, was located in the Niccolini family library in Florence until the eighteenth century and is now in Berlin, Staatliche Museen, 78.C.28 (Census-Catalogue, 1: 59-60). The debate continues as to whether the manuscript's provenance is Neapolitan or Florentine, with David Fallows, 1993, arguing the latter. His conclusion receives further support from Warmington.

(58.) Giovanni Ciappelli comments on the relative lateness of their marriages, with Maria aged nineteen and Margherita twenty. He surmises that the size of their dowries may finally have overcome the disadvantages of their family's marginal political status in this period or perhaps the young women's lack of beauty (Castellani, 1: 30 and n. 137).

(59.) The writer is Carlo, illegitimate son of Cosimo de' Medici, 12 July 1445 from Ferrara (see Rossi, 1893, 15, and Pieraccini, 1:78).

(60.) D'Accone, 1992, 263 n. 8.

(61.) See Veronese, 51-57.

(62.) For the criteria laid down by successive masters, see the treatises published in Smith, 1. For criteria regulating women's performance, see the "Capitulum Regulare Mulierum" of the De Pratica seu Arte Trupudii by Guglielmo Ebreo (ibid., 1: 141-42), and also Franko, esp. 44-45. For Lorenzo's involvement in dance, see McGee, 1988, Padovan, 1992, and Gargiulo. See also note 33 above.

(63.) Parenti chooses to highlight Federico d'Aragona, King Ferrante's second son, rather than Ippolita: "he dances very well, and is favoured by all the women and by the men, and the bride looks at him, and talks and dances with him, as though he were a god" (danza malto bene, e la gratia di tutte le donne e degl'uomini, e la sposa lo guata, e ragiona e danza co.llui, che pare ch'ella vegga un suo Iddio. 82, 22 June 1465 to Filippo and Lorenzo Strozzi). In Naples, Ippolita "was very much admired 'for having created two new dances based on French chansons. His Majesty the King seems to have no other pleasure except to see her dance and also sing'" (si fece assai ammirare per 'aver facto duy balli nova sopra dui canzuni francesi de sua fantasia, che la Maesta de Re non have altro piacere, ne altro paradiso non pare che trove, se non quando la vede danzare et anche canthare,' Santoro, 93). See also Southern.

(64.) See Smith, 1: 178 and, less certainly, 1: 71, for the movements of Antonio Cornazzano.

(65.) McGee, 1988, 221, doc. IV: "alcuni signorili, belli et dignissimi balli et basse danze, liquali sono proprie cosse degnie da signori come siti voy, et non da ogni persona." It is not known if Bussus did go on to fulfil this role in relation to the Medici wedding.

(66.) See the letter of Francesco di Filippo Tornabuoni to Lorenzo de' Medici, 4 January 1469 (ibid., 202).

(67.) Parenti, 178, letter to Filippo Strozzi, 21 April 1469: "E' desiderano e cosi ordinano di fare la maggior festa che si sia fatta mai a Firenze: a questo bisogna gran copia di giovani e donne da far festa." For the contemporary description of the festivities by Cosimo Bartoli, see ibid., 247-50.

(68.) For the section which follows, I have found the following studies on women's music-making enlightening: Neuls-Bates; Bowers and Tick (in particular the article by H. M. Brown); Koskoff; and Pendle.

(69.) See Wilson, and also Barr.

(70.) On the cantasi come tradition, with recent bibliographical references, see D'Accone, 1992, 262 and n. 6, 275-76, and also Wilson, 160, 165-66, and 170-80.

(71.) Letter of 23 March 1445 (see D'Accone, 1992, 266 n. 18), and also that of 17 April 1445, Ugo della Stufa to Giovanni di Cosimo (Pieraccini, 1:81). Some musicologists make the point that Lucrezia learned the piece in only three days instead of three days ago as the Italian in fact suggests ("l'a compiuto d'aparare 3 di sono"). On Squarcialupi, see for example, Parigi, chap. 3, "L'amico organista", 49-67, and Giacomelli who provides more recent bibliography. For Lucrezia Tornabuoni, see Levantini-Pieroni; Martelli, 1994; Tornabuoni 1978, 1992 and 1993.

(72.) See, for example, D'Accone, 1992, 270 and n. 27.

(73.) Perrens, 149 n. 1, letter of 19 April to Francesco Sforza: "Fea sonare una figliola di Piero suo figliolo uno organo do cave [sic], che era una zentil cosa da oldire... laqual cosa pero l'ha facto ogni di dopo ch'io sono qui." Five organs appear in the inventory of the contents of Lorenzo de' Medici's rooms drawn up on his death in 1492 (Parigi, 20-21). Much work has been done recently on Galeazzo's musical interests, e.g. Prizer, 1989; Welch; and Macey. Performing opportunities may have started very early for Bianca and Nannina. According to a suggestive letter from Piero de' Medici to his father in 1455 from the baths at Macereto: "Here unless we are bathing, all our time is taken up by dancing, singing and playing . . .. If Bianca and Nannina had been here, one of them would bound to have been mistress of ceremonies for the women's section of the baths" (Qui e dallo stare nel bagno infuori non s'attende se none a ballare chantare e sonare. . .. Se la Biancha e la Nannina ci fussano state non poteva m anchare che una di loro non fusse stata la madrina del bagno delle donne, Pieraccini, 1: 82-83). Their six-year-old brother, Lorenzo, is described by Piero in the same letter as "Lord of the Baths" (Signiore del bagno).

(74.) Perrens, 148 n. 4, letter of 19 April: "Ma molto magiore l'usare la domesticheza con mi che egli fa in fare stare le done sue dove io sto." In this connection, see also the theme of domestichezza in the letters published by Magnani, xvi-xvii, docs 23 and 24, 25 April, Francesco Sforza to Cosimo de' Medici, and 30 April, the Bishop of Modena and others to Francesco Sforza. Similarly, in 1457 the Duke instructs Francesco Pico della Mirandola to treat his son in a "domestic manner and familiarly, no longer as a guest" during the latter's visit to Ferrara (Lubkin, 26).

(75.) Trans. Prizer, 1991, 3-4, and see ibid., 53: "sona benissimo cum bonissimi ponti he porporcione he misura avantazata."

(76.) Parigi (21) says that positive organs were transportable if not too large. Prizer refers to the sources for Squarcialupi's visit to Naples in 1450 (1991, 4 n. 2), and see also Giacomelli, 266.

(77.) This early poem, one of a number on the subject of widowhood, is no. VI of the "Cent ballades" (see Christine de Pizan, 1:7). See also Willard, 44, and 54. For the composition by Binchois, see for example, Rehm, 45-46, with a four-voice version on 46-47. Bonnie J. Blackburn's review of a 1995 Binchois symposium in New York refers to a paper by Liane Curtis on "Dueil angoisseux" (Blackburn, 184-85).

(78.) For keyboard versions in the mid-century Buxheim Organ Book, see Kemp, 520-21, and Jones, 133.

(79.) William Prizer (1991, 5 n. 6) makes the connection with this manuscript now in the Vatican Library, MS Urb. Lat. 1411. In his role as procuratore to Federico da Montefeltro, Bonaventuri appears to have visited Florence with the task of negotiating a new condotta for his employer (see Franceschini, 460-61, and Moranti, 24 n. 19).

(80.) Such questions are clearly beyond the scope (and expertise) of the present study. On performance issues raised by the letter, see Prizer, 1991. On the problems surrounding Italian performance in French, see Litterick, Fallows, 1989, and also Fallows, 1993, in which he concludes on the basis of the letter published by Prizer that "the French song repertory was cultivated and appreciated in Florence in 1460" (55). See, too, ibid. 48-49, where he describes the songs in Urb. Lat. 1411 (which he calls a "a messy little songbook") as being "in often dismal readings with miserably incompetent texts and a few ascriptions that are demonstrably wrong. It is one of those manuscripts that everybody probably wishes did not exist."

(81.) The evidence of music-making by women at private parties remains to be explored. See, for example, the letter of Braccio Martelli to Lorenzo de' Medici dated 27 April 1465 in Del Lungo, 32-42.

(82.) Southern, 185. Ippolita's brother, Galeazzo Maria, according to the latter's tutor in 1452 when his pupil was the same age, "is making good progress in his singing lessons. He has learnt eight French songs and every day learns new ones" (attende benissimo ad imparare cantare et a imparato octo canti francesi e oni di ni impara de li altri. Prizer, 1989, 151).

(83.) Klapisch-Zuber, 1984, 789 n. 68.

(84.) See, for example, D'Accone, 1961, 307-58, and 1992, 259-90. See also the quotation in note 53 above. D'Accone, Strohm, and others mention the hiring of Jean Cordier, one of the most famous singers of the period. See, for example, Tommaso Portinari to Piero di Cosimo in February 1467 cited by Strohm (37). The itinerant nature of the music profession was an obvious aid to the geographical diffusion and circulation of music. Strohm makes a particular point of the Bruges, Naples, Florence triangle (138). See also McGee, 1999.

(85.) Perini, 42. In Richard Trexler's formulation, the women of Florentine convents function as "liminal bridges between different powers, serving to disarm visitors and permit communication between males" (1980, 236).

(86.) "I' ho saputo in tal modo danzare/ che '1 re mezzo il reame mi vuol dare" ("Vita di Sancto Giovanni Baptista," stanza CXXXV, in Tornabuoni, 1978, 193). The poet of the 1459 ball leaves us in no doubt as to the conventional passive/active gender division which is implied in his text: "there are those who are are looked at and those who look, those who are desired and those who desire" (chi e mirato e chi fisso altri guarda/ e chi e vagheggiato e chi vagheggia. Smith, 1: xvii), whereas Tornabuoni's dancing woman is dominant with the (male) spectators in thrall: "she exploited her command of the art of dancing to the full. I don't believe that any of those present would have been aware if they had been set on fire, so captivated were they by her beauty and her wonderful dancing" (et non lasciava a far nessun bel giuoco/ che fussi al danzare apartenente./ Stati sarebbon credo inn un gran foco,/ sentito non l'arebbon quelle genti,/ tanto contenti stavano ad mirare/ le suo bellezze e 'l suo gentil ballare. To rnabuoni, 1978, 191, stanza CXXX). On the male gaze and women's to-he-looked-at-ness in a modern context, see Mulvey.

(87.) Alessandra Strozzi offers an example of this sort of internalization as manifested in her letters to her sons. Nannina de' Medici's husband, Bernardo Rucellai, remarked that mothers were happier to show their daughters to ten men than to one woman (see Kent, 1983, 336 n. 7).

(88.) According to Irigaray, "uprooted from their 'nature', they no longer relate to each other except in terms of what they represent in men's desire, and according to the 'forms' that this imposes upon them. Among themselves, they are separated by his speculations" (188).

(89.) Pius II mentions a meeting with Cosimo de' Medici on his return journey to Rome early in 1460 during which the latter requested a cardinalate for his grandson (Piccolomini, 1: 661).

(90.) This, Nannina's only extant letter, is unfortunately omitted from Patrizia Salvadori's edition of Lucrezia Tornabuoni's correspondence, but see Pieraccini, 1:147. Surprisingly, Pieraccini describes it as revealing "copia di eccellenti sentimenti"!

(91.) For the interpretation of the experience of performing the (gendered) self as simultaneously coercive and enabling, see, for instance, Carlson, 173-74, citing De Certeau. For a discussion of the later Foucault's notion of resistance and its advantages and limitations for feminism, see McNay, 38 if.

(92.) For Alessandra Scala, see Pesenti, and also A. Brown. Her performance is described in scarcely disguised erotic terms by one of the spectators, Angelo Poliziano (Pesenti, 254).

(93.) See note 8 above.

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