Feminism, the belief that men and women are inherently of the same worth, value, and abilities, tends to spread through all aspects of a society, even to those individuals who are pious devotees of profoundly misogynistic religions. Antonio Pulci was one of those profoundly pious and devoted Catholics who was also a feminist.

      Misogyny can invade all literary genres, even hagiographies (lives of saints). Pulci wrote a series of plays for use in convents and at secular civic festivals that are anything but misogynistic: they are truly feminist works.

• All of her female characters, even the minor ones, are dynamic individuals who control their lives and the people around them, even Emperors.

• Women are typically "better people" than their male counterparts - more intelligent, more compassionate, more in control of the situation, more dependable, and less fickle

• When choosing a course of action, the women understand and accept the consequences of their actions. They see the plan to completion.

• If a woman is presented as less than a good, Christian woman, her weaknesses are ascribed to her circumstances or rearing, not to any innate female characteristic.

• When the plays are presented in the convents, all of the parts will be played by women. Since Pulci writes both male and female characters into the plays, she implicitly acknowledges that women will perform on the stage as men, a complete break with the norms of her time.

• She explored typical feminist concerns: violence in marriage, the limited career options of women (marriage, religious orders, or prostitution), sexual harassment and rape, men's infidelity toward their wives, limited educational opportunities for women, and the dangers of childbirth

      The second of seven children (5 in wedlock, 2 out-of-wedlock) fathered by up-and-coming banker Francesco d'Antonio de Giannotto Tanini, Antonia was probably educated in a fashion typical of the daughter of an upper-middle merchant. Practical skills were acquired, vernacular reading and writing, commercial mathematics, and accounting, instead of the humanist Latin grammar and literature typical of the education of the children of the aristocracy.

      At age 18, Antonia married Bernardo Pulci, an impoverished member of the Florentine literary clan. With poverty nipping at their heels, the Pulcis began writing sacred dramas for popular performance and publication in Florence. Their situation was eased in 1476 when Bernardo was given a lucrative position by Lorenzo de Medici, but their situation again deteriorated in 1477 when Bernardo left his job for reasons of ill-health. He returned to the employ of the Medici family in 1484 where he remained until his death in 1487.

      Antonia's brother urged her to remarry. Refusing both marriage and religious orders, the pious Antonia donned religious garb and committed herself to a Christian life as a pinzochere, a woman committed to the religious life who does not take religious orders. Pinzochere enjoyed the least restricted lifestyle of all women - no husband, brother, father, pimp, or priest to monitor their actions. In many communities these women were regarded with suspicion because they were not under the control of any man. She continued to live in the family house, coming and going as she saw fit, at times with likeminded women. She supported herself from proceeds of her dowry, which passed to her control because she had no children, and a little money raised from her plays.

      Perhaps anticipating death, she officially became an Augustinian sister in 1500 and shortly thereafter founded her own order. She left her convent all of her possessions in her will.

      From The Play of Saint Flavia Domitilla

      The story to this point: Domitilla, a young pagan virgin, meets the man, Aurelianus, selected by Emperor Domitian to be her husband and falls madly in love. Her Christian servants fail in an attempt to convert her to Christianity and entice her into a convent using profound philosophical and religious arguments. There follows the following exchange:

One of the mentioned servants answers and says to Domitilla:

When you have been united with your spouse,	129
The title of virgin you'll lose,
and whether he will kindly be to you
Is hidden from you, for one's often blithe,
But knows not why; always, to know about
the future is unsure, and so one weights
These outcomes: you today a maiden's gown
Wear, then you'll be a woman and a wife,		136
	And you, who could not even entertain
The very notion that your virginal
nobility might be defiled, would to
 A pagan base submit and bend yourself
To every pleasure of his, transform your life,
Your habits, and your manners, and your style,
His every vile commandment would perform
So that his appetite might sated be.			144
	All these husbands put their best for forward:
When their lady is engaged to them
How humble, then, they wish to seem, and mild - 
At least until they've led her to their home.
However, secrets like those you can't know - 
If you have not first spent some time with him
You will be filled with fear and full of doubt.
Be sure you think about such outcomes well.		152

Domitilla answers and says:

My mother suffered, as I well recall,
So many torments throughout all her life;
Because of her husband's jealousy alone
Bore very great distress, and if I were
to think that I would follow such a path,
The garments of the world I'd never don,
Though I don't think my spouse Aurelian
Would act like this because he is so kind.		160

One of the servants says to Domitilla:

That which I tell you often comes to pass,
Lo, some keep mistresses or concubines,
and some their ladies batter painfully,
Torment them with harsh discipline so cruel;
Many scornful outbursts, too, they bear;
One needs to think through all things to their end -
About the pangs of childbirth and the woes
So grievous when the children are brought forth.	168
	Sometimes, as well, when coming forth, a child
Will be born dumb, deformed, or senseless, whence
The mother will experience great grief,
For one who's born blind by the world is scorned;
Consider now if you'd have great regret
For ever having borne a child like these.
Sometimes the children, too, when they are born,
May be the causes of their mother's death.		176

The other servant arrives and says:

O sacred maidenhood, what worthy joy
You bring to God, and to the angels dear
Who for eternity in heaven live
And with their bright and shining maker reign!
How blest whoever may, beneath you sign,
that journey undertake, whoever scorns
This bitter life so trouble-filled to find
Another life more tranquil and serene.		184
	With penitence can one atone for sins,
But once virginity is lost, no more
Can it return to its first state again;
Who doesn't understand this, woe to her!
Though every other virtue conquers and
With joy is welcomed midst the saints in heave'n,
Just as the queen is greater than the rest,
So is virginity the glory true.				192
	It wafts a sweet aroma up to God.
If you preserve this, for a spouse you'll have
A noble youth both pious and benign,
Who will not ever go away from you,
That is Christ Jesus, who with yearning for
His brides rejoices greatly in high heav'n.
here certain joy, here true repose - she's blest
Who is devoted to so great a spouse.			200
	Whichever of these two most pleases you,
Choose one: take either this Aurelian
Who must die, leave his riches in default,
a fleeting hope for such long suffering;
Or, if you Jesus wish for your true spouse,
And him alone to serve is your desire,
Untroubled sweetness infinite to you
he'll give, and after death will give you life.		208

Domitilla answers her two servants and says:

Truly I seem to feel my heart unfold,
Such power have your words, and what within
I feel I can't tell you, but I'm much grieved
I took a spouse because I wish
To serve Christ Jesus and his holy law -
Be one who wants to flee the world and each
Vain thought - yet I desire to go away
From my intended spouse, Aurelian.			216

      I'm not going to tell you how the play ends. It's rather cute, get the book and read for yourself how Domitilla escapes from the marriage ordered by the Emperor to enter a convent and live happily everafter.

      Antonia Pulci, Florentine Drama for Convent and Festival, annotated and translated by James Wyatt Cook, part of the series The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe, series editors Margaret L. King and Albert Rabil, Jr. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997) pp. 1-20, pp 79-81

For a longer excerpt, check out my booknotes file Florentine Drama for Convent and Festival

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