Skip to main navigation menu Skip to main content Skip to site footer
Galilæana. Studies in Renaissance and Early Modern Science

Focus

Vol. 22 No. 2 (2025)

Framing the “Tenth Muse”: Gendered strategies of intellectual legitimacy in the case of Maria Selvaggia Borghini (1654-1731)

DOI
https://doi.org/10.57617/gal-73
Submitted
10 March 2025
Published
2025-10-31

Abstract

Maria Selvaggia Borghini (1654-1731) occupies a unique position in the intellectual landscape of seventeenth century Tuscany. A poet of considerable acclaim, she was also deeply engaged with the scientific culture of her time, particularly through her correspondence with leading scholars such as Francesco Redi (1626-1697), Alessandro Marchetti (1633-1714) and Antonio Magliabechi (1633-1714). This article seeks to examine Borghini’s role within the intellectual networks of post-Galilean Florence, highlighting her engagement with natural philosophy and the Medicean court. Despite her recognition in literary and scientific Academies, she remained excluded, for example, from the Accademia della Crusca, reflecting the broader gendered constraints on learned women in early modern Europe. By analysing her letters, poetic compositions, and her choice to translate Tertullian, this study seeks to shed light on the complex strategies Borghini employed to navigate the intersections of poetry, science, and patronage in late seventeenth century Tuscany.

References

  1. Manuscript funds
  2. ASF = Archivio di Stato, Firenze, fondo Magalotti.
  3. BNCF = Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Firenze, fondo Panciatichiano, fondo Magliabechi, fondo Nazionale, Miscellanea medicea.
  4. BRF = Biblioteca Riccardiana, Firenze, fondo Riccardiano.
  5. BMaF = Biblioteca Marucelliana, Firenze, fondo Redi-Cestoni.
  6. Primary sources
  7. Barbapiccola, Giuseppa Eleonora. I principi della filosofia di Renato Des-Cartes. Tradotti dal Francese col confronto del Latino in cui l’Autore li scrisse da Giuseppa-Eleonora Barbapiccola, tra gli Arcadi Mirista. Torino, 1722.
  8. Borghini, Maria Selvaggia. In Dizionario biografico degli italiani, XII. Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia italiana, 1970.
  9. Borghini, Maria Selvaggia. Opere di Tertulliano tradotte in Toscano dalla Signora Selvaggia Borghini, Nobile Pisana, ed. by Giovanni Bottari, Roma: Pallade, 1756.
  10. Broecke, Petrus Adrianus van de. Epistolarum libri tres, Lucae: apud Hyacinthum Pacium, 1684.
  11. Bulifon, Antonio, ed. Rime della Signora Lucrezia Marinella, Veronica Gambara, et Isabella della Morra, con giunta di quelle fin’ora raccolte della Signora Maria Selvaggia Borghini. Napoli: Antonio Bulifon, 1693.
  12. Bulifon, Antonio, ed. Rime di cinquanta illustri poetesse di nuovo date in luce. Napoli: Antonio Bulifon, 1695.
  13. Crescimbeni, Giovanni Mario. Istoria della volgar poesia. Roma: Antonio de’ Rossi, 1698.
  14. Crescimbeni, Giovanni Mario. L’Arcadia del canonico Giovanni Mario Crescimbeni, custode della medesima Arcadia. Roma: Antonio de’ Rossi, 1711.
  15. Crescimbeni, Giovanni Mario.. Rime degli Arcadi, vol. 4. Roma: Antonio de’ Rossi, 1717.
  16. Gimma, Giacinto. Elogi accademici della Società degli Spensierati di Rossano, Gaetano Tremigliozzi, 1703.
  17. Erculiani, Camilla. Letters on Natural Philosophy: The Scientific Correspondence of a Sixteenth-Century Pharmacist, with Related Texts, ed. by Eleonora Carinci, trans. by Hannah Marcus, with a foreword by Paula Findlen, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2021.
  18. Ménage, Gilles. Historia mulierum philosopharum. Lugduni Batavorum: Cornelius Boutesteyn, 1690.
  19. Moreni, Domenico, ed. Saggio di poesie di Maria Selvaggia Borghini nobile pisana e testimonianze del di lei valore, Firenze: Magheri, 1827.
  20. Nomi, Federigo. Orazioni in morte d’illustri personaggi. Firenze: Gaetano Albizzini, 1715.
  21. Recanati, Giovanni Battista [Teleste Ciparissiano]. Poesie italiane di rimatrici viventi raccolte da Teleste Ciparissiano pastore arcade. Venezia: Sebastiano Coleti, 1716.
  22. Redi, Francesco. Opere di Francesco Redi, Venezia: Gio. Gabriello Hertz, 1728-1742.
  23. Redi, Francesco. Opere del Redi, vol. 8. Milano: Società Tipografica de’ Classici Italiani, 1811.
  24. Salvini, Anton Maria. Discorsi accademici del Sig. Abate Anton Maria Salvini, Firenze: nella Stamperia di S.A.R. per Vincenzo Vangelisti, 1712.
  25. Salvini, Anton Maria. Prose toscane. Firenze: Stamperia di S. A. R., 1715.
  26. Simonelli, Giovanni. “Maria Selvaggia Borghini”. In Memorie storiche di più uomini illustri pisani, 4 vols., ed. by Angelo Fabroni et al. (Pisa: Raniero Prosperi, 1790-1792).
  27. Tarabotti, Arcangela [Galerana Baratotti]. La semplicità ingannata. Venezia: Francesco Valuasense, 1654.
  28. Secondary literature
  29. Allen, Prudence, and Filippo Salvatore. “Lucrezia Marinelli and Woman’s Identity in Late Italian Renaissance”. Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme 16, 4 (1992), 5-22.
  30. Andrews, Richard. “Isabella Andreini and Others: Women on Stage in the Late Cinquecento”. In Women in Italian Renaissance Culture and Society. Oxford: Legenda, 2000.
  31. Antonelli, Francesca. Scrivere e sperimentare. Marie-Anne Paulze-Lavoisier, segretaria della ‘nuova chimica’ (1771–1836). Roma: Viella, 2022.
  32. Antonelli, Francesca, and Paolo Savoia. “Introduction. Gender, History, and Science in Early Modern Europe”. In Gendered Touch: Women and Scientific Practice in Early Modern Europe, ed. by Francesca Antonelli, Antonella Romano and Paolo Savoia. Leiden: Brill, 2022, 1-18.
  33. Benedetti, Laura. “Un eroismo diverso? La rappresentazione delle guerriere nella Scanderbeide di Margherita Sarrocchi (1623) e ne L’Enrico di Lucrezia Marinella (1635)”. The Italianist 39, 3 (2019), 281-296.
  34. Carinci, Eleonora. “Una ‘speziala’ padovana: Lettere di philosophia naturale di Camilla Erculiani (1584)”. Italian Studies 68, 2 (2013), 202-209.
  35. Casini, C. “Selvaggia Borghini (monumento)”, scheda OA 09-00149901, 1986 (rev. 2006). https://dati.beniculturali.it/lodview-arco/resource/HistoricOrArtisticProperty/0900149981.html
  36. Cavazza, Marta. “Les femmes à l’académie: le cas de Bologne”. In Académies et sociétés savantes en Europe (1650–1800), ed. by Daniel-Odon Hurel and Gérard Laudin. Paris: Honoré Champion, 2000.
  37. Conforti, Maria, Donato, Maria Pia. “Vite degli Arcadi di scienza: una lettura ideologica e antropologica” in Scienza e poesia in Arcadia (1690-1870), ed. by Elisabetta Appetecchi, Maurizio Campanelli, Alessandro Ottaviani and Pietro Petteruti Pellegrino, Roma: Accademia dell’Arcadia, 2022.
  38. Costa-Zalessow, Natalia. 1999. “Teresa Carniani Malvezzi as a Translator from English and Latin”. Italica 76, 4 (1999).
  39. Cox, Virginia. Women’s Writing in Italy, 1400–1650. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008.
  40. Cox, Virginia. The Prodigious Muse: Women’s Writing in Counter-Reformation Italy. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011.
  41. Cox, Virginia. “Members, Muses, Mascots: Women and Italian Academies”. In The Italian Academies 1525–1700, ed. by Jane E. Everson, Denis Reidy and Lisa Sampson, 130-167. London: Routledge, 2016.
  42. Craig, Martin. “Meteorology for Courtiers and Ladies: Vernacular Aristotelianism in Renaissance Italy”. Philosophical Reading 4, 2 (2012).
  43. Daybell, James, Gordon, Andrew. 2016. Women and Epistolary Agency in Early Modern Culture (1450-1690) London: Routledge.
  44. Di Tommaso, Noemi. 2025. “Sailing the ocean of nature: Francesca Fontana Aldrovandi in early modern Bologna”, Annals of Science, 82 (1): 44-73.
  45. Di Tommaso, Noemi. 2024. “The Erudite Pratictioner. Francesco Redi’s communication Strategies”. In Visual, material and print culture in the early stages of the institutionalisation of science: The Accademia del Cimento as a multifaceted case study, ed. by Giulia Giannini. Physis 59, 2 (2024): 373-408.
  46. Egmond, Florike. “Female Experts: Elegance and Rivalry”. In The World of Carolus Clusius: Natural History in the Making, 1550-1610. Pickering & Chatto, 2014.
  47. Eriksen, Christoffer Basse, and Xinyi Wen. “Colouring Flowers: Books, Art, and Experiment in the Household of Margery and Henry Power”. The British Journal for the History of Science 56 (2023), 21-43.
  48. Findlen, Paula. “Translating the New Science: Women and the Circulation of Knowledge in Enlightenment in Italy”. Configurations 2 (1999).
  49. Findlen, Paula. “Masculine Prerogatives: Gender, Space, and Knowledge in the Early Modern Museum”. In The Architecture of Science, ed. by Peter Galison and Emily Thompson. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995, 29-57.
  50. Graziosi, Elisabetta. “Revisiting Arcadia: Women and Academies in EighteenthCentury Italy”. In Italy’s Eighteenth Century: Gender and Culture in the Age of the Grand Tour, ed. by Paula Findlen, Wendy Wassyng Roworth and Catherine M. Sama. Redwood City: Stanford University Press, 2009, 103-123.
  51. Hopkins, Sienna Star. “Female Biographies in Renaissance and Post-Tridentine Italy”. PhD diss., University of California, 2016.
  52. Kelly, Joan. “Did Women Have a Renaissance?”. In Becoming Visible: Women in European History, ed. by Renate Bridenthal and Claudia Koonz. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1977.
  53. Kelly, Joan. “Early Feminist Theory and the ‘Querelle des Femmes,’ 1400–1789”. Signs 8, 1 (1982), 4-28.
  54. Kirkham, Victoria. “Sappho on the Arno: The Brief Fame of Laura Battiferra degli Ammannati”. In Strong Voices, Weak History: Early Modern Women Writers and Canons in England, France, and Italy, ed. by Pamela J. Benson and Victoria Kirkham. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005, 174-196.
  55. Kolsky, Stephen. The Ghost of Boccaccio. Writings on Famous Women in Renaissance Italy. Turnhout: Brepols, 2005.
  56. Larsen, Anne R. “Anna Maria van Schurman: Self-Portraiture, Female Scholarly Identity and the Republic of Letters”. Renaissance Quarterly 77, 3 (2025), 879-915.
  57. Leong, Elaine. Recipes and Everyday Knowledge: Medicine, Science and the Household in Early Modern England. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2018.
  58. Modesti, Adelina. Women’s Patronage and Gendered Cultural Networks in Early Modern Europe. Vittoria della Rovere, Grand Duchess of Tuscany. New York: Routledge, 2020.
  59. Paoli, Maria Pia. “Come se mi fosse sorella: Maria Selvaggia Borghini nella repubblica delle lettere”. In Per lettera: la scrittura epistolare femminile tra archivio e tipografia: secoli XV-XVII. Roma: Viella, 1999.
  60. Papworth, Amelia. “Pressure to Publish: Laura Terracina and Her Editors”. Early Modern Women 12, 1 (2017), 3-24.
  61. Plastina, Sandra. “‘Considerar la mutatione dei tempi e delli stati e degli uomini’: Le lettere di Philosophia Naturale di Camilla Erculiani”. Bruniana & Campanelliana 20, 1 (2014), 145-156.
  62. Raschi, Nataša, Trinchero, Cristina. Femmes de science. Quatre siècle de conquêtes, entre langue et littérature. Roma: Carrocci, 2021.
  63. Ray, Meredith K. Daughters of Alchemy: Women and Scientific Culture in Early Modern Italy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015.
  64. Ray, Meredith K. Margherita Sarrocchi’s Letters to Galileo: Astronomy, Astrology, and Poetics in Seventeenth-Century Italy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.
  65. Ray, Meredith K. 2019. “Statecraft and the Politics of Knowledge in Margherita Sarrocchi’s Scanderbeide”. Bruniana & Campanelliana 25, 2 (2019), 475-491.
  66. Robin, Diana. “Women on the Move: Trends in Anglophone Studies of Women in the Italian Renaissance”. I Tatti Studies in the Italian Renaissance 16, 1/2 (2013): 13-25.
  67. Roos, Anna Marie Eleanor. Martin Lister and His Remarkable Daughters: The Art of Science in the Seventeenth Century. Oxford: Bodleian Library, 2019.
  68. Stevenson, Jane. Women Latin Poets: Language, Gender, and Authority from Antiquity to the Eighteenth Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.
  69. Strocchia, Sharon T. Forgotten Healers: Women and the Pursuit of Health in Late Renaissance Italy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2019.
  70. Tribolati, Cesare. Maria Selvaggia Borghini: studio biografico con poesie inedite. Pisa: Tipografia Nistri, 1882.
  71. Vitale, Assunta. “Levare il governo del regno d’Amore dalle mani de’ cavalieri e porlo nelle dame”. L’Accademia delle Assicurate di Siena (1654-1714 ca.). In Le accademie toscane del Seicento fra arti, lettere e reti epistolari, ed. by Claudia Tarallo. Siena: Edizioni UniStra, 2020, 97-116.
  72. Wills, Hannah, Sadie Harrison, Erika Jones, Ferrah Lawrence-Makey, and Rebecca Martin. Women in the History of Science. A Sourcebook. London: UCL Press, 2023.
  73. Wyles, Rosie, ed., and Edith Hall, ed. Women Classical Scholars: Unsealing the Fountain from the Renaissance to Jacqueline de Romilly. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016.