Congratulations to Professor Helena Sanson on her new book: Annibale Guasco Ragionamento a Donna Lavinia sua figliuola della maniera del governarsi ella in corte (1586). Con una scelta di lettere (Alessandria: Edizioni dell’Orso, 2022, 288 pp.), ed. by Helena Sanson.

On Monday 24 April 2023, at 5.30 pm (BST), as part of the UCD Italian Seminar Series, Professor Brian Richardson will present Helena Sanson’s new book. In conversation with the editor.

In the winter of 1585, Annibale Guasco (1540-1619) composed for his eleven-year-old daughter Lavinia his Ragionamento to guide her in her new role: Lavinia was about to move from Alessandria to the Savoy court in Turin to become one of the ladies-in-waiting to the Infanta Caterina Micaela of Habsburg, daughter of King Philip II of Spain and wife of Duke Carlo Emanuele I. The Ragionamento must be read against the background of the rich sixteen-century production of conduct texts for and about women, but it is also evidence of a special bond of love between Guasco and his daughter, for whom he had had great expectations ever since she was a child. After Lavinia’s marriage to Count Guido Emanuele Langosco, another chapter in her life began, but even as a wife and a mother she was very much part of an influential network of social relations, as the Scelta di Lettere that enriches this edition of the original Italian text of the Ragionamento reveals. Page after page, the seventy letters included in the volume bring to life the world of Lavinia and her loved ones – with their joys, hopes, and sorrows – between the last decades of the sixteenth century and the first of the seventeenth, in Alessandria and Milan, then under Spanish rule. 

To join the event, please use the following Zoom link: https://ucd-ie.zoom.us/j/66378427764?pwd=SklXdGprQ213VkxVbkdadTFOZnp6QT09

For further details on Professor Sanson’s new book, see: https://www.ediorso.it/ragionamento-a-donna-lavina-sua-figliuola-della-maniera-del-governarsi-ella-in-corte-1586.html