Le donne illustri di Faustina Maratti Zappi

Abstract

Among the themes treated in the poems of Faustina Maratti Zappi, also known by her Arcadian name Aglauro Cidonia, that of ancient heroines enjoyed a particular favour among critics of the 18th- and 19th centuries, and her sonnets on illustrious women of Rome have for a long time been considered the foremost examples of her work. Based on the discovery of the autograph manuscript by Maratti, this article expands the series of nine already known sonnets (Virginia, Claudia, Arria, Tuzia, Vetturia, Porzia, Lucrezia, Cornelia and Ortensia) to include a previously unpublished poem devoted to Clelia. The study also provides further details regarding the supposed set of four sonnets on ancient queens mentioned in an exchange of letters between the poet and Paolo Rolli, expanding the already known triplet (Artemisia, Semiramide and Tomiri) to include a sonnet dedicated to Cleopatra, already painted by her father Carlo Maratti. From a careful scrutiny of this correspondence it emerges that the bestselling edition of Maratti’s poems from 1723, which would go on with its fifteen editions to serve as the most popular source for the modern edition still in circulation, was in fact an unauthorised version. The autograph in question, mentioned here for the first time, constitutes a more reliable source on which to base a critical edition, which is currently under preparation by the author of this article.