LA DAMA DEL VERGIÙ: SECRECY, VENDETTA AND SEXUAL BLACKMAIL IN A LATE MEDIEVAL BEDROOM

BRONWEN WILSON

LA DAMA DEL VERGIÙ: SECRECY, VENDETTA ANDSEXUAL BLACKMAIL IN A LATE MEDIEVAL BEDROOM

It has become a commonplace to understand the public spacesof Renaissance Florence as «the arenas where male honor was assert-ed», in Thomas Kuehn’s words, and the casa as the locus of femalehonor.1 For women, honor was chastity, the reason, in part, that theiraccess to public spaces was curtailed during the fourteenth and fif-teenth centuries. Women were increasingly the object of surveillanceinside the house, by their fathers and husbands, and also their moth-ers in law.2 The status of women, their financial independence, andaccess to education were also declining and expectations for themwould be redefined in the Renaissance by Leon Battista Alberti,among many others.3 Thus it is not surprising that the heroines of fif-teenth-century domestic painting are chaste and silent, such asLucretia or Griselda, whose virtues are tested in narratives that areoften underpinned by violence.4 These stories, the characters, and thevisual conventions used to depict them on spalliere and cassoni weredidactic and also used to commemorate family alliances.5 These polit-

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* This essay has benefited from questions received at the Conference. I am alsograteful to Maria Predelli for several suggestions and clarifications.

1 T. KUEHN, Law, Family, and Women: Toward a Legal Anthropology of RenaissanceItaly, p. 87.

2 C. KLAPISCH-ZUBER, Women, Family, and Ritual in Renaissance Italy; M. WIGLEY,Untitled: The Housing of Gender.

3 L. B. ALBERTI, The Family in Renaissance Florence, translated by R. N. Watkins, pp.207-229.

4 See C. KLAPISCH-ZUBER, The Griselda Complex: Dowry and Marriage Gifts in theQuattrocento.

5 C. BASKINS, Cassone Painting, Humanism, and Gender in Early Modern Italy; R. M.SAN JUAN, Mythology, Women and Renaissance Private Life: The Myth of Eurydice in ItalianFurniture Painting. On early chests, see J. MIZIOLEK, Cassoni istoriati with Torello andSaladin: Observations on the Origins of a New Genre of Trecento Art in Florence.

Predelli_Ultimo 7-11-2006 9:29 Pagina 379

ical dimensions of domestic painting have been brought forward byscholars, but what needs to be explored further are the ways inwhich gender and sexuality – often called the history of private life– intersected with changing public concerns. These are issues thatemerge, as this essay argues, in the Sala della Castellana in thePalazzo Davizzi-Davanzati; commissioned at the end of the four-teenth century, these frescoes suggest the complex ways in whichchanging social and architectural codes, the bedroom, violence, andthe allegorical function of the female body were imbricated at amoment of social transformation.

There has been a tendency in Renaissance studies to dividescholarship into the public sphere of men and the private spaces ofwomen. As Carol Lansing has pointed out, scholars focusing onpublics and state formation have often excluded the private life ofthe family.6 Feminist historians, working in part to redress the prob-lem by exploring the history of women, have called attention to theprivate sphere – to family and marriage – and also to institutionssuch as convents. Of course there are exceptions to this; the studyof sumptuary laws, working women, and female patronage havehighlighted how private and public life overlapped.7 Many of thesestudies have illustrated how legal, political, and social mechanisms,and visual imagery contributed to the diminished power of women,at least in theory.8 Systematic misogyny, however, also appears tohave been a symptom of anxiety about the power of women andfemale sexuality, and this is an idea explored here.

In her important study of the Davizzi frescoes, Maribel Königersuggests that the retardataire tale – a thirteenth-century romantictragedy – represented in a verdant landscape, provided the patronwith political capital through allusions to the magnati and claims toancient lineage.9 During the last decades of the Trecento, families

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6 For example see G. CHITTOLINI, A. MOLHO, and P. SCHIERA, Origini dello stato: pro-cessi di formazione statale in Italia fra medioevo ed età moderna; C. LANSING, Genderand Civic Authority: Sexual Control in a Medieval Italian Town, p. 33.

7 For example, see D. OWEN HUGHES, Sumptuary Law and Social Relations inRenaissance Italy: Law and Humans Relations in the West; M. CHOJNACKA, WorkingWomen of Early Modern Venice.

8 See T. KUEHN, Law, Family, and Woman; C. KLAPISCH-ZUBER, Women, Family, andRitual; P. SIMONS, Women in Frames: the Gaze, the Eye, the Profile in RenaissancePortraiture.

9 M. KÖNIGER, Die profanen Fresken des Palazzo Davanzati in Florenz: privateRepräsentation zur Zeit der internationalen Gotik.


connected to the oligarchical regime of the Albizzi and Capponiwere asserting themselves by adopting customs and ideals that cir-culated in pseudo-noble texts and Königer has argued that the dec-orations in the Davizzi palace should be interpreted as an expres-sion of neo-feudalism.10 The gente nuova appropriated chivalry forits associations with aristocratic culture; the courtly subject matterwith its promotion of virtue, was a form of self-representation forthe family during difficult political times. I want to pursue this issuefrom a different angle in this paper by addressing issues of space,sexuality, and violence. By exploring how the narrative is translat-ed and framed in the visual imagery, I argue that the frescoes pointto ways in which honor, public and private space, female sexualityand homosociality were being negotiated during a moment of tran-sition from the instability of the commune to the republic.

The end of the fourteenth century witnessed the beginning of abuilding boom in Florence. In the following century some 100palaces were constructed, as Richard Goldthwaite has noted, andthis architectural display was much discussed by contemporaries.11

Descriptions of private buildings before the turn of the century,however, and modern scholarship on these palaces, is rare. Never-theless, the changing character of palace architecture, in response toemerging political initiatives, is relatively well documented; oncethe castellated towers that characterized the consorterie of themedieval city were demolished, private building was increasinglyconnected to public space with loggias and benches. The loggia ofthe Palazzo Davizzi-Davanzati, for example, could be opened to thestreet when it was built in the middle of the fourteenth century bythe Davizzi who were wealthy cloth merchants (fig. 1).12

The façade is typical of the fourteenth century, with three sto-ries above a ground floor with large arches that would have beenused for family ceremonies until the loggia was transformed into

LA DAMA DEL VERGIÙ»: SECRECY, VENDETTA AND SEXUAL BLACKMAIL IN A LATE

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10 M. KÖNIGER, Die profanen Fresken des Palazzo Davanzati in Florenz, p. 256. Alsosee G. A. BRUCKER, ed., The Society of Renaissance Florence: a Documentary Study, esp.p. 11.

11 R. A. GOLDTHWAITE, The Florentine Palace as Domestic Architecture, p. 978.12 The Davizzi were a wealthy family inscribed in the Calimala guild. By the sixteenth

century, however, their power had waned and in 1516 the palace was bought by theBartolini. In 1578, the house became the property of Bernardo Davanzati, a merchant andscholar. Cfr. W. BOMBE, Un roman français dans un palais florentin, pp. 231-232.


shops during the Quattrocento. Until the sixteenth century, whenthe loggia at the top of the structure was added, the building wasprobably completed with battlements similar to those still seen onPalazzo Mozzi.13 The interior courtyard, with its well, could be cutoff from public access when required, a concern fuelled by fac-tional disputes that still characterized life in the fourteenth-centurycity. Storerooms could be replenished from the back and side of thebuilding during trouble. Public efforts to assuage factional violenceand foster communal identification are concerns to which I return.

The rooms of the Palazzo retain their splendid medieval deco-ration. Lavish decorations and coats of arms – ubiquitous in the Saladella Castellana – attest to the symbolic, but also semi-public func-tion of this nuptial chamber (fig. 2).14 Bedrooms were crucial spacesin late medieval houses and the bed an important piece of furni-ture.15 Davizzi and Alberti arms indicate the frescoes were commis-sioned for the wedding of Francesco di Tommaso Davizzi andCatelana degli Alberti in 1395.16 Adding support to this date is thebride’s first name which may have prompted the subject matter ofthe paintings.

The walls of the Sala della Castellana are covered in trompe-l’oeil tapestries that hang from painted metal rods over faux marblepanels. The decoration continues at the top of the wall, where anunknown painter has depicted an arcaded loggia that surrounds theroom like a frieze. The loggia was likely associated with the publicand official space of the Loggia dei Lanzi, proposed in 1354 andbuilt 1374-82, but also the rhythmic fenestration of the façade of thePalazzo itself (fig. 1). Through the use of perspective, the barrel-vaulted bays of the loggia establish a transitional space that extendsbeyond the bedroom wall with views of a garden, punctuated byluscious trees and birds. If this bucolic setting evokes a garden oflove, there are also political considerations. The landscape may

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13 E. DONATO and A. VANNI DESIDERI, Palazzo Davanzati (Firenze) tra storia erestauro, p. 3.

14 R. A. GOLDTHWAITE, The Florentine Palace as Domestic Architecture, p. 984.15 I. ORIGO, The Merchant of Prato, Francesco di Marco Datini, p. 229; J. K.

LYDECKER, The Domestic Setting of the Arts in Renaissance Florence, p. 48; R. A.GOLDTHWAITE, Wealth and Demand for Art in Italy, 1300-1600.

16 W. BOMBE, Die Novelle der Kastellanin von Vergi in einer Freskenfolge desPalazzo Davizzi-Davanzati zu Florenz, p. 2.


have encourage viewers to draw conncections between the Davizzi,the contado, the magnati, and thus the values of refeudalization, asKöniger proposes.17 Instead of long distance vistas, however, thehedge and trees limit the viewer’s access, focusing attention on thehalf-length figures who act out the scenes behind a parapet. Thusthe garden also needs to be considered as a pictorial strategy thatis integrated with the narrative.

The figures act out scenes from the tragic French romance andbest seller, the Châtelaine de Vergi, as it was known through theItalian version, La Dama del Vergiù.18 An adventure in love and astory of indiscretion, the unknown author draws, not without someirony, on courtly love with its concern for secrecy.19 Neither a lainor a romance proper, the thirteenth-century story is important forits representation of narrative as a succession of events,20 and thisrhythm is given visual impetus by the bays of the loggia. The per-spective of the arches, depicted di sotto in su, leads the viewer inthe direction of the narrative.21 The dramatic series of eventsexplains in part the popularity of the story as a source for visualimagery in the following century.22

La Dama del Vergiù is composed of 69 octets that recount theromance of a knight, Guglielmo, and a young woman, the chatelaine,who meet in secret. At the court of Burgundy, however, where the


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17 Writing around 1400, Giovanni di Pagolo Morelli describes the Mugello in hisRicordi: «Del paese e luogo propio donde anticamente siamo […] è situato in bellezza,bontà e grandezza d’uomini, di terreno e fortezze e cetera» (106) [...] «è copioso di nobilicittadini d’ogni tempo, uomini e donne, i quai con cacce, con uccelli e con festa e congran cortesie fanno risonare e fiorire il paese e di bellezza e d’allegrezza tutto l’anno»;the landscape is «come un giardino» (108) with «molte fortezze grandi e nobile, posse-dute da nobili e gentili uomini» (110). P. DA CERTALDO, Libro di buoni costumi, inMercanti scrittori: ricordi nella Firenze tra Medioevo e Rinascimento, a cura di V.Branca. Cited in M. KÖNIGER, p. 256.

18 La Dama del Vergiù: La storia della donna del Vergit et di Messer Ghuglielmo,piacievolissima choxa, Codice Riccardiano 2733, c. 112a-122a. Cfr. «http://www.classic-italiani.it/trecento/vergy.htm»; W. BOMBE, Die Novelle der Kastellanin von Vergi.

19 P. CLIFFORD, «La Chastelaine de Vergi» and Jean Renart: «Le Lai de l’ombre», p. 10.20 P. CLIFFORD, «La Chastelaine de Vergi» and Jean Renart: «Le Lai de l’ombre», p. 16.21 E. BORSOOK, The Mural Painters of Tuscany from Cimabue to Andrea del Sarto,

plate 69. 22 For example, see the ivory chest in The Louvre, that dates from the second quar-

ter of the fourteenth century: Révoil collection, acquisition 1828, Département desobjets d’art, MRR 77. On the casket in the British Museum, see W. BOMBE, Die Novelleder Kastellanin, pp. 20-25.


tale takes place, the duchess falls for the handsome knight. Heremains oblivious to the advances of the duke’s wife, who thereforeseeks revenge by claiming to her husband that his knight hadseduced her. Confronted by the duke, the knight refutes the accusa-tion, explaining that he is in love with someone else. Unwilling tobreak his vow of secrecy with the chatelaine, he is forced into exile.Troubled by his loyalty to the duke, however, and unable to see thechatelaine outside the court, he breaks his vow and discloses hislover, swearing the duke to secrecy. The knight’s affaire ad loyaltyare confirmed in the second part of the tale when the duke accom-panies him to the meeting place. Greeted by the chatelaine’s lap dog– her signal to her lover – the knight enters her bedroom. The duke,hidden outside for the night, hears the lovers converse, and recog-nizes his niece’s voice. Returning to his own nuptial chamber, heinforms his wife that her accusations could not be true since theknight has a lover. The duchess turns away from her husband inanger, eventually convincing him to disclose the other woman’sname. The final part of the narrative begins with festivities in thecourt where the duchess reveals her knowledge of the chatelaine’strysts to a group of women in her bedroom. Confronted by thedénouement and her lover’s lack of discretion the chatelaine col-lapses on the duchess’s bed. With her faithful dog in one arm and asword in the other, she stabs herself. The knight, finding her dead,and hearing the reasons for her suicide from a maid, also kills him-self. When the duke sees the corpses he beheads his wife before hisdancing guests, and later cedes his property to his nephew, takesorders, and goes on a crusade.

There are intriguing differences in the Italian translation. One ofthese, just noted, is the use of a sword by the chatelaine for her sui-cide; this weapon makes credible her otherwise unlikely death fromgrief found in the original French story. Emphasizing the sacrificialnature of her death, the sword also enables associations with otherfamous heroines such as Lucretia. In the French text none of theprotagonists is identified by name, and this is followed by theItalian translator. The knight and the duke, however, are named, a

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23 P. F. CHOLAKIAN contrasts the linguistic emphasis on the masculine characters inthe French text with Marguerite de Navarre’s rewriting of the tale in Rape and Writingin the «Heptaméron» of Marguerite de Navarre.


strategy that contrasts the bonds between men with the allegoricalfunction of the women as opposite types.23

French chivalric poetry was especially popular amongFlorentine nobles at the end of the Trecento, and also merchants,who sought to emulate their aristocratic customs. The politicaleffects of poetry were widespread since the presence of minstrels,like Antonio Pucci, and town criers, as Frederick Antal noted, could«influence the lower classes in a manner favourable to theSignoria».24 For example, the Centiloquio, the translation ofGiovanni Villani’s chronicle into verse, was a means to disseminatepolitical views. It was not only the content, but also the rhetoricaldevices of poetry, with its heroic models, that contributed to thiseffect. Part of the pleasure of looking at the frescoes would havebeen the social exchanges prompted by interpreting the imagery inrelation to the text and also contemporary life.

Secrecy is at the heart of the story and to account for the chate-laine’s preoccupation, scholars have debated her marital status.Since there is no mention of a husband, however, and since roman-tic liaisons were not unusual in thirteenth-century courts, it is morelikely, as Emilie Kostoroski posited, that «secrecy is the symbol ofthe most perfect fidelity».25 A chivalric romance, then, but the detailsof the tragic story – concealment, unrequited love, betrayal, exile,death, suicide, and decapitation – suggest a specific interpretationwhen translated into painting a century and a half after the verseswere composed. The bodies of men and women were being sub-jected to new codes of conduct during decades in which violence,love, and chivalric prowess were being subordinated to civic con-cerns.26

Visual imagery played a significant role in this redefinition, forif the circle of disclosures – from knight to duke to duchess tochatelaine – organizes the tale, it is instead the plotting of theduchess that is highlighted in the frescoes. Indeed, the Italiansource used in the decoration places particular emphasis on the


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24 F. ANTAL, Florentine Painting and Its Social Background; the Bourgeois Republicbefore Cosimo De’ Medici’s Advent to Power: XIV and Early XV Centuries, p. 116.

25 E. P. KOSTOROSKI, Quest and Query in the «Chastelaine de Vergi», p. 182.26 N. ELIAS, The Civilizing Process. The History of Manners, State Formation and

Civilization.


pernicious character of the duchess. This is brought forward by thepainter, although not through recourse to physiognomy; instead,her predatory and vindictive nature are highlighted by her gaze andthe spaces that frame her actions. In contrast to reading or hearingthe story, the pictorial imagery would have implicated the body ofthe viewer more insistently. These are not the small scale figures ofdomestic painted furniture; instead the gestures, gazes, costumes,and gender of the characters in the frescoes would have encour-aged viewers to compare themselves and their actions more direct-ly with those in the representations.

The frescoes begin by introducing the duke, and next the chate-laine and the knight. Their secret affair, «chiuso e cielato», is pre-served by her lap dog, who serves as messenger and sentinel.27

These conditions are described in several verses but condensed intoone scene in the paintings; gesturing with her arm, the chatelainedirects the knight toward her Palazzo, a fortified tower, which isguarded by the dog who sits on the parapet in the foreground.

The duchess appears in verse XIV, and here the pictorialimagery lingers on the details of her desire for the knight (fig. 3).Admiring him from the balcony of her fortress, the duchess gazeswith a directness that was becoming routinely admonished by writ-ers on female comportment. The surprise of the knight, and eventhe horse, who seems to shy away from the duchess, underscoresher ravenous look, a rhetorical effect that is exploited by the painterin subsequent scenes.

Unfazed by the failure of the knight to respond to her amorouswords, the duchess capitalizes on the absence of her husband tolure Guglielmo to her bedroom for a game of chess and a chat:«fecie venire gli schacchi e llo schacchiere».28 The duchess extendsher arm toward the castle, repeating the gesture used earlier by thechatelaine. Emulating the rhythmic effect of the verses, the painteryokes the scenes together in which the women direct the knighttoward their bedrooms.

The optical organization of the scenes is clearly strategic here.

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27 La Dama del Vergiù, VII, v. 50.28 «e·lla duchessa sanza ingniun sospetto / prese messer Ghuglielmo per lo brazzo

/ e menosselo in chamera al lato al letto, / ragionandosi insieme chon sollazzo,/ e pergiuchare la donna e ’l chavaliere / fecie venire gli schacchi e ·llo schacchiere» La Damadel Vergiù, XVII, vv. 131-136.


In contrast to the naturalistic space of the loggia, the bed is rakedtoward the viewer at a sharp angle that also draws attention to thechess board at the right (fig. 4). The painter thereby insists that weread both sexuality and chess as parallel and dangerous games.Trapped between the bed on one side, and the game of chess heis playing on the other, the knight ponders his next move with con-centration while the duchess maintains her unrelenting gaze. Theuse, once again, of a castellated structure for the bedroom suggeststhat this architectural vocabulary should be understood in relationto female desire.

Intriguingly chess does not appear in the French text, but it wascertainly ubiquitous in visual imagery. The game was associatedwith courtly ideals of martial and romantic prowess and used toconvey sexual tension. For example, seduction is explicit in anivory relief on a mirror case of c. 1300 that may illustrate a passagefrom Tristan and Isolde (fig. 5).29 Parted drapes frame a game ofchess, provocatively emulating the folds of the woman’s garmentsbelow her waist while her opponent supports an erect shaft.30

There is evidence that Florentines associated checkmate withadultery and illicit sexual relations as a poem by Pucci on domes-tic slaves suggests:

Le schiave hanno vantaggio in ciascun attoe sopra tutte l’altre buon partito,che s’alcuna dell’altre vuol maritogliel conviene comprar secondo ’l patto.

La schiava comperata è innanzi tratto;non ha per matrimonio anello in dito,ma ella appaga me’ suo appetitoche la sua donna, a cui dà scacco matto.31


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29 Tristan and Isolde Playing Chess, ivory mirror case, c. 1325-1350, France, Paris,10.2 cm, Cleveland Museum of Art.

30 M. CAMILLE, The Medieval Art of Love: Objects and Subjects of Desire.31 The sonnet concludes: «Ver è ch’in casa dura più fatica, / com’è mestier da sera

e da mattina / ma di vantaggio sua bocca nutrica. /E se talvolta fa danno in cucina, /quasi non par ch’a lei si disdica / come farebbe a una fiorentina». I. ORIGO cites Puccibut not the source in The Domestic Enemy: The Eastern Slaves in Tuscany in theFourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries, pp. 363-364, fn. 107. My thanks to Juliann Vitullofor this reference.


Checkmate was rare in the battleground of medieval chess, sincethe Queen was not yet the powerful ally of the King, but Pucci usesthe metaphor as shorthand for seduction. Pucci, the sculptor of theivory relief, the author of La Dama del Vergiù, and the frescopainter all use chess because the sexual contest is situated withinthe political and social order of the game. In La Dama del Vergiùchess is more than a sign for illicit sexuality; the game also func-tions, by metonymy, as a symbol of the tale as a whole. The plot-ting of the players and their responses to each other lead to theundoing of the duke.

Following the attempted seduction at chess, the duchess kissesthe knight who responds with distress, according to the artist, whoillustrates the scene with comic and dramatic flare; the knight’s flail-ing arms indicate that he is trying to escape her unexpectedembrace.32 Even if the roles are inverted, the scene may haveencouraged an erotic reading; since the kiss is depicted adjacent tothe game of chess and the prominent bed, the embrace could havereminded the couple of their conjugal duties.33 Considered in rela-tion to the text, however, the gesticulating knight both calls atten-tion to, and also ridicules, the duchess’s desire.

The focus here on adultery is worth underlining. Extra-maritalliaisons may have been acceptable in the culture of courtly love inthe twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Sexual appetite and secrecywere preoccupations to which the author of La châtelaine wasresponding.34 At the end of the fourteenth century in Italy, how-ever, sexuality in general, and female sexuality in particular, werecoming under scrutiny. Corruption and disorder had long beenassociated with female concupiscence, but this was brought intosharper focus through urbanization and efforts to define new polit-ical institutions. Female chastity and city spaces were becomingintertwined as linked social, architectural, and representational

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32 «E abracciandolo gli bació la ghola, / poi gli baciò ben ciento volte il viso, /prima che ’l suo dal suo fusse diviso». La Dama del Vergiù, XVIII, 142-144.

33 On instructive imagery for a bride see L. ZIRPOLO, Botticelli’s Primavera: a Lessonfor the Bride.

34 T. HUNT, The Art of Concealment: «La Châtelaine de Vergi».35 M. ROCKE, Gender and Sexual Culture in Renaissance Italy. On the Venetian con-

text see G. RUGGIERO, The Boundaries of Eros: Sex Crime and Sexuality in RenaissanceVenice.


concerns.35 This is a complicated story, connected in part to thethreat of increasing numbers of women, typically poor, who hadmigrated into cities.36 Violence toward women grew with gangrape against anomalous women, unprotected by family or a patron,almost a rite of initiation for young men.37 Female sexuality wascontained in the house, where it could be controlled by fathers andhusbands, or in brothels, which were becoming institutionalized inthe late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Illicit sexuality, includ-ing adultery, was becoming policed by the state.38

In this context, the duchess’s lechery must have appeared notonly unseemly, but also threatening. This interpretation of theimagery would have been ensured by knowledge of the text.Scorned by the knight, she calls him a «Malvagio traditore» who hasdishonored her:

Per cierto io vi farò torre la vitae farovvi morir chon gran dolore,e a destrieri persona mai non montase vendetta non fo di chotale onta!

Surprised by the crazed fury of the duchess, since the knight wasoblivious to her longing, he leaves the duchess who remains in thebedroom to plot his demise.39 When the duke returns, his wife,«fradulente, per dare alla malitia più cholore», claims that it was theknight, who assaulted her – «villano amore» –, an offense that


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36 See D. ROMANO, Gender and the Urban Geography of Renaissance Venice; C.LANSING, Gender and Civic Authority: Sexual Control in a Medieval Italian Town, p. 37.

37 J. K. BRACKETT, Rape, in Encyclopedia of the Renaissance, edited by P. Grendler,vol. 5, p. 214.

38 J. BRUNDAGE, Law, Sex and Christian Society in Medieval Europe, p. 319. On statepolicing of fornication and adultery, p. 482; C. LANSING, Gender and Civic Authority, p.57, fn. 83; G. A. BRUCKER discusses jurisdictional issues and adultery in Giovanni andLusanna: Love and Marriage in Renaissance Florence.

39 «E·lla duchessa si tenne schornata /e disse a·llui: Malvagio traditore, / dunquem’avete vuoi d’amor tradita, / fattomi chosi gran disonore? / Per cierto io vi farò torrela vita / e farovvi morir[e] chon gran dolore, / e a destrieri persona mai non monta / sevendetta non fo di chotale onta! / Partissi il chavalier doglioso e bramo, / veggiendo laduchessa piena d’ira, / e quasi di pazzia menava ramo». La Dama del Vergiù, oct. XXI-XXII, vv. 161-171.

40 Ibid., oct. XXVII, vv. 209-214; «La duchessa rispuose chon superbia / e disse: Fateciò·cche vi diletta / L’offesa e·mmia et pure a vuoi si serba,/ di chi m’oltraggia di farnevendetta», oct. XXX, vv. 233-236.


requires a vendetta.40

Significantly, the word vendetta is repeated four times in theItalian text. Vendetta was associated with the magnates who hadbeen excluded from political power in Florence a century before thefrescoes were painted. Although vendetta was still state-sanctionedduring the Trecento, government efforts to police factional violencewere intensifying. Instead of defending family honor, however, in Ladama del vergiù the vendetta is inverted; it is the duchess whosefraudulent calls for revenge lead to the tragic ending of the tale. Ihave already suggested that the female protagonists are deliberatelyharnessed to the castellated architecture, but it is also important torecall that fortifications and towers were associated with the archi-tecture of the magnates in the contado and the consorterie in thecity. Viewers were therefore encouraged to consider female sexual-ity and honor in the context of the old social order and the vendet-ta. But it is neither sexuality nor the vendetta per se that are dis-avowed, since the chatelaine’s honor, represented by the secret, setsthe duchess’s unruly behavior into relief. Identified with the miscar-riage of factional violence, broader civic political tensions could bedeflected onto adulterous female behavior.

Street life in late fourteenth-century Florence was a culture ofhonor, and chivalry was a model for the assertion of masculinity inpublic places. Chivalry was the frame for gender relations, accord-ing to Richard Kaeuper, with «the literature of criticism and reform,love and gender relations on one side, [and] prowess on the other».41

Family was the corporate unit, and «the family was the casa», but therelation between vendetta and kinship had to be performed in pub-lic spaces.42 Connections between vendetta and female sexualitywere also being made by preachers. For example, in the late thir-teenth century, Latino Malabranca, a Dominican friar, was amongthose who urged the institution of veils and limits on trains forwomen in order to mitigate factional violence. Constraint, as CarolLansing has shown, was becoming aligned with «the creation of justorder and authority».43 Central here is the metaphor, established by

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41 R. KAEUPER, Chivalry and Violence in Medieval Europe, p. 210.42 T. KUEHN, Law, Family, and Women, pp. 140, 150. 43 C. LANSING, Gender and Civic Authority, p. 33.44 Ibid., p. 35.


political influence of the friars, of «political disorder in terms of sin».44

Dante adopted similar terms, bracketing women together withwasteful expenditures, fraud, lust and violence. Adultery cases in thethirteenth century cited men competing for women and thus womenas sources of disorder. It is not surprising then, that these are con-cerns that emerge in the Davizzi frescoes. Instead of family honor,in the social order of neofeudalism it is unrequited and uncontrolledfemale desire that is deemed to be the cause of violence.

Exile is another theme in the tale that would have resonatedwith Florentines. The proverbial punishment worse than death,exile was thematized in the Commedia. According to RicardoQuinones, Dante introduces exile in cantos V and VI of Inferno inorder to establish a foundation myth for Florence, one that finds itsorigins in the historical and political nature of civic social order. Thefocus on love, with its courtly associations, is translated by Danteinto the municipal arena through the concept of exile, a conceptthat is both tragic and archetypal because it associated Florencewith ancient cities.45 Exile was both a threat to and also the condi-tions for civic life, a context that would have disposed viewers toread Guglielmo’s predicament in La Dama del Vergiù in Florentineterms. Forced into exile by the lies of the duchess, the knightreturns to the court, restoring the bonds of loyalty and friendshipbetween himself and the duke, bonds that may be furthered bytheir assonant names, Guernieri and Guglielmo. Here, the architec-ture used by the painter does double duty. The knight’s exile, thedisclosure of his lover’s identity, and his return to favor with theduke, are condensed into a few bays in the frescoes. In thesescenes, the exchanges between the actors take place in a sylvan set-ting and therefore stand apart from those connected to the castel-lated architecture of the court. By placing the knight outside of thecourt, the painter signifies the absence of community wrought byexile. Male homosociality – loyalty, trust, and friendship – is theother side of the story however, for this too is performed out ofdoors and framed by the arcades of the classical loggia.

With the knowledge that his wife had lied, the duke returns to


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45 R. J. QUINONES, Foundation Sacrifice and Florentine History: Dante’s Anti-Myth,«Lectura Dantis», 4, Spring 1989, http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Italian_Studies/LD/numbers/04/quinones.html.


his bedroom, stating only that he knows the knight has a lover. Thejealous duchess asks for her name, but he refuses since he is swornto secrecy. Turning away from her husband in bed, and accusinghim of not trusting her to be discrete, she eventually compels herhusband to give up the secret. Such an intimate negotiation couldbe confusing in visual form, and thus the artist depicts the dukereaching for the duchess who has fled the marital bed, eliciting thesecret through sexual blackmail (fig. 2, right). Once again, the artistfocuses attention on the bed and the now familiar crenellations ofthe architecture.

The combination of loggia and fortified architecture bringstogether two ideals conveyed in the family palazzo. On one side thecrenellations and the associations with women and feudalism standin for family honor and female sexuality. On the other side, at theend of the fourteenth century urban space was undergoing pro-found changes. The family fortress-like structures of the consorteriethat characterized the medieval city were evolving into buildingsthat used a new architectural vocabulary. Instead of the tower it wasthe façade that became important as a divider between the streetsand interior space, with its new courtyard. The stylistic evolutionbecame a way of signifying adherence to civic values. As RichardGoldthwaite has suggested, this new style reflected the belief thatbeauty and high quality work will restrain violence.46 The combi-nation of architectural vocabularies in the frescoes expresses someof the tensions of this redefinition of urban space and the conflictwith neofeudal values.

These changes, significantly, were concomitant with attempts toexclude women from public spaces. In her study of fourteenth-cen-tury Orvieto, Lansing shows how the government denied womenaccess to the town hall and the stairs outside it. Women were notprohibited from the hall, but the legislation points to the goal «todefine the sites of public administration as an exclusively masculineplace».47 Similar laws were effected in Florence. Benches were con-structed not only in the Loggia dei Lanzi, but also on the west wallof the piazza across from the Ringhiera.48 The stone wall, with a

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46 R. A. GOLDTHWAITE, Wealth and Demand for Art in Italy, p. 220.47 C. LANSING, Gender and Civic Authority, p. 40.48 Y. ELAT, Seats of Power: The Outdoor Benches of Early Modern Florence, p. 446.


roof, the Tetto dei Pisani, was designed to present a unified façade,and benches must have been constructed there by 1393. Here toothere were prohibitions against women sitting on the benches. Acentury later, women were banned from appearing in public duringfestive occasions by Savonarola who «ordered that no womanshould stand upon the stone seats along the walls, but that theywould stay inside their houses with the door open, if they wished».The commentator continues, «not a single woman was seen stand-ing on the stone seats or elsewhere. Such devotion was shown asperhaps will never happen again».49 During the fourteenth century,the government wrestled with the need for both security and open-ness, as the projects of the Palazzo della Signoria, the Ringhiera, theLoggia dei Lanzi and the construction of benches illustrate;50 notsurprisingly perhaps, the representation of civic harmony througharchitecture was accompanied by limiting access of women to thepiazza.

Efforts by the state to control the public appearance of womenwere aligned with morality more broadly drawn. Sodomy laws, forexample, were conjoined with sumptuary legislation.51 Warfare andhemlines were closely linked, and violence ascribed to terms ofsexual difference. «The creation of just order and authority», to useLansing’s words, «required the constraint of sensual appetite».52 Thiswas precisely the issue being played out in the Italian tale.Confronted by the corpses of the two lovers, the duke pronounceshis wife a «malvagia meritrice».53 To revenge the deaths, he carriesout the vendetta, executing his wife and restoring moral authority.

I have been stressing a wide range of ideas that may have con-tributed to the reception of the painted decorations by contempo-raries. I have suggested ways in which the frescoes would haveelicited social exchanges between family members and associates asthey considered the paintings in relation to the tale and the social


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49 C. LANSING, Gender and Civic Authority, p. 33. 50 Y. ELAT, Seats of Power, pp. 445-450.51 On morality see G. RUGGIERO, Marriage, Love, Sex, and Renaissance Civic

Morality. On sodomy and morality see M. ROCKE, Forbidden Friendships: Homosexualityand Male Culture in Renaissance Florence.

52 L. LANDUCCI, A Florentine Diary from 1450-1516, p. 75.53 The codex with the additional octet is in the Bigazzi fondo at the Riccardiana, n.

213. It was first noted by Giambattista Passano, in his edition of I novellieri italiani inverso, p. 269. La Dama del Vergiù, v. 518.


and moral ideals it prompted. The frescoes stage a number ofdilemmas, especially an unsolvable conflict of loyalties, the kinds ofties that bound families together. The painter also thematizes desirethrough vision, the threat of female sexuality, and the need to con-tain it. Significantly, it was the men who could not keep a secret buttheir indiscretion is deflected onto the uncontrollable desire of theduchess.

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Figura 1


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Figura 2



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Figura 3

Figura 4


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Figura 5


LA DAMA DEL VERGIÙ: SECRECY, VENDETTA AND SEXUAL BLACKMAIL IN A LATE MEDIEVAL BEDROOM

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