From Eve to Eleanor of Toledo: Domenico Bruni’s Difese delle donne (1552)

Abstract

This essay analyses, in the context of the “question of women”, the only treatise written by Domenico Bruni, entitled Defences of Women, dedicated to Cosimo I’s Spanish consort, Eleanor of Toledo. This text not only allows us to trace the rhetoric and the typical arguments in the defence of female honour but it is also in dialogue with the legal tradition and with some heterodox perspectives that continued to be popular among literary defenders of women. The combination of these elements leads Bruni to construct a defence of women starting with the redemption of Eve and arriving at the exaltation of the “woman in government”, and the revelation of the patriarchal superstructure that governs society. Making use of textual analysis and a cultural-historical approach, this article proposes the re-actualisation of this text and its author, adding a male voice – one that remains only partially analysed – to the “question of women”, a voice that contributes to the discussion on several interpretative levels.