Conversaciones sobre el género en el Cinquecento italiano: contrastes y afinidades entre Baldassarre Castiglione y Giulia Bigolina

This paper focuses on the different philogyny approaches that Baldassarre Castiglione and Giulia Bigolina displayed in the Italian Cinquecento intellectual space. First, I cast light on the strengths and weaknesses that the conversations of both sexes in the book III of The Courtier by Castiglione mean for fostering women’s emancipation. Second, I address the novel Urania by Giulia Bigolina, the first novel written by a woman in Italian literature, which takes issue with the mainstream paradigm of philogyny in 16^th century, insofar as put a courageous woman in the centre of the plot and showcases how she is able to endeavour the actions required to retrieve her lost lover. I especially spotlight the doctrinal lesson ensuing from Urania’s adventures about the true and the false love, being the second one generally related to the use of images and thus to an iconological seduction that lacks of the power of real actions. Finally, I draw some conclusions about the disparate methods to claim the virtues of women that Castiglione and Bigolina draw on.