Edith Benkov
Transmitting Culture: Can You Take the Pisana out of Pizan?
Through this somewhat facetious title, I am attempting to emphasize that there is both an inherent and contradictory positioning of Christine as Italian, one to which she herself contributed.
Her self-comparison to Minerva, "an Italian woman" (like Christine"), who helped her compose the Livre des Fais d'armes reinforces Christine's "italianess."
Yet what is perhaps more interesting is interplay between Christine as
"Italian" and Christine as an embodiment of France in her Vision.
This paper would confront the textual with the biographical to explore how
Christine uses "Italianess" as a type of enabling device for her
writing (and her auctoritas) while at the same time declaring her "Frenchness."
This type of cultural hybridity not only creates a space in which female author
can be constructed but also prefigures contemporary notions of identity.