The catalogue of women in sixteenth-century Naples: a contribution by Benedetto Croce

Abstract

In Neapolitan literature there are many literary works whose focus are the praises of women of Naples, this genre vitalizes in contact with the aristocratic society of the Viceroyalty. Benedetto Croce, assisted by Giuseppe Ceci, has been involved in the early series of rhymes, poems, chapters and epigrams focused on the women’s catalog, aware of their contribution to the history of costume and literature in Naples in the 16th century. In Lodi di dame napoletane del secolo decimosesto are analyzed those works that the Neapolitan and Spanish nobility would like to read because they saw in them, and in the refined language in Petrarchan style, in which they were written, a mirror of their elegant behavior.