Public behavior, music and the construction of feminine identity in the Italian Renaissance

PDF Torrossa

How did the musical practices associated with women contribute to build feminine identity, an identity which was, however, entirely designed by men? Although the pedagogical treatises of Italian humanism allow women access to knowledge, yet the use of knowledge in relation to women is subject to strict restrictions, since every public act, on the part of a woman, is potentially dissolute. Thus, even though the inclusion of music among the intellectual abilities of the cultivated man is viewed favourably by humanistic pedagogy on the whole, since music is viewed as a moment of recta delectatio that can be exercised in idleness, yet the very nature of this delectatio is subject to antithetical evaluation, if it is a woman who plays music in a public space. In this perspective, love can either be limited to the fulfilment of sexual desire, and get lost in this, or it can consist in the total desire of the beloved, thus leading to “the union of mind and body”. Contrary to what has often been argued, the concept of Platonic love does not exclude physical union, but subordinates it to a higher plan. It is this second type of affection of the soul, characterized by an essential heuristic function, which allows man, according to the Platonic definition, “to engender in beauty”. This phrase alludes to the creation of life, but also, in a metaphorical sense, to the creation of beautiful and good habits. Intrinsecally related to love, female musical performance produces an ideal materialization of male desire: the ‘performance of music’ becomes the ‘performance of love’, the second action deriving from the first. Music is precisely the favoured instrument for this transmission, used by feminine identity to construct an important aspect of her visibility. Quite paradoxically, by accepting her role as representing the object of desire, a woman promotes her subjectivity: by breaking her silence through music, she testifies to the ontological dimension of Eros, the true source of a seduction potentially independent of any ethical implication: she is the cultured voice of nature which cries out against the cultured voice of culture.