Women in the (Early Modern) News

Starting around the mid sixteenth century, European courts could not get enough newsletters to feed their hunger for information. Italy could be considered the historical news market par excellence: in important news hubs such as Rome, handwritten newsletters - called avvisi - were produced and disseminated throughout Europe and the known world. Within this context of media frenzy, this paper will explore the depiction of women in the news, and particularly the interplay between class and gender in news reporting. The (mostly unpublished) sources presented will be mainly avvisi held at the Archivio di Stato di Firenze and the Biblioteca Vaticana.

Carlotta is Lecturer in Early Modern Italian Studies in the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures at Royal Holloway. Before joining Royal Holloway, she was the Assistant Director of the Medici Archive Project, and Senior Researcher in the UK program ‘Towards a National Collection’. She has held research fellowships at University College Cork, the Bibliotheca Hertziana-Max Planck Institute for Art History, and at the Institute of Languages, Cultures and Societies.

All welcome- this seminar is free to attend, but booking is required.