Internationally known during her lifetime, Laura Battiferra (1523-89)
was a gifted and prolific poet in Renaissance Florence. The author of
nearly 400 sonnets remarkable for their subtlety, intricate narrative
structure, and learned allusions, Battiferra, who was married to the
prominent sculptor and architect Bartolomeo Ammannati, traversed an
elite literary and artistic network, circulating her verse in a complex
and intellectually fecund exchange with some of the most illustrious
figures in Italian history. In this bilingual anthology, Victoria
Kirkham gathers Battiferra's most essential writing, including newly
discovered poems, which provide modern readers with a valuable social
chronicle of sixteenth-century Italy and the courtly culture of the
Counter-Reformation.