Includes bibliographical references and index.

"This study considers the way in which a poetic convention, the beloved to whom Renaissance amatory poetry was addessed, becomes influential political rhetoric, an instrument that both men and women used to shape and justify their claims to power. The author argues that Petrarchan poetic conventions were part of a social discourse that signaled anxiety concerning the rising place of women as intellectual interlocators, public figures, and patrons of the arts."-- Provided by publisher.

Print version record.

Women of stone : gender and politics in the Petrarchan world -- In Laura's shadow : gendered dialogues and humanist Petrarchism in the fifteenth century -- Laura speaks : sisterhood, amicitia, and marital love in the female Latin Petrarchist writings of the fifteenth century -- Theorizing gender : nation building and female mythology in Ciceronian quarrel -- Politicizing gender : Bembo's private and public Petrarchism.

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