Lyric Poetry in Venice in the Heterodox Renaissance (1545-1657)

forthcoming

LyrPo will be the first comprehensive study of the impact of Protestant ideas on lyric poetry produced in Catholic Venice in the Tridentine and Post-Tridentine era. It will explore a significant aspect of the complex relationships between Catholics and Protestants of the time, during a period of censorship and mutual religious condemnation, by analysing an extensive corpus of lyric poems written in both Italian and Latin by a diverse array of women and men authors. The project will focus on an examination of those Venetian lyric texts that dealt with religion, morality, and politics, while variously expressing heterodox thoughts, which tended not to be overtly heretical (to avoid censorship), yet were subtly influenced by Reformation-inspired ideas. Protestantism was, indeed, present in Venice in the considered period. From the rise of the Reformation, the Republic of Venice was one of the Catholic states more open to Protestantism. It was also one which remained partially out of step with Counter-Reformation regulations up to the mid-seventeenth century, hence it remained somewhat more receptive to Protestant ideas for longer. Within this context, Reformation-inspired ideas informed and were reflected in literary works too, including lyric poems, which expressed heterodox thoughts in a wide gamut of ways. Studying what Protestant ideas were received, in which lyric texts, in what language, and by which authors is at the core of my research, which will combine and be built on the methodologies central to Literary, Gender and Reception Studies, and History of Religion and Ideas. In so doing, LyrPo will help to further our understanding of Renaissance literature, as well as the histories of lyric poetry, early-modern European culture, and the Christian Churches. Furthermore, it will challenge the commonly held assumption that the Post-Tridentine era was a homogeneous period during which dialogue between Catholics and Protestants was inhibited.