Arcangela Tarabotti
Tarabotti wrote texts and corresponded with cultural and political figures for most of her adult life, centering on the issues of forced enclosure, and what she saw as other symptoms and systems of patriarchy and misogyny in her works and discussions.
Her argumentation remains thoroughly grounded in biblical evidence, highlighting the prominence of female disciples in Jesus Christ's following given the patriarchal context of first-century Judaism, and consequently arguing that women should have a more significant role in the contemporary church and world.
Some historians argue that Tarabotti's published Letters reveal a "wide-ranging and powerful set of correspondents that included leading cultural and political figures from throughout Northern Italy and into France.
[13] Possibly after Tarabotti's Letters was published, she began a correspondence with Ismaël Bullialdus, a prominent astronomer and mathematician, whom she had met when he was in Venice visiting the French Ambassador and his wife in 1645-1646.
Her letters situate Tarabotti in a scholarly community of writers, scientists, and other important political and cultural figures, wherein her presence as a woman was unique and hard won.
[18] Indeed, especially in the case of Paternal Tyranny—the text that many historians say was her most prized and maybe most politically subversive work—Letters reveals an ongoing, highly strategic, and often disappointing if impressive saga of requests for patronage and editorial help.
The correspondence also strengthens our view of Ismaël Bullialdus, who was an avid defender of Galileo and an advocate for scientific truths, but also displays social activism in helping Tarabotti to publish her works which would disseminate word of injustice involving the paternal system which lead to her forced indoctrination into the church.
Lynn Lara Westwater, a historian who has researched and written much on Tarabotti’s life and works calls Paternal Tyranny "scathing and deeply subversive.
From "With Truthful Tongue and Faithful Pen": Arcangela Tarabotti Against Paternal Tyranny" by Elissa B. WeaverShe did not spare fathers, nor the Venetian state that quietly supported the practice in order to limit the size of the aristocracy, nor the Church, which officially condemned it, but remained silently complicit, unwilling to uphold its principles and defend the exercise of free will.
[24] In Paternal Tyranny, Tarabotti critiques misogynistic narratives in popular European writings, supporting her pro-women messages with texts such as the Bible, Dante’s Divine Comedy, and the works of other Venetian women writers like Lucrezia Marinella.
[26] In recent years, many studies and critical works have been published on Tarabotti whose authors have consisted of Elissa Weaver, Lynn Westwater and Meredith Ray, and Letizia Panizza.
