Writer and orator from Urbino, dedicatee of Leonardo Bruni’s De studiis et literis
Battista da Montefeltro Malatesta was the youngest daughter of Antonio da Montefeltro, count of Urbino, and Agnesina di Giovanni dei Prefetti di Vico. In 1405 she married Galeazzo Malatesta, lord of Pesaro from 1429 to 1431. She bore her husband a single daughter, Elisa-betta. After the death of her husband, Battista returned to Urbino. She died almost twenty years later at the Monastero di Santa Lucia di Foligno, having taken the name Girolama as a sister of the Franciscan Order of Saint Clare. Battista was the grandmother of Cecilia Gon-zaga and Costanza Varano, whose early education she oversaw, as well as the great-grandmother ofVittoria Colonna.
Battista’s father encouraged her early education such that, by the time of her marriage, she was already widely known as an exceptionally learned woman. Her literary production was later supported by her father-in-law, Malatesta di Pandolfo Malatesta, with whom she exchanged letters and poems after her husband’s assassination. Battista’s erudition, her ability to negotiate shrewdly but prudently, and her Latin and vernacular writings were praised by her contemporaries as well as by later Quattrocento humanists and biographers, including Guini-forte Barzizza, Vespasiano da Bisticci, and Jacobus Philippus Bergomensis. She was also the dedicatee of Leonardo Bruni’s letter, De studiis et literis, which was written in 1424 and detailed a program of humanist education for women, including the importance of good Latin, solid writing skills, and the need to explore the disciplines of religion, morals, history, and poetry.
Throughout her marriage, Battista exchanged numerous letters with her relatives in Urbino, including her sister, Anna, and sister-in-law, Paola Gonzaga. In 1418, she congratulated Martin V on his recent election as pope in a Latin oration, and in 1425 wrote requesting his aid on behalf of her sister-in-law, Clofe, whose husband was threatening to abandon her. In 1433, Battista delivered a Latin oration to the Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund in which she begged, on behalf of her family, for the return of Pesaro and, on behalf of her daughter, for the freedom of her son-in-law, Pier Gentile Varano da Camerino, who was unjustly languishing in prison. Several of Battista’s Latin letters and orations, sacred poems, and personal letters in the vernacular have been published, but more exist only in manuscript form at the Biblioteca Oliveriana, the Vatican, and the Chigi Libraries.
Amyrose Gill
See also Colonna, Vittoria; Education, Humanism, and Women; the subheading Letter Writing (under Literary Culture and Women);Varano, Costanza.
Bibliography
Fattori, A., and B. Feliciangeli. “Lettere inedite di Battista da Montefeltro.” Rendiconti della Reale Accademia dei Lincei, Classe di scienze morali, storiche efilologiche Ser. 5 26 (1917): 196—215.
Franceschini, Gino. “Battista Montefeltro Mala-testa, Signora di Pesaro.” In Figure del Rinasci-mento urbinate. Pages 159—193. Urbino: S. T.E. U., 1959. (Includes poems and letters.)
King, Margaret L., and Albert Rabil, Jr., eds. Her Immaculate Hand: Selected Works by and about the Women Humanists of Quattrocento Italy. Binghamton: State University of New York Press, 1983. (Includes the oration to Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund in translation.)
World History
