Sotto controllo takes scholars of women’s studies and cultural history on a fascinating journey through the reading material aimed at the female public in early modern Italy. As the author stresses in the introduction, women were “held to be incapable of dealing with the knowledge taken from books and were exposed to the risk of erring, albeit more from ignorance than from malice” (11). Therefore, from 1520 to 1650, the Catholic Church implemented a complex strategy aimed at censoring books considered dangerous for women, and promoting morally edifying works.

Drawing on a vast scientific background on the subject (the author has previously published various articles) and exploiting a notable number of sources, the volume reveals the evolution of the relationship among women, books, and reading control. Moving on from an extremely repressive and retrospective censorial attitude put into practice by the Inquisition through the Index of Prohibited Books, the seventeenth century saw a different mentality develop, which first and foremost favored conditioning of the female conscience — women were still steadfastly considered the weaker vessel, who were therefore in need of surveillance and tutelage.

Sotto controllo is the fruit of a thorough investigative study in state archives (Rome, Florence, and Venice), carried out seriously by the author. A wide variety of different sources have been analyzed and compared, including letters, notary registers, wills, Inquisitorial judgements, and trial records. The author uses these sources to untangle an elaborate web of light and shadows, leaving room for doubt on the effective presence of the book as an object and on the means of its fruition.

The book is divided into three distinct sections, mirroring the author’s three main lines of investigation. The first section, “La vita dei libri” (“The Life of Books,” 23–93), highlights how women became literate, shedding light on the places where books were read and the times that women could devote to this pursuit in their daily lives. The author emphasizes the difficulty in researching the quantitative aspect of this field — possession of books is not necessarily a good indicator of reading ability — and rightfully deems it more opportune to analyze reading from a qualitative perspective, seeking to understand which books women actually read.

In the second section, “Letture sospette” (“Suspect reading,” 97–176), the most dense, in-depth, and richest in references to archival sources, the author analyzes the complex relationship between female readers and the papal Congregation with its list of banned books. Women were often accused of heresy or of possessing dangerous books, and for these crimes were put on trial, condemned, and thrown in prison. From court depositions we can understand that it was fairly common in Rome and Venice to meet women able to read, albeit in a rudimentary fashion.

The idea of formulating a repertoire of books to be included in a “women’s library” is also of interest, seeking additionally to discover which types of literature were most in demand, or which books could be found in the houses of the time, taking into account the social classes and the different degrees of literacy. The preference was undoubtedly for the immensely popular secular texts of the age — like, for example, abridged versions of Orlando furioso — and for easy-to-read religious texts such as the Officiolo of the Virgin and the catechisms.

In the final section, “Specchi di lettrici” (“Reflections of Women Readers,” 177–226), the image of women as ideal readers is traced, with particular emphasis on the type of books that were recommended by the Catholic Church, namely devotional works and those recounting the lives of the saints or biographies of Catholic queens, all examples of a profound faith and admirable virtue: “within this canon of permitted books, those of overtly regulatory type, such as treatises, dialogues, and educational morality tales, are prominent” (180).

The volume ends with a long and wide-ranging bibliography (227–87), helpfully subdivided into primary and secondary sources. The works consulted for the drafting of the book demonstrate the ability of the author to move with ease through the different historical and literary contexts, as well as her skillful mastery of research in various languages (Italian, English, French, and German).