This rich and well-organized collection of scholarly essays entirely dedicated to the poetry of Gaspara Stampa (ca. 1523–54) represents an important step for studies on the Venetian poet and singer, on Renaissance women writers, and on Petrarchism. This book is a useful and important follow-up to the bilingual edition of Stampa's Rime, based on the 1554 edition, edited by Jane Tylus and published in 2010 in The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe series. The aim of the ten chapters of the volume under review is to offer an in-depth analysis of themes, language, and specific aspects of Stampa's poetry within and beyond the Petrarchist canon, in relation to Stampa's cultural context and network. Therefore, the volume offers a perspective that definitely overcomes the traditional critical tendency to prioritize Stampa's life and loves in the analysis of her poetic production. One of the aims of the book is to “reclaim Stampa's status as a poet and a major figure on the canon of Renaissance literature” (9), but it also reflects on the reasons why this status was not yet recognized, and on how Stampa was previously read and received.

The volume is divided into three thematic sections. The first part, “The Sublime,” investigates Stampa's relationship with the sublime and contemporary Neoplatonism. Jane Tylus analyzes the interconnections between Stampa and the Greek poet-musician Sappho. She considers Stampa's understanding of Sappho and her use of the sublime, as well as the way in which the reception of the just-rediscovered Sappho influenced the reception of Stampa's Rime. Unn Falkeid underlines that Stampa's sublime, which includes elements of realism, is closer to medieval Neoplatonism and Franciscan spirituality than to Ficinian Neoplatonism. Federico Schneider reflects on Stampa's concept of poetry based on love pains and pathos due to a “sublime cause,” in relation to Bembo's Petrarchism, underlining the importance given by Stampa to the ethical purpose of love pains in poetry and its aim to move the reader.

The following four chapters discuss “Real, Virtual, and Imagined Communities” in Stampa's Rime. Aileen A. Feng examines female rivalry and envy, and how female homosociality is represented. She argues that Stampa transformed female invidia into a positive and productive component in writing poetry, subverting its traditional negative attributes. Ann Rosalind Jones investigates how the theme of jealousy is represented in Stampa's poetry in relation to her lover, Collaltino di Collalto; Angela Capodivacca discusses the poetic exchange between Stampa and Hyppolita Mirtilla, demonstrating that it is fictional and that it has to be considered for its role in the economy of Stampa's Canzoniere, rather than as an actual example of female friendship. Through an exam of her network and the contemporary literati mentioned in her Rime, William J. Kennedy underlines the professionalism of Stampa as a poet, in opposition to her reception as an amateur, already encouraged in the princeps edition of her Rime, published posthumously. The chapters included in the last part, “Personae,” consider Stampa's self-representations. Ulrike Schneider examines the way in which Stampa plays with different identities and roles, arguing that this implied a reflection on the fictional status of poetry. Veronica Andreani analyzes the rhetorical strategies used by Stampa to construct a poetical self-portrait, showing the role played by her representations of mythical and literary figures of unhappy female lovers, and how she rewrote the concept of love itself. In the final chapter, Troy Tower reads the choice of Stampa's pseudonym, Anassilla, inspired by the Latin name of the river Piave, from an ecocritical perspective, emphasizing its interconnections with the environment, with her beloved, with her status as poet and lover, and with poetry.

All the chapters include close readings of different aspects of Stampa's Rime, giving a picture of the author and her writings that is certainly more complex and open to different levels of reading than it used to be. The book is, therefore, a stimulating read for scholars and students interested in Italian Renaissance literature and culture and in women writers.