intertextuality

Thе article observes the need to recollect traces from different sources in order to weave the image of the woman from the Middle Ages. Given the scarcity of recourses from the times when women were explicitly denied voice – both in personal and artistic sense – a research should rely more on intertextual connections between dialoguing texts, rather than on focused and in-depth analysis of a certain corpus. The article illustrates this statement by providing two concentric examples: firstly, by looking into the identity of the first Italian female poet Compiuta Donzella, and secondly, by attempting to trace the origins of Gostanza which is mentioned in one of the sonnets addressed to Compiuta Donzella herself.