Description
Book SynopsisThe Roman singer, courtesan, and writer Margherita Costa won prominence and fame across the courts of Italy and France during the mid-seventeenth century. She secured a steady stream of elite patrons including popes, queens, grand dukes, and influential cardinals while male poets and librettists wrote celebratory poetry on her behalf. In addition to her appearances as a soprano on the opera stage, Costa published a remarkable fourteen full-length texts across an expanse of genres: burlesque comedy, drama, equestrian ballet, pastoral opera, amorous letters, lyric poetry, and history.
Margherita Costa, Diva of the Baroque Court brings together close textual readings of Costa’s numerous publications with archival materials detailing her performance itinerary and social-cultural networks. The book progresses chronologically through her life, geographically along the routes she travelled, and thematically via the genres in which she experimented. Jessica Goethals i
Table of Contents
Introduction 1. Editing History 2. Bizzarria, Burlesque, and Buffoonery 3. From the Golden Oak to the Weeping Cypress: Epic, Lament, and Dynastic Messaging 4. Starry Carousels: Equestrian Ballet and Aristocratic Astronomies 5. The Singing Saint and the Plumed Bee: Courting the Barberini 6. Hunting for Diana, or An Ode to Regents 7. “A Change of Sky Does Me No Good”: Envy, Rivalry, and Other Courtly Criticisms Bibliography Index
