Fourth edition, octavo, printer's woodcut device to title page, bound in later half leather and patterened paper boards, 5 3/4 x 4 in.
Piccolomini's "comic dialogue, the Diaologo de la Bella Creanza de la Donne, argues that a young, neglected wife should take a lover. The Dialogo suggests several readings, some contradictory, originally aimed at different audiences for the work. Piccolomini's views on love and women, as expressed in the comic writings, are not internally consistent. They reflect political and social debates of the male-oriented society on the role of women, particularly the desirability of female autonomy, the value of constant love, and the role of intelligent women. Comic works are usually conservative since they mirror contemporary society and propose only incremental change of the society at large. Yet, Piccolomini raised the idea of female individuality and the possibility that women may construct their own identities, even if that identity remained in a domestic sphere." (Quoted from Ann Lizbeth Langston's dissertation, Gender and the Comic in the Works of Alessandro Piccolomini, University of California, Riverside, 1998.)
