Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia (1646–1684)
The First Woman in the World to Earn a University Degree
Excursions in Hopkins
The Martin D’Arcy Lectures Delivered at Oxford University in 1988–89
Elena Lucrezia cornaro Piscopia (1646–1684)
The First Woman in the World to Earn a University Degree
Francesco Ludovico Maschietto
Translated by Jan Vairo, William Crochetiere, and Catherine Marshall
Even in 17th–century Italy, news spread quickly. On June 25, 1678, an enormous crowd that included nobles, knights, city officials, ladies, scholarly men, the diocesan vicar general, and the entire College of Philosophers and Physicians gathered at the University of Padua to witness Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia stand for her oral doctoral examination—the first time in history that a woman had been accorded this privilege! So great was the crowd that the examination had to be moved from the University’s College to the cathedral.
The bishop’s refusal to allow Elena to stand for a degree in theology no doubt increased interest in the grudgingly approved examination in philosophy. Elena’s eloquent discourse on two Aristotelian theses so impressed the examining committee that, despite her request for a secret ballot, they voted their approval viva voce to award the Teacher and Doctor of Philosophy degrees. She was the first woman so honored by a university.
Maschietto’s definitive biography of Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia was originally published in Italian on the occasion of the 300th anniversary of her landmark degree (Padua: Editrice Antenore, 1978). Now more than 25 years later, this meticulously researched biography is available for the first time in English translation.
After carefully tracing the lineage of Elena’s family, Maschietto tells the fascinating story of her rearing and education, as well as of the high drama of her standing for examination for a doctoral degree. Maschietto also offers a full assessment of Elena’s writings, spirituality, and posterity. This book is profusely illustrated with reproductions of paintings and engravings of many of the principal figures who populate Elena’s life–story.
Francesco Ludovico Maschietto, O.S.B. (1909-2000), was a monk of the Monastery of Santa Giustina in Padua, where he served as librarian for over twenty years. He was the author of numerous studies about the monks of Santa Giustina and various people associated with this historic Benedictine abbey. He is buried in the municipal cemetery of Padua, although plans are underway to transfer his remains to the Cornaro Chapel near the tomb of Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia.
Jan Vairo and William Crochetiere teach Italian at Duquesne University. Catherine Marshall is a retired Senior Editor at the University of Pittsburgh Press.
Fall 2006
Excursions in Hopkins
The Martin D’Arcy Lectures Delivered at Oxford University in 1988–89
Norman H. MacKenzie
This book was ready to go to press when Norman MacKenzie died on March 1, 2004. Growing out of the Martin D’Arcy Lectures that he delivered at Oxford in 1988-89, it combines his love of research into the contexts out of which Hopkins’s poems were written with his deep knowledge of the poems through the various stages of their composition. Despite devoting much of his life to Hopkins’s poems, they remained ever fresh to him, an enthusiasm that pervades his final ‘excursions’ into their territory.
CONTENTS
Chapter One: “Oxford Poet: from Balliol to St. Aloysius”
Chapter Two: “Worlds of Wanwood”: Environmental Concerns
Chapter Three: Infrequent Playgoer but Aspiring Playwright
Chapter Four: Two Early Heroines – Giulia and Castara
Chapter Five: Jesuit Drama: The Winding Path to “St. Winefred’s Well”
Chapter Six: The Triumphant “Wreck of the Deutschland”
Chapter Seven: Is There a Flaw in “The Wreck of the Deutschland”
“A great poem, like an intricate mountain range, has an amazing capacity to invite and yet defy full exploration. As we look at it now from this vantage point and now that, and as the altitude of the sun or the cloud-edges above us shift and the seasons cycle, so the range we think we know becomes new: we suddenly notice a side-valley or slope that is fresh to us.”
–N. H. MacKenzie, Excursions
Fall 2006
The Reader’s Guide to Gerard Manley Hopkins
Norman H. MacKenzie
A revised and updated version of the book will be published by Saint Joseph’s University Press in 2006. Originally published by Thames and Hudson in 1981, The Reader’s Guide to Gerard Manley Hopkins is designed as an introduction to Hopkins for students and provides insights into the poems for seasoned Hopkinsians.
- It contains:
• Some notes on Hopkins’s life and interests
• Interpretations of the poems, with greatest detail being given to the mature works
• A reference section with explanations of Hopkins’s poetic terms (sprung rhythm, outrides,overreaving etc), key ideas such as inscape and instress, and biographical notes on people important for his work such as Joannes Duns Scotus, Robert Bridges, Richard Watson Dixon, A. W. Mowbray Baillie - • An updated bibliography
Praise for the first edition of The Readers Guide to Gerard Manley Hopkins
“MacKenzie’s guide to the poetry of Hopkins represents the handbook art at its finest.’ …‘Never wasting a phrase, it consistently condenses to what is most important or most in need of reinterpretation or reevaluation…”
–Sewanee Review
Fall 2006