Family Name: Barbapiccola
First Name: Giuseppa Eleonora
Birth Date: 1699
Birth Place: Naples
Death Date: 1739
Death Place: Naples
Main places of activity:
Place From To
Naples 1699 1739
Personal info:
Education

There is not a great deal known about Barbapiccola and her life. Her family seems to have been originally from Salerno and it is likely that she was born circa 1700, either in Salerno or Naples. While there is little information about her parents, her uncle was the Dominican friar Tommaso Maria Alfani (1679-1742), a Dominican friar in Naples who founded the Accademia degli Inquieti in 1709. Alfani was also a correspondent of Giambattista Vico (1668-1744). Presumably, it was through the interests and connections of her uncle that Barbapiccola herself became associated with Vico, his intellectual circle, and the Neapolitan salons, in particular she developed a friendship with Luisa Vico, his learned eldest daughter.
Career

Barbapiccola was a member of the Accademia degli Arcadi, taking the name 'Mirista Acmena', from the Greek meaning 'full of fragrance'. The foremost Italian literary academy at the time, the Accademia degli Arcadi was founded in 1690 under the patronage of Christina, the ex-Queen of Sweden; incidentally, Christina is one of the key examples and inspirations for women's intellect and education listed by Barbapiccola in her 1722 preface. Note that 'Mirista' is given on the 1722 title page.
Financial Situation

Little is known about the financial situation of Barbapiccola.
Translations

translations activities

As a translator, Barbapiccola is foremost associated with introducing Cartesian philosophy into the Italian vernacular via her translation of René Descartes' Principia Philosophiae (1644), published in 1722 under the title I Principi della filosofia di Renato Des-Cartes. Tradotti del francese con il confronto del latino in cui l'autore gli scrisse da Giuseppa-Eleonora Barbapiccola tra gli Arcadi Mirista. For this translation Barbapiccola relied primarily on the French edition of the work by Descartes, published in 1647, as opposed to the Latin original. As with other Neapolitan philosophical texts at the time, I Principi della filosofia was much more likely printed at a semi-clandestine press in Naples under a false imprimatur than one in Turin, contrary to the claims of the title page. The fact that the portrait of Barbapiccola for the work was by a Neapolitan engraver, Francesco De Grado, only adds to this likelihood (note that this image is the picture given within this dictionary entry).




secondary bibliography references

Capo, Luciana (2018). 'La filosofa salernitana Giuseppa Eleonora Barbapiccola, la figura della donna e il dibattito cartesiano del XVIII secolo', Salternum 40-41, pp. 99-108.

Findlen, Paula (1995). 'Translating the New Science: Women and the Circulation of Knowledge in Enlightenment Italy', Configurations 2, pp. 167-206.

Findlen, Paula (2005). 'Translator's Introduction' to 'Giuseppa Eleonora Barbapiccola', in The Contest for Knowledge: Debates over Women's Learning in Eighteenth-Century Italy, ed. Rebecca Messberger and Paula Findlen, Chicago, IL, and London: The University of Chicago Press, pp. 37-46.

Green, Karen (2014). A History of Women's Political Thought, 1700-1800, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; see Chapter 4, 'Enlightenment women in Italy', pp. 90-101.

Grillo, Enzo (1964). 'Giuseppa Eleonora Barbapiccola', in Dizionario biografico degli italiani, Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, VI, p. 39.

Harth, Erica (1994). Cartesian Women: Versions and Subversions of Rational Discourse in the Old Regime, Cornel University Press: Ithaca, NY.

Messberger, Rebecca (1997). 'Barbapiccola, Giuseppa Eleonora (Eighteenth Century)', in The Feminist Encyclopedia of Italian Literature, ed. Rinaldina Russell, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, pp. 27-29.

Ogilvie, Marilyn Bailey (1986). Women in Science: Antiquity through the Nineteenth Century, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, pp. 35-36.

Sanna, Manuela (1999). 'Un'amicizia alla luce del cartesianesimo: Giuseppa Eleonora Barbapiccola e Luisa Vico', in Donne, filosofia e cultura nel Seicento, ed. Pina Totaro, Rome: Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, pp. 173-178.

          On Barbapiccola's poetry

Gentile, Giovanni (1968). Studi vichiani, 3rd ed., Florence: Sansoni.

Vico, Giambattista (1940), Scritti vari e pagine sparse, ed. Fausto Nicolini, Bari: Laterza.

          Additional Material

Belgioioso, Giulia (2019). '“Italy Did Not Want to Be Cartesian”: And For Good Reason', in The Oxford Handbook of Descartes and Cartesianism, ed. Steven Nadler, Tad M. Schmaltz, and Delphine Antoine-Mahut, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 514-530.

Cirillo, Antonio (2000). Napoli ai tempi di Giambattista Vico, Naples: Edizioni Tempo Lungo.

Comparato, Vittor Ivo (1970). Giuseppe Valletta: Un intellettuale napoletano della fine del Seicento, Naples: Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Storici.

Ferrone, Vincenzo (1995). The Intellectual Roots of the Italian Enlightenment: Newtonian Science, Religion, and Politics in the Early Eighteenth Century, trans. Sue Brotherton, Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press.

Findlen, Paula, Wendy Wassyng Roworth, and Catherine M. Sama (eds) (2009). Italy's Eighteenth Century: Gender and Culture in the Age of the Grand Tour, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Galasso, Giuseppe (1989). La filosofia in soccorso de' governi: La cultura napoletana del Settecento, Naples: Guida.

Guerci, Luciano (1987). La discussione sulla donna nell'Italia del Settecento, Turin: Tirrenia.

Israel, Jonathan (2001). Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity, 1650-1750, Oxford: Oxford University Press; see, pp. 55, 93-94.

Messberger, Rebecca (2002). The Century of Women: Representations of Women in Eighteenth-Century Italian Public Discourse, Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Stone, Samuel Harold (1997). Vico's Cultural History: The Production and Transmission of Ideas in Naples, 1685-1750, Leiden: E. G. Brill.

Vichi, Anna Maria Giorgetti (1977). Gli Arcadi dal 1690 al 1800. Onomasticon, Rome: Arcadia, Accademia Letteraria Italiana.


Translations

  • Les Principes de la philosophie, escripts en latin par René Descartes, et traduits en françois par un de ses amis [l'abbé Picot]

  • Translation Title: I Principi della filosofia di Renato Des-Cartes. Tradotti dal francese con il confronto del latino in cui l'autore gli scrisse da Giuseppa-Eleonora Barbapiccola tra gli Arcadi Mirista
  • Original Author: René Descartes
  • Original title: Les Principes de la philosophie, escripts en latin par René Descartes, et traduits en françois par un de ses amis [l'abbé Picot]
  • Publ. Year From: 1646 to: 1646
  • lang: French
  • Translation: I Principi della filosofia di Renato Des-Cartes. Tradotti dal francese con il confronto del latino in cui l'autore gli scrisse da Giuseppa-Eleonora Barbapiccola tra gli Arcadi Mirista
  • Pub. Place: 'Turin' [Naples]
  • Pub. Date: 1721
  • Lang: Italian
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By:

  • Thomas Ashby