Degree Name
MA (Master of Arts)
Program
History
Date of Award
5-2025
Committee Chair or Co-Chairs
Brian Maxson
Committee Members
Julie Fox-Horton, John Rankin
Abstract
Ducal literature of sixteenth-century Florence illuminates the performative nature of gender and sexuality, especially in regard to masculinity. The impetus of this study is Benvenuto Cellini’s autobiography, My Life. While contemporary historiographical studies examine Cellini’s work for its overt misogyny and violence, this work argues that the performative nature of gender, through interdisciplinarity and contextual analysis, offers a highly complex view of masculinity. Cellini’s autobiography directly relates to Giorgio Vasari’s The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects. Vasari’s accounts of Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni and Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, called Il Sodoma, emphasize the importance of fashioned identity and masculinity as a representation of honor. By analyzing these two works, the intersection of power, masculinity, and patronage presents a complex view of Ducal authority over the sociopolitical realm in the Florentine city-state.
Document Type
Thesis - unrestricted
Recommended Citation
Perkins, Matthew T., "Performative Masculinity in Ducal Literature in Florence (1520-1580)" (2025). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. Paper 4513. https://dc.etsu.edu/etd/4513
Copyright
Copyright by the authors.