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Fonseca Pimentel Eleonora de
(1752—1799)

Fonseca Pimentel Eleonora de  (1752—1799)

Scholar, born in Rome, Latium, Italy. She wrote a number of moderately successful sonnets and dramas. An ardent Jacobin, she edited the periodical Monitore napoletano, dedicated to spreading democracy and republicanism, during the life of the Parthenopean Republic in 1799. She was sentenced to death when the Bourbons were restored to the throne.

Eleonora De Fonseca Pimentel was born in 1752 in Rome of Portuguese parents. Just a few years after her birth, the family moved to Naples. It is to the tumultuous history of this city that her own story is indissolubly tied. At the Bourbon court in Naples, De Fonseca Pimentel's prestigious position as the queen's librarian assured her livelihood and granted her access to the world of philosophers and intellectuals. She corresponded with Metastasio and Voltaire, among others, and wrote both official poems for the court which supported her, and poems of personal inspiration. Most striking, among the latter, are the five, very moving sonnets written after the death of her infant son, as well as the ode on her miscarriage, a thematically unique piece of poetry. During the first half of 1799, de Fonseca Pimentel founded, directed, and edited the first periodical of the Neapolitan Republic, Il Monitore Napoletano. This is the activity for which she is best known. But on August 20 of that same year, de Fonseca Pimentel was hung for her participation in the revolution of the Neapolitan people against the Bourbons. She was buried in a common grave.

After a detailed biography of this fascinating figure, perhaps a bit idealized as a fighter and an intellectual, and as a precursor to women's emancipation, Elena Urgnani's book presents all of de Fonseca Pimentel's known literary texts: sonnets (one of which written in Neapolitan dialect), an epithalamic poem, cantatas, an ode, and a religious oratorio, as well as essays, articles from Il Monitore Napoletano, and in a separate chapter, her letters. As Urgnani mentions more than once, it is probable that some or even many of de Fonseca Pimentel's works have been destroyed or lost (for example, none of her letters to Metastasio seems to have survived). Each of the texts included in these two middle chapters is preceded by a useful, highly informative introduction which places the piece in its often complicated historical and stylistic context. The reading of each work is also facilitated by linguistic, historical, and cultural notes.


Italy, 1999, Eleonora de Fonseca Pimentel

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