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Distributed for Iter Press

Portraits of the Queen Mother

Polemics, Panegyrics, Letters

Edited and Translated by Leah L. Chang and Katherine Kong

Distributed for Iter Press

Portraits of the Queen Mother

Polemics, Panegyrics, Letters

Edited and Translated by Leah L. Chang and Katherine Kong
Catherine de Médicis was portrayed in her day as foreign usurper, loving queen and queen mother, patron of the arts, and Machiavellian murderer of Protestants. Leah L. Chang and Katherine Kong assemble a diverse array of scathing polemic and lofty praise, diplomatic reports, and Catherine’s own letters, which together show how one extraordinary woman’s rule intersected with early modern conceptions of gender, maternity, and power.

283 pages | 6 x 9 | © 2014

The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe: The Toronto Series

Literature and Literary Criticism: General Criticism and Critical Theory


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Table of Contents

Acknowledgments xi
Introduction 1
Letters of Catherine de Médicis, Selections 63
Relazioni of the Venetian Ambassadors on the Affairs of France in the Sixteenth Century, Selections 111
Marvelous Discourse on the Life, Actions, and Deportment of Catherine de Médicis, Queen Mother (1576), Selections 141
Pierre de Bourdeille, Seigneur de Brantôme, “Second Discourse on the Queen, Mother of Our Last Kings, Catherine de Médicis,” Selections. From Book of Ladies, Poetry, and Funerary Writings 181
Appendix 209
Bibliography 255
Index 269

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