‘Donna il cui carme gli animi soggioga’: Eighteenth-Century Italian Women Improvisers

The article, by way of the careers of two of the most famous eighteenth century Italian improvisers, Corilla Olimpica and Teresa Bandettini, investigates the way in which favourable socio-cultural circumstances allowed a number of Italian women living in the 18th century to make use of the widespread fashion of their time for extempore poetry to excel in an occupation, gaining success together with acceptance and advancement in society, thus taking one of the earliest steps forward in the history of women’s liberation.