Saints` Lives and Bible Stories for the Stage – A Bilingual Edition

Elissa B. Weaver is Professor of Italian, Emerita, University of Chicago. James Wyatt Cook is Lagbo Trustees' Professor Emeritus of English, Albion College.

"Weaver's new edition of the Italian texts together with James Wyatt Cook's revised English translations provide access for the first time into the Florentine world of Antonia Pulci's sacre rappresentazioni. Pulci, Weaver argues, may have been the first woman to see her works through the printing press, in a time when other women circulated their devotional works privately among their peers. Here, then, we have the work of a woman who uses her plays to give voices to women of various conditions, and who wants their voices—and her own—to be heard."

• Acknowledgments ixEditor’s Introduction 1Texts and Translations 67La Rappresentazione di Santa Domitilla 68The Play of Saint Domitilla 69La Rappresentazione di Santa Guglielma 144The Play of Saint Guglielma 145La Rappresentazione di San Francesco 230The Play of Saint Francis 231La Rappresentazione del figliuol prodigo 308The Play of the Prodigal Son 309La Rappresentazione della distruzione di Saul e il pianto di Davit 362The Play of the Destruction of Saul and the Lament of David 363Endnotes 444Appendix 1: Inventory of the Tanini house in Via de’ Leoni 463Appendix 2: Letter from Jacopa Tanini 468Appendix 3: Fra Antonio Dolciati’s Introductory Letter of Dedication 470Editor’s Bibliography 478Index 493