Nella Donati

Nella Donati (possibly also known as Giovanna or Giovannella) was a Florentine noblewoman. She is primarily known because of Dante Alighieri's treatment of her relationship to her husband, Forese Donati, in the Divine Comedy and in a series of poems Dante exchanged with Forese.

Biography

Nella is associated with the Frescobaldi family. She was married to Forese Donati and they had one daughter named Ghita. Nella is also associated with the Ghibellines, according to Dante's writings.

In the works of Dante Alighieri

Dante's Tenzone with Forese A key to understanding the literary reception of Nella Donati is through Dante's tenzone with Forese. This tenzone is composed of sonnets that Dante used to comment on Forese. In this tenzone, Dante uses a negative tone to address Forese and Nella. Interpretations focus on the importance of the fact that most of his tenzone poems were written in Florence, which emphasizes how much he connects Nella and her husband to the city. Dante describes Nella by her unattractive and loud cough. He represents her as a cold and harsh woman, no matter the weather.

Interpretations of Nella in Dante's Tenzone with Forese The underlying message in his tenzone is that Forese's sexual inadequacies have left Nella lonely and frigid. According to Dante, Forese cannot sexually please Nella or provide her more than one child. Dante hints at this by mentioning her insufficient bedsheets (copertoio in Italian). One line includes an exclamation from Nella's mother in which she laments the disgust she has for Forese. In Dante's sonnet, Nella's mother is upset at his rash behavior and exclaims that Nella could have been married off to a rivaling political faction. The tenzone itself is seen as a masculine charged attempt for superiority over Florence, in which Dante uses Nella to insult Forese's authority on the subject

Interpretations of Nella in the Divine Comedy In contrast to her depiction in tenzone, Dante portrays Nella in a much different manner in Purgatorio. In Purgatorio, Nella's prayers accentuate her extreme level of devotion to God. She is the perfect representation of the widow that Dante imagines God desires, in her pure devotion to Him. Dante also underlines the importance of her not remarrying after becoming a widow. She is not the defiant woman seen in tenzone, but instead a righteous woman of God, helping her husband reach salvation. In one of the Decameron 's tales, Boccaccio features a marriage relationship that bears strong similarities with Forese and Nella's relationship as depicted by Dante in his tenzone with Forese. In the seventh tale of the Tenth Day of the Decameron, Mazzeo's wife is sexually unhappy. She is described as being "cold" and empty due to her husband's incompetence. Dante scholar Fabian Alfie focuses on the similarities between Dante's depiction of Nella in his tenzone, and the adulterous woman in the Decameron. He believes that Boccaccio drew from the description of Forese and Nella in Dante's tenzone to blame the Mazzeo for his inabilities as a husband. Rather than leave the "coldness" up to interpretation, like Dante does, Boccaccio explicitly attributes it to Mazzeo's inadequacies. Mazzeo's wife is not punished for their failed marriage. Boccaccio often quotes Dante throughout his writing, sometimes to disagree with Dante's conclusions about politics or cultural standards.

Boccaccio also borrows from Dante's poetry in the eighth tale of the Seventh Day. In this story, a gentlewoman named Sismonda cheats on her merchant husband, Arriguccio. She almost ends up caught, but then successfully hides her infidelity from her family. Her mother, upset that her daughter was accused of cheating on Arriguccio, criticizes her sons for treating Sismonda so. She further attacks Arriguccio for his status and downgrades him by comparing his attitude to that of a peasant. Sismonda's mother's attack on Arriguccio mirrors Nella's mother's comments in the tenzone. Alfie finds this a copy of Dante's words but with a focus on class differences, rather than on political issues. He believes that by using Dante's work as a basis, Boccaccio expands on his feelings against the merchant class. According to relevant commentary, by not reprimanding Sismonda for her bad behavior, Boccaccio's writing is connected to Dante's depiction of Nella in Purgatorio 23. Both are not blamed for their issues but are instead used to point out their husbands' incompetence socially, politically, and sexually.

In Machiavelli's Mandragola Fabian Alfie also compares Nella to characters in Machiavelli's works. He sees Machiavelli as rooting his play Mandragola on the commentary Boccaccio makes in the Decameron. Machiavelli's character Callimaco makes similar descriptions of a woman's coldness that both Boccaccio and Dante utilize. Although Alfie believes that Machiavelli was more directly influenced by Boccaccio, he still concludes that this style of description originated in Dante's tenzone.