TY - BOOK ID - 80836752 TI - From She-Wolf to Martyr PY - 2015 SN - 9780801453861 0801453860 9781501701009 1501701002 1501700995 9781501700996 PB - Ithaca DB - UniCat KW - Queens KW - Royalty KW - Rulers KW - Sovereigns KW - Monarchy KW - Women KW - Courts and courtiers KW - Empresses KW - Kings and rulers KW - Joanna KW - Naples (Kingdom) KW - History KW - Johanna KW - Regno di Napoli KW - Napoli (Kingdom) KW - Sicily (Italy) KW - Kingdom of the Two Sicilies UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:80836752 AB - In 1343 a seventeen-year-old girl named Johanna (1326-1382) ascended the Neapolitan throne, becoming the ruling monarch of one of medieval Europe's most important polities. For nearly forty years, she held her throne and the avid attention of her contemporaries. Their varied responses to her reign created a reputation that made Johanna the most notorious woman in Europe during her lifetime. In From She-Wolf to Martyr, Elizabeth Casteen examines Johanna's evolving, problematic reputation and uses it as a lens through which to analyze often-contradictory late-medieval conceptions of rulership, authority, and femininity. When Johanna inherited the Neapolitan throne from her grandfather, many questioned both her right to and her suitability for her throne. After the murder of her first husband, Johanna quickly became infamous as a she-wolf-a violent, predatory, sexually licentious woman. Yet, she also eventually gained fame as a wise, pious, and able queen. Contemporaries-including Francesco Petrarch, Giovanni Boccaccio, Birgitta of Sweden, and Catherine of Siena-were fascinated by Johanna. Drawing on a wide range of textual and visual sources, Casteen reconstructs the fourteenth-century conversation about Johanna and tracks the role she played in her time's cultural imaginary. She argues that despite Johanna's modern reputation for indolence and incompetence, she crafted a new model of female sovereignty that many of her contemporaries accepted and even lauded. ER -