The Crafting of Identity and the Division of Political Labour
The use of gender as a category of historical analysis has prompted historians to rethink the modalities of politics during the Renaissance period. While women were rarely rulers in their own right, they sometimes exercised a political authority drawn from cultural influence, or directly assigned to their person by virtue of deputizing for absent husbands. This chapter explores the extent to which the political collaboration of Isabella d’Este and Francesco Gonzaga emulated precedents established by their parents and grandparents. The ways in which Isabella exploited gender tropes, or submitted to them, is considered alongside Francesco Gonzaga’s projection of a virile masculine identity, through an analysis of how the pair used art and other forms of cultural patronage to shape their respective identities and political qualities.