MACINGHI STROZZI, ALESSANDRA. — A noblewoman, born in Florence in 1407, where she died on 11 March 1471. At the age of sixteen she married Matteo Strozzi, who, banished by the Medici in 1434, died at Pesaro the following year, leaving her five children, of whom the three boys, scarcely adolescents, were obliged to go into exile like their father.
The 74 letters written by A. to Filippo and Lorenzo between ʼ47 and ʼ70 convey her image as maternally tender and Christianly strong, capable of facing adversities and sorrows « not with a woman’s spirit but a man’s », and reflect the customs of her age. Around this widow, who defends the hearth for her exiled sons and does not rest until she succeeds in freeing them from banishment, the fifteenth-century world can be glimpsed: domestic affairs and political intrigues; European « exchanges » and private interests; Florentine news and matters concerning Flanders and Catalonia, Venice and Naples, as well as all that was healthiest in Humanism. Lively and pictorial are the letters describing the daughters, sons-in-law, and young women available as brides for Lorenzo and Filippo; lyrical are those concerning her separation from Matteino (the youngest of her sons) and his death in exile; witty are those alluding to the Medici, the Pazzi, and the Pitti. A.’s prose has the flavor of homemade bread: « Do not look at my fine writing; if I were with you, I would not write these ugly letters, for I would tell you my affairs by word of mouth, and you yours ». Yet in the immediacy of familial discourse, A. impresses upon it the nobility of her spirit and her profound faith in God.