Macinghi Strozzi, Alessandra

MACINGHI STROZZI, ALESSANDRA. - Noblewoman, b. in Florence in 1407, d. there on 11 March 1471. At the age of 16 she married Matteo Strozzi, who, banished by the Medici in 1434, died at Pesaro the following year, leaving her with 5 children, of whom the 3 boys, barely adolescents, had to go into exile like their father.

The 74 letters written by A. to Filippo and Lorenzo, between '47 and '70, hand down her figure, maternally tender, Christianly strong, capable of facing adversity and sorrows "not with the spirit of a woman but of a man," and mirror the customs of her age. Around this widow, who defends the hearth for her exiled sons and gives herself no peace until she manages to free them from the ban, the fifteenth-century world can be glimpsed: domestic matters and political intrigues; European "exchanges" and private interests; Florentine chronicle and affairs of Flanders and Catalonia, of Venice and Naples, and also the healthiest aspects of Humanism. Lively and picturesque are the letters describing her daughters, her sons-in-law, the young girls available for the marriages of Lorenzo and Filippo; lyrical those concerning the parting from Matteino (the youngest of the sons) and his death in exile; witty those alluding to the Medici, the Pazzi, the Pitti. A.'s prose has the savor of home-baked bread: "Do not look at my fine writing; if I were near you, I would not write these ugly letters, for I would tell you by word of mouth my affairs and yours." Yet in the immediacy of familiar discourse, A. impresses the nobility of her soul and her high faith in God.

Maria Stieco