STAMPA, GASPARA. – Poetess, b. in Padua in 1523, d. in Venice on 23 April 1554. The daughter of a Paduan jeweller, upon his death she moved with her mother to Venice, where she learned Greek and Latin from Fortunio Spira, and music and singing from Pierisson Cambio; she took part in the Compagnia dei Dubbiosi and in the Accademia dei Pellegrini under the name of Anassilla.
Her “salon” was the most frequented by humanists, artists, and poets during the decade 1540–50. In 1548 she fell in love with Collaltino di Collalto, the “handsome cruel count” of the Trevisan March, a very mediocre man. Abandoned by her idol, G. S. sought comfort in God (“Sweet Lord, do not let me perish”), but also in earthly loves. She died the following year. “I burned, I wept, I sang”: such was the brief life of the passionate woman. The Romanticist writers made her an innocent victim of love; those of positivism, a courtesan. The extreme opinions are represented by two critics: A. Salza and G. A. Cesareo. The latter defended madonna Gasperina with sound arguments. The canzoniere of S., although Petrarchan in style, is among the finest of the sixteenth century for its ingenuous passion and expressive power. In certain lyrics of love and faith, it rises above autobiography and Platonism.