Maria Antonia Scalera Stellini Explained

Maria Antonia Scalera Stellini
Birth Date:5 February 1634
Birth Place:Acquaviva delle Fonti, Italy
Death Place:Ariccia, Italy
Occupation:Poet and playwright
Nationality:Italian
Notableworks:Li divertimenti poetici
Period:17th century

Maria Antonia Scalera Stellini (5 February 1634  - 21 September 1704) was a 17th-century Italian poet and playwright.

Life

Born into a modest family in Apulia, in southern Italy, Scalera spent her youth in a convent. Following the wishes of her family, she left the convent to be married, but was soon widowed with two children. She remarried the Tuscan Silvestro Stellini, an official of Prince Agostino Chigi, a nephew of Pope Alexander VII, and went to live in their palaces at Ariccia and in Rome. Her poetic works qualified her to be received in the Academy of Arcadia on 20 June 1694,[1] where she was named "Aricia Gnateatide".[2]

Works

In 1677, in Rome, she published a collection of poems in two volumes entitled Li divertimenti poetici ("The poetic entertainments"), which was reprinted in 1706. She also published the plays and musical dramas La Tirannide abbattuta dal trionfo della fede, Serenata spirituale, La ninfa del Tebro, Il trionfo di sant'Agata and Il Coraspe redivivo. The latter was staged in Ariccia in 1683.[3]

Sources

External links

Notes and References

  1. Cfr. Giovanni Mario Crescimbeni, Notizie istoriche degli arcadi morti, part III, Rome 1721, pp. 81-83
  2. Cfr. Giovanni Mario Crescimbeni, L'Istoria della volgar poesia, vol. VI, Venice 1730, p. 365
  3. S. Franchi, Drammaturgia romana, Edizioni di storia e letteratura, Roma 1988, p. 556