Vincenzo Nolfi’s Ginipedia (1631) Household Management and Civic Femininity in Seventeenth-Century Italy

Vincenzo Nolfi’s Ginipedia offers a detailed discussion of the civic duties of female élites. The text constructs an ideal model of femininity focussed on women’s active participation in the city’s social and public life. Published in 1631, and three-times reprinted in the decades to follow, Ginipedia addresses notions of civic femininity and informal public roles for women, ultimately suggesting links to later, and more politically oriented debates on women’s rights.