Sonetos para Dido y para Irene en el Renacimiento italiano

Abstract

This article analyzes two figures, a literary one and a historical one, through some sonnets of the Italian Renaissance. One of these figures is the famous queen from Carthage, Dido, to whom Tansillo wrote an enigmatic sonnet, because without mentioning her name, he places her among the «Lugentes Campi», recreating the verses of the Aeneid’s book 6. The other figure is less famous one of Irene di Spilimbergo, a female painter who worked in Titian’s studio, whose death in 1561 was deeply regretted by many Italian poets of that time who, playing with the Greek etymology of her name, imagined her in the peace of Paradise.