Intellectuals Displaced from Fascist Italy. Migrants, Exiles and Refugees Fleeing for Political and Racial Reasons/Intellettuali in fuga dall’Italia fascista. Migranti, esuli e rifugiati per motivi politici e razziali

singing, provided they celebrate divine greatness. This book also focuses on the value of contemplation and meditation. Since contemplation cannot occupy all the nuns’ time, the sisters must perform humble manual tasks and needlework or embroidery in order to avoid idleness, the greatest sin at the root of every ill. Fasting, bodily afflictions, mortification, and abstinence are all strategies to tame the flesh. Tarabotti explains how prayers and the grace conceded by merciful Mary can lead to the enjoyment of eternal grace in heaven. The time of death will be a welcome moment to enjoy an eternity of delight. At the end of Book Three, Tarabotti asks for pardon and offers two gifts to God: her life and her writing. After Convent Paradise are three more encomiastic poems: the idyll “Archangel” by an unnamed poet, possibly Angelico Aprosio (another member of the Accademia degli Incogniti), one sonnet by Salvator Cavalcanti, and another by Lucrezia Marinella. The editors’ exhaustive “Introduction” situates Tarabotti’s first publication in the context of convent life in seventeenth-century Venice, with specific details about the Sant’Anna cloister, where Tarabotti spent her entire life, and where she penned all her literary works. Ray and Westwater call Convent Paradise a spiritual autobiography and propose a fruitful interpretation of this text within Tarabotti’s overall literary career and religious life: “Tarabotti’s literary persona and the formulation of her social and political critique cannot be detached from her religious and spiritual experience, which emerge so clearly in Convent Paradise.” (56) The great variety of quoted texts reveal Tarabotti’s knowledge, not only of the religious tradition (Song of Songs, Old and New Testament, S. Ambrose, S. Bernard, etc.) but also of secular Greek and Latin authors like Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Seneca, as well as Italian writers such as Dante, Petrarch, Ariosto, and Tasso. This edition is a very intriguing incursion into the life of cloistered nuns of Seicento Venice and into the strategies recommended to lead a pure and sacred life, all in view of the final reward: a spot in heaven. Since so far Tarabotti’s devotional writing has been overlooked, while the focus has been on her feminist works, this edition of Convent Paradise, with its fine translation, annotation, and meaningful illustrations, contributes to a more complete and nuanced picture of Tarabotti’s literary corpus. It provides an “important insight into the religious and cultural climate that shaped Tarabotti’s life and literary voice.” (2)