Book Reviews 505

political career came to an abrupt halt the same year, when civil strife forced him out of
office before his term expired. Barred from political office until death claimed him in 1324,
Compagni used his enforced silence to reflect on the events that caused his expulsion,
much like the response of another Florentine compatriot, Niccolo Machiavelli, two
centuries later. The chronicle is the product of that reflection, begun nearly ten years after
the fact.
The three books that comprise the chronicle weave the themes of honor, power, and
divine justice into an impassioned narrative with a single, intense focus. Unlike Giovanni
Villani, Compagni does not interest himself in the profusion ofdaily activities. Instead, he
limits his examination to the factional conflicts that engulfed the city at the end of the
thirteenth century. The chronicle opens by quickly tracing the origins of civil strife
between Guelfs and Ghibellines after 1215, and proceeds to a closer examination of how
political power previously dominated by a mercantile and professional elite came to be
shared with lesser tradesmen in the 1280’s and 90’s. Compagni recounts the rise and
subsequent fall of his hero, Giano della Bella, who was instrumental in passing a new set of
comprehensive statutes for the city in 1293.
Book II chronicles the core episode that led to Compagni’s ouster from office.
Beginning with the entry of Charles of Valois into Italy, Compagni details the increasingly
factionalized and violent climate, the ineffective response of the priors that led to their
expulsion, and the emergence of the Black Guelphs as leaders of Florence after 1301. He
offers thumbnail character sketches of such important players as Corso Donati and
Donato Alberti, and he takes on a moralizing tone when vilifying the leaders of the Blacks
for their deceitfulness. The book ends with the paradoxical alliance between White
Guelphs and Ghibellines firmly cemented by their mutual hatred of the Blacks.
In Book III, the theme of divine justice emerges with greater vigor. The brutal siege of
Pistoia by the despised Florentine Blacks, for example, was lifted only when God, who
‘did not want to undo that city completely’, prompted a solution (III, 15). The theme of
divine intervention surfaces again in the election of Henry VII as Holy Roman Emperor in
1308, and in the last portion of the chronicle recounting Henry’s expedition into Italy in
1310-12 that so sparked Dante’s hopes for a lasting peace. Compagni concludes his
passionate tale with the leaders of the Blacks vanquished by divine punishment.
In his introduction to the chronicle, Daniel Bomstein proves a sure guide to the often
confusing complexity of the text by effectively outlining the book’s major themes and
historical setting. The footnotes are quite helpful in clarifying obscure references and in
adding supplementary information without encumbering the text, although scholars of
the period will still need to consult the full apparatus in the Italian editions by Isidoro Del
Lungo and Gino Luzzato. For those English language readers interested in a first hand
introduction to the political climate of Dante’s day, this translation is a useful and
welcome addition. zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFED

Sharon T. Strocchia
Arizona State Un~~e~s~ty

The Celebrated Mary Astell: An Early English Feminist, Ruth Perry (University of Chicago
Press, 1986), cloth $45.00; paper $19.95.

Mary Astell (1666-1731) interests historians of feminism because of the strong defences
of women’s human worth in two of her books. A Serious Proposal to the Ladies pleads for
better education for women, and for the foundation of institutions where single women
could live together. Some Reflections upon M arriage argues that although wives have a
duty to obey their husbands, women are not naturally inferior to men, but are their equals
 Book Reviews

in intellectual capacity and in moral dignity. Her High Church and high Tory religious
and political writings help to clarify the logic of her arguments in these works. A Serious
Proposal, like her religious writings, is interested in the kind of intellectual development
which can improve a woman’s grasp of her religious faith and obligations. Some
Reflections upon M arriage, which some contemporaries apparently misread as a satire, can
be read seriously in the context of the Tory argument that subjects have a duty to obey
usurping or unjust authorities, once they are settled in power. Astell’s pamphlets on the
Occasional Conformity controversy show her strongly authoritarian beliefs, and she
developed the analogy between the duties of wives and those of subjects in the preface to
the third edition of Some Reflections upon M arriage. The sincerity of her belief in wives’
duty to obey is clear as her contempt for most husbands and for William III.
Ruth Perry’s biography is interested both in Astell’s ideas and in the unusual
circumstances of her life. Astell, who never married and lived alone most her adult life,
became well-known as a writer while remaining respectable. She survived financially
through the patronage of Archbishop Sancroft and, later, of a group of pious and
charitable aristocratic women. Perry’s book discusses Astell’s work at length, and also
gives a vivid and detailed account of the social and physical environment in which Astell
lived her life, bringing out her anomalous status as an independent intellectual woman.
The book makes available a large number of previously unknown poems and letters by
Astell, as well as a wealth of new information about her life and her friendships. It has a
great deal to offer to anyone interested in the workings of networks of friendship and
patronage among eighteenth-century women, or in the development of women’s writing
during the century. Perry demonstrates Astell’s courage, talent and good luck in finding
generous patrons. Her biographical and genealogical reasearch has been detailed and
thorough, and she describes Astell’s writings, and makes clear many of the connections
between Astell’s views on women and her religious and political beliefs. However, she
sometimes becomes impatient with the nuances and details of Astell’s religious and
political arguments, and this leads her into a mistake about Astell’s views on the non-
jurors which weakens her reading of Some Reji’ections upon M arriage. Perry describes
Astell as an uncompromising non-juror, citing a letter from Astell to Henry Dodwell
which she prints as her Appendix C.11. In fact the letter, which is a discussion of Dodwell’s
Case in View, argues that Anglicans owe obedience to the bishop actually in charge ofthe
diocese where they live, regardless of the circumstances of his appointment, unless there is
still a non-juring bishop with a claim to the same diocese. The paradox here, that
obedience can be due to an authority which has been set up illegitimately, is also present in
the argument of Some Reflections upon M arriage, and Perry also fails to do justice to it
there.
Astell is one of the most interesting figures in the prehistory of feminism, and an up-to-
date study of her was long overdue. Perry’s book gives a rich and detailed picture of
Astell’s life and circumstances, her friendships with prominent Jacobites, her charitable
work in connection with a school for the daughters of Chelsea pensioners, her place in a
network of pious women. Although there are occasional weaknesses in her discussion of
the details of Astell’s ideas, Perry gives an impressive account of the way in which Astell’s
life and writings can be seen as a courageous and consistent whole.

Alice Browne
New York