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Poems by Francesca Turini Bufalini
Translated by Joan E. Borrelli
Joan E. Borrelli earned her M.A. in English Literature/Creative
Writing and a second M.A. in Italian Language and Literature
from San Francisco State University, where she is head of the
library’s collection acquisition management. She is co-translator
of Autobiographical Poems by Francesca Turini Bufalini (Bordighera
Press, 2009). Her translations of the poetry and prose of other Italian
authors appear in a variety of anthologies and journals as well as
past issues of JIT. Her recent publications include essays in Critical
Companion to J.D. Salinger (Facts on File, 2011) and a short story,
“Terra Ferma: A Fragment” in Voices in Italian Americana: VIA, 22
no.1 (Spring 2011): 37-40.
Francesca Turini Bufalini (1553-1641), whose works have
come to light after nearly four centuries of obscurity, represents a
unique voice among Italian writers active during the late Renaissance/early
Baroque. With a series of sonnets that are the first
of their kind in the Italian female tradition to represent precise
autobiographical details of the poet’s life, Turini Bufalini reveals
themes likewise not seen before in the Western canon: intimate
expressions of past youthful emotion; of miscarriage; of the raising
of children and of maternal joy and love. No other European
women poets before her recorded their lives in such a personal
way. 1 In her work, Turini Bufalini offers a full range of emotion
as she reacts to the challenges she faced as an orphan, wife, mother
and widow. Her immediacy of voice and personal subject matter
create not only an unprecedented feel for the struggles of women
of her historical period but also reflect a sensibility almost modern
in its confessional tone. Turini Bufalini’s poems moreover express
a woman’s struggle to write.
Biographical Note on the author
Born to a noble Tuscan family, Francesca was orphaned at
a young age and raised by an uncle at his castle, Gattara, in the