I’m excited to share with you PARITY, a research project that has been both a professional and personal journey for me. Here it is: http://parityinrenaissance.net

Figure 1: Photo by the author: Biblioteca Marciana, Venice.
The PARITY project was originally developed during the COVID-19 pandemic and the many online meetings at the Centre for Privacy Studies at the University of Copenhagen. Carried out at the Faculty of Design and Art at the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, it was generously supported by the Department of Innovation and Research of the Province of South Tyrol (2023–2024).
I’m proud to say that PARITY has been awarded the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Seal of Excellence twice, a recognition that underscores the project’s academic potential and relevance.
At its core, PARITY is about giving voice and visibility to the Italian early modern women authors—specifically, through the often-overlooked world of paratexts. These include prefaces, dedications (dedicatory epistles), and other liminal material that surround the main body of the work. While frequently dismissed as secondary, they in fact, offer a fascinating and powerful space where authors could assert authority, express emotions, and navigate the complex social and literary landscapes of Renaissance culture.
The project’s name, PARITY, is an acronym: Paratext, Privacy, Renaissance, and Italy. The word parity really gets at one of the main ideas of my research—to explore and highlight how ideas of equality and defence of women’s roles, therefore ‘parity’ show up in paratexts, especially in dedicatory epistles. In doing such a research, the concept and the notion of privacy play a key conceptual role. The early modern understanding of privacy was markedly different from our own, it functioned as a dynamic and historically contingent concept—closely tied to how people understood the self, social norms, and state power.

Figure 2: Photo by the author: The Prague Book Tunnel.
In this sense, privacy becomes an analytical lens through which we can interpret early modern life: as a space of negotiation, identity construction, and even surveillance. And patatexts become a fascinating primary source. In many of the paratexts I study—particularly dedicatory epistles and addresses to readers—women authors found subtle ways to reference their private lives, to negotiate authority through gender, and to establish a voice within the public sphere. Not rarely, they include autobiographical moments that reveal how personal experience and social commentary could coexist beyond the rhetoric. Beside this, the material position of paratext, as an undefined zone—somewhere between the inside and the outside of the main text, becomes particularly important when thinking about privacy.
This online catalogue currently features thirty paratextual examples and is steadily growing. What makes PARITY particularly exciting for me is its interdisciplinary nature. It brings together literature, gender history, history of emotions, history of privacy, and digital humanities.
At its heart, PARITY is driven by a belief I hold deeply: to better understand our present, we must listen closely to the voices of the past. By shining a light on the overlooked contributions of women in early modern Italy, I hope this project helps us move toward a more inclusive and equitable view of history—and, ultimately, a more just future.

Figure 3: Photo by the author: Biblioteca dell’Archiginnasio, Bologna.
I invite you to explore the PARITY catalogue, follow along as it continues to grow, and join me on this journey! In my next post, I’ll be presenting the online exhibition Defence from the Margin, where I focus on three remarkable early modern women who defended their rights and claimed authority through paratexts.
Before I close, my heartfelt thanks to Prof. Mette Birkedal Bruun, whose idea this catalogue originally was, and who together with the wonderful team at the Centre for Privacy Studies supported this project from the very beginning. Natacha Klein Käfer thank you deeply, for everything. I am especially grateful for the guidance and support provided by my supervisor at the University of Bolzano, Elisabeth Tauber, whose involvement has been invaluable throughout. And special thanks to Alena Dziedzitz, who designed this site and patiently taught me how to manage it—I couldn’t have done it without you.
