«Innumeras referens animo praestante puellas». Constructing Isotta's character through dialogue with mythical women in Basinio da Parma's Liber Isottaeus

This essay examines the construction of Isotta degli Atti’s character in Liber Isottaeus, the fifteenth-century epistolary novel by Basinio da Parma. Focusing on the second book of the work, the study explores how Basinio develops Isotta’s individuality through a sustained dialogue with mythological female archetypes drawn from classical sources such as Ovid, Seneca, Homer, and Vergil. Isotta’s portrayal oscillates between identification with, and opposition to, figures such as Medea, Phaedra, Andromache, Chryseis, and Camilla, each representing roles traditionally assigned to women—abandoned lover, victim of furor, wife, daughter, and warrior. By appropriating and reshaping these models, Basinio both situates Isotta within a continuum of myth and transcends it, endowing her with a complexity that challenges conventional female roles in literature. The analysis highlights Basinio’s refined intertextual strategies, his use of myth as a narrative and conceptual framework, and the emergence of Isotta as a unique literary figure who aspires to become an archetype herself.