A women’s network in fifteenth-century Rome: Margery Kempe encounters “Margaret Florentyne”

Bale, Anthony and Giosue, D. (2021) A women’s network in fifteenth-century Rome: Margery Kempe encounters “Margaret Florentyne”. In: Varnam, L. and Williams, L. (eds.) Encountering the Book of Margery Kempe. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press. ISBN 9781526146618. (In Press)

Abstract

This essay concerns one of Kempe’s key female interlocutors, whom she first encountered in the Italian city of Assisi, and is referred to as “Margaret Florentyne” or “Dame Margarete Florentyn”. In this essay we posit the identity of Margaret Florentine, who has previously not been identified, and was evidently a woman from Florence named Margaret, who looked after Kempe in Rome. It is clear from the Book that Margaret Florentine had a house in Rome, although her name suggests that she was of Florence: “Margherita Fiorentina”, Margaret of Florence. Whilst the details given by Kempe are scant, in this essay we suggest the identity of “Margaret Florentyn” as Margherita degli Alberti (d. after 1417), a member of the wealthy Alberti banking family. This is turn always us to place Kempe in the context of Renaissance Rome, and can lead to a new understanding her devotional and cultural milieux.

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