# Alessandra Scala
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{{Short description|Florentine humanist and scholar (1475–1506)}}
'''Alessandra Scala''' (1475–1506) was an Italian [humanist](/source/Renaissance_humanism) and scholar of [Latin](/source/Latin) and [Greek](/source/Ancient_Greek) in the late fifteenth century.
Born in [Colle di Val d'Elsa](/source/Colle_di_Val_d'Elsa), she was an amateur actress during the 1490s, portraying [Electra](/source/Electra) in a Florentine performance of [Sophocles](/source/Sophocles)'s ''[Electra](/source/Electra_(Sophocles_play))''. The only two pieces of Scala's work that survive are her letters to her fellow writer [Cassandra Fedele](/source/Cassandra_Fedele) and a poem written in the [Greek language](/source/Greek_language).
== Biography ==
Alessandra Scala was the fifth daughter of the chancellor of Florence at the time, [Bartolomeo Scala](/source/Bartolomeo_Scala), and was born in 1475.[{{cite book|last=Robin|first=Diana|title=Encyclopedia of women in the Renaissance: Italy, France, and England|publisher=ABC-CLIO|year=2007|isbn=978-1-85109-772-2|editor-last=Robin|editor-first=Diana|location=Santa Barbara, CA|pages=332–333|editor-last2=Larsen|editor-first2=Anne R.|editor-last3=Levin|editor-first3=Carole}}] Scala was taught in part by her father and [Angelo Poliziano](/source/Poliziano), and also studied Ancient Greek under [Janus Lascaris](/source/Janus_Lascaris) and [Demetrios Chalkokondyles](/source/Demetrios_Chalkokondyles).[{{Cite book|last=King|first=Margaret L.|author-link=Margaret L. King|title=Renaissance humanism : foundations, forms, and legacy|date=1988|publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press|isbn=0-8122-8066-0|editor-last=Rabil|editor-first=Albert|volume=1|location=Philadelphia|pages=435|oclc=16227152}}]
In 1493, Scala participated in a Florentine performance of [Sophocles's](/source/Sophocles) ''[Electra](/source/Electra_(Sophocles_play))'' as Electra, and was highly praised for her acting in a letter from Poliziano to [Cassandra Fedele](/source/Cassandra_Fedele).[{{Cite journal|last=Jardine|first=Lisa|date=1985|title='O Decus Italiae Virgo', or The Myth of the Learned Lady in the Renaissance|url=https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1420374/1/S0018246X00005070a.pdf|journal=Historical Journal|volume=28|issue=4|pages=807–810|doi=10.1017/S0018246X00005070|s2cid=159761599 }}] She also corresponded with Fedele in Latin about marriage and scholarship between 1492 and 1493,[{{Cite journal|last=Pesenti|first=Giovanni|date=1925|title=Alessandra Scala: Una figurina della Rinascenza fiorentina|url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/1310285417|journal=Giornale Storico della Letteratura Italiana|volume=85|pages=249–250|id={{ProQuest|1310285417}}}}][{{Cite book|last1=King|first1=Margaret L.|author-link=Margaret L. King|title=Her immaculate hand : selected works by and about the women humanists of Quattrocento Italy|last2=Rabil, Jr.|first2=Albert|publisher=Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies|year=1992|isbn=0-86698-124-1|location=Binghamton, N.Y.|pages=87–88|oclc=26096179}}] and replied to love poems written in Greek that Poliziano sent her around 1493.[{{Cite journal|last=Pesenti|first=Giovanni|date=1925|title=Alessandra Scala: Una figurina della Rinascenza fiorentina|url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/1310285417|journal=Giornale Storico della Letteratura Italiana|volume=85|pages=252–254|id={{ProQuest|1310285417}}}}][{{Cite book|last=Feng|first=Aileen A.|title=Writing beloveds : humanist Petrarchism and the politics of gender|date=2017|isbn=978-1-4875-1179-1|location=Toronto|pages=94–103|oclc=970693924}}] Poliziano's praise of Scala's dramatic performance and his poetry addressed to her have been interpreted differently by scholars. While Pesenti views Poliziano as expressing genuine if unrealizable affection,[{{cite book|author=Stevenson, Jane|url=https://archive.org/details/womenlatinpoetsl00stev_672|title=Women Latin poets: language, gender, and authority, from antiquity to the eighteenth century|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2005|isbn=0-19-818502-2|page=164|url-access=limited}}] Six years later Marullus died, and Scala then entered the Florentine convent of [San Pier Maggiore](/source/San_Pier_Maggiore%2C_Florence)[{{Cite journal|last=Strocchia|first=Sharon T.|date=August 2007|title=When the Bishop Married the Abbess: Masculinity and Power in Florentine Episcopal Entry Rites, 1300–1600|url=http://doi.wiley.com/10.1111/j.1468-0424.2007.00479.x|journal=Gender & History|language=en|volume=19|issue=2|pages=351|doi=10.1111/j.1468-0424.2007.00479.x|s2cid=143907245 |issn=0953-5233|url-access=subscription}}][{{Cite journal|last=Miller|first=Maureen C.|date=October 2006|title=Why the Bishop of Florence Had to Get Married|url=https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1017/S0038713400004280|journal=Speculum|language=en|volume=81|issue=4|pages=1060–1063|doi=10.1017/S0038713400004280|s2cid=163412470|issn=0038-7134|url-access=subscription}}] She died there in 1506.