Loredana Marcello

Loredana Marcello (12 December 1572) was a Dogaressa of Venice by marriage to the Doge Alvise I Mocenigo (r. 1570-1577). She was an author of letters and poetry and studied botany, and was regarded as a model of an educated and cultivated renaissance woman in contemporary Venice.

She was the daughter of Giovanni Alvise Marcello and married Mocenigo in 1533. Together with her sisters Bianca, Daria and Maria, she was referred to as fiore de'l secolo and regarded to represent the ideal of the educated renaissance woman for the nobility in Venice. She was regarded a scholar, described as attractive and educated and was the author of letters and poetry. She also studied botany. She studied under a professor of the Biological Garden in Padua, Melchiorre Giuliandino. She was known for the formulas and recipes she developed for use against plagues. Presumably these were palliatives rather than cures. Her work is lost, but her botanical research it is noted to have been consulted and put to good use during the epidemic which appeared in Venice few years after her death (1575).

Ottavio Maggio wrote poems about her death.

References

• Staley, Edgcumbe: The dogaressas of Venice : The wives of the doges. London : T. W. Laurie
• Mothers and Daughters of Invention: Notes for a Revised History of Technology, Autumn Stanley
• The Gardens of Venice, Alessandro Albrizzi, Mary Jane Pool. Rizzoli, 1 dec 1989