"Shining Eyes, Cruel Fortune presents the life stories of twelve extraordinary women who lived passionately and recorded in poetry their happiness and heartbreaks. The setting is the Italian sixteenth century, the cinquecento, the period of the High Renaissance.". "This illustrated volume offers insight into how it felt to be a woman in the sixteenth century - if, that is, one was among the aristocracy or upper bourgeoisie, and had more than a rudimentary education. Besides offering 239 poems, both in the original Italian and in translation, the text also addresses challenging art-historical problems involving one or another of the women and suggests possible solutions.". "The CD included with the volume presents 68 of the poems recorded in the original Italian by distinguished Italian-born scholars of Italian literature."--BOOK JACKET.