Elissa B. Weaver is Professor Emerita of Italian at the University of Chicago. She is the author of Convent Theatre in Early Modern Italy: Spiritual Fun and Learning for Women (2002) and of numerous other works on Italian medieval and Renaissance literature. She edited the Italian edition of the Buoninsegni, Tarabotti, Satira e Antisatira (1998) and is co-editor of the Italian Women Writers online database at the University of Chicago Library.