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Dialoghi di Don Antonio Agostini arciuescouo di Tarracona intorno alle medaglie, inscrittioni et altre antichità
This handsome folio of Agustín’s work on antiquities is considered the first book to contain illustrations by a woman artist, Geronima Parasole. The powerful Athena on the title page and the large woodcuts of triumphal arches bear various versions of her initials, “P. M.” and “G. A. P.” The knife next to her signature, boldly centered in the image, indicates that she cut as well as drew the blocks. The print shop where she worked was a family enterprise of the Parasole and Norsini families. Her sister-in-law, artist Elisabetta Catanea Parasole, made a number of extraordinarily beautiful, and extremely rare, lace model books. -
De la bonté et mauuaistié des femmes
In this text, French humanist Marconville compiles examples from the past and present of the virtues and vices of women. Ultimately, he suspends judgement on whether women have an inborn predisposition to these various virtues and vices. -
Olympiae Fulviae Moratae foeminae doctissimae ac plane divinae Orationes, dialogi, epistolae, carmina, tam latina quam graeca: cum eruditorʹu de ea testimoniis & laudibus
Italian classical scholar Olympia Fulvia Morata was fluent in Greek and Latin by the age of twelve. She lectured publicly on Cicero and Calvin as a teenager at court. A convert to Protestantism, she was one of the first women to be censored and included in the Index Librorum Prohibitorum. Morata studied philosophy and was an inspiration to such learned women as Elizabeth Jane Weston and Anna Maria von Schurman. This collection of her Greek letters and Latin dialogues was published after her early death at age twenty-nine.Tags 1200s to 1500s -
Tutte le rime della illustriss. et eccellentiss. signora Vittoria Colonna, marchesana di Pescara: con l'esposition del signor Rinaldo Corso, nuouamente mandate in luce da Girolamo Ruscelli
A member of a powerful Roman family, poet Vittoria Colonna was widowed, wealthy, famous, and childless. Though thirteen editions of her Rime were published before her death, much of her verse circulated in scribal copies. Her published prose reflects her interest in religious reform, an interest that led to her being investigated during the Inquisition. An impeccable stylist with elegant taste, she commissioned a manuscript of her sonnets, now in the Vatican Library, as a gift for her close friend Michelangelo. This edition of her poetry also contains two poems by Veronica Gambara. -
Le fort inexpugnable de l’honneur du sexe femenin
From the late Middle Ages until the Enlightenment, a fierce debate raged in Europe about the nature of women. At its core, this querelle des femmes concerned the capacity of women to extend beyond what was seen as their traditional domain and to participate in such fields as higher education or in the public sphere. Billon’s work, which falls squarely in this debate, was the most passionate defense of women’s equality of its era. In it, he constructs an allegorical fort in defense of women, depicting misogynists as invaders seeking to storm the castle walls. The six parts of the fort—its moat, tower, and four bastions—each represent a different female quality, and each one is populated with women of note who embody that attribute. The volume is illustrated with bold woodcuts depicting the fort, and also Athena addressing an audience made up entirely of women. -
Rime della signora Laura Terracina
Neapolitan lyric poet Laura Terracina called for women to put down their needles, take up their pens, and seek the fame that would prove men wrong to doubt their abilities. She published prolifically and successfully—eight volumes during her lifetime and a ninth left in manuscript at her death. Rime, her first book, opens with a strong, elegantly cut, contemporary portrait of Terracina. She was inducted into the Accademia degli Incogniti in 1545, a rare honor for a woman. Terracina’s second book, a verse commentary on Ludovico Ariosto’s Orlando furioso established her as a leading writer. This commentary is also in the collection. -
Marguerites de la Marguerite des princesses, tresillustre royne de Nauarre
Erudite, powerful, and scholarly, Marguerite, Queen of Navarre, was the sister of King François I. A patron of humanists and reformers, she wrote biblical comedies as well as secular works. In the 1520s, Marguerite became involved in an evangelical reform movement within the Catholic Church; she believed that scripture should be available to the common people. The “pearls” (marguerites) in this work include poems designed to be set to familiar popular music, allowing her to spread her message more widely. The lovely woodcuts and ornaments by Petit Bernard appear to follow the captions devised by Marguerite. This book was censured as heretical by the theologians of the Sorbonne. -
Catonis libri quinque moralis philosophiae
During the Renaissance, translations expanded access to classical and ancient texts. This work is the first vernacular translation of the Distichs of Cato, the most popular medieval Latin textbook. The translation is by a woman known as Lucretia Lucensis. She fell ill while working on the book and appealed to her teacher Andreas Lancianensis to help her finish the translation. The volume reprints her letters to Andreas, as well as his response that he will finish the translation “in the same style and order.” The letters may have been included as a testament to the authenticity of Lucensis’ translation of the majority of the Distichs. -
Hore beatissime virginis Marie: secundu[m] vsum ordinis Fontebralde[n]sis
The daughter of one printer and married to another, Yolande Bonhomme was one of the most prominent woman printers and booksellers in sixteenth-century Paris. Publisher of both ecclesiastical and secular books, she printed for the University of Paris. With Charlotte Guillard, she was one of the printers who sued the papermakers’ guild over the poor quality of the paper Parisian printers were required to use. This intimate book of hours was commissioned by Louise de Bourbon, Abbess of the Royal Abbey of Fontevraud. It contains interlinear manuscript notes in a tiny, elegant hand. There are only two known copies of this work. -
Liure tres bon plaisant et salutaire de linstitution de la femme chrestienne, tant en son enfance, que mariage & viduite: aussi de loffice du mary nagueres co[m]posez en latin par Iehan Loys Viues, & nouuellement traduictz en langue francoyse par Pierre de Changy escuyer; auquel est adioustee de nouueau vne tresbriefue & structeuefe instruction de la vertu dhumilite; auec vne epistre de sainct Bernard touchant le negoce & gouuernement dune maison
In 1524 Spanish humanist Juan Luis Vives published the first text calling for universal education of women (though it was a mix of feminism and misogyny). Dedicated to Queen Catherine of Aragon, the mother of Princess Mary, whom Vives had tutored, by 1600 it had appeared in numerous translations. Vives laid important groundwork for the education of women in the Elizabethan Age. This, the first French edition, was published by Jacques Kerver, son of printer and bookseller Yolande Bonhomme. There are three editions in the collection, two from the sixteenth and one from the seventeenth century. -
Alexandri ab Alexandro iurisperiti Neapolitani genialium dierum libri sex, varia ac recondita eruditione referti
Charlotte Guillard was one of the most eminent of the approximately fifty women printers in sixteenth-century Paris. She edited and published in Latin, Greek and French. Married to two printers, and twice widowed, she printed under her own name. Guillard was responsible for the printing works, a bookshop, property, and leases. She began printing in 1502 and continued until her death in 1557. A consummate businesswoman and scholar, she printed substantial academic, legal and religious texts, over two hundred titles in all. -
Den Leydenden christglaubigen Weybern der Gemain zü Kentzingen meinen mit Schwestern in Christo Jhesu zü handen
Katharina Schütz Zell was an outspoken religious reformer and the most published female theologian of the Reformation. She married a priest—in defiance of Catholic canon law—and insisted that she share his ministry. She was known as the mother of the church in Strasbourg. Schütz Zell championed the responsibility of lay people to proclaim the Gospel and preached three funeral sermons. Her first pamphlet affirmed the faith of the Protestant women of Kentzingen, whose husbands, fathers, and sons had been expelled from that city for their beliefs.Tags 1200s to 1500s -
De plurimis claris sceletis [sic] q[ue] mulieribus: opus prope diuinu[m] nouissime congestum
Bergomensis’ De claris mulieribus is one of the earliest collections of women’s biographies. In compiling it, he borrowed extensively from Giovanni Boccaccio’s earlier manuscript of the same title. It is one of the finest early Italian illustrated books, and the first to include contemporary woodcut portraits from life. The woodcut that appears on the cover of the exhibition catalog and in the introduction to this online exhibition is from this book.Tags 1200s to 1500s -
Incominciano Le uite de pontefici et imperadori Romani
The earliest documented printing by women is from the press at the Convent of San Jacopo de Ripoli in Tuscany. The nuns set type, sewed folios, and provided financial backing for the press. The collection includes two copies of this book. The first is trimmed and rubricated, with the rubrication likely done by the nuns. The second is untrimmed with copious marginalia. The manicule in the second copy points insistently to the entry for the mythic Pope Joan and proclaims “papa femina” (female pope). On close examination, both copies can be seen to have numerous manuscript additions to individual letters. -
[Grant of land in Pisa, Italy, to Frater Baldiccione, signed Ildenbrandinus de Navacchio, 9 March 1240]
This scribal parchment is the earliest item in the collection. It documents the execution of a bequest made by the late Marcus to the Archbishop of Pisa. As was customary, Marcus’ wife Ugolinella was one of the executors. The gift was a vegetable garden adjoining a cemetery and a tannery—a rather odoriferous location. The bequest was intended to establish a house for repentant prostitutes, possibly the Sorores Repentite Hospitalis S. Marie Magdalene de Spina. In the early twelfth century, a campaign to rehabilitate prostitutes had begun, leading to the founding of convents and houses for repentant women. In medieval Italy, such houses, dedicated to Mary Magdalene, were usually founded through private initiatives. It is notable that the rector of the house is referred to as a custos, a word also used to mean a guardian or jailer.Tags 1200s to 1500s
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