• Italian humanists promoted the value of their new style of education, and several women from the bustling cities of northern Italy obtained humanist education, writing letters, dialogues, and orations. Some male humanists criticized women who publicly shared their ideas, but others celebrated them. The Venetian humanist and nobleman Lauro Quirini (ca. 1420–ca. 1475) wrote to one of these, the learned Isotta Nogarola (1418–1466), praising her accomplishments and advising her on a plan of study. The second document is an excerpt from an oration that the Venetian Cassandra Fedele (1465–1558) gave in Latin at the University of Padua in honor of her (male) cousin’s graduation. Fedele applied advice such as Quirini’s to her own studies and became the best-known female scholar of her time.

Letter from Lauro Quirini to Isotta Nogarola, ca. 1450

“This letter asks of you nothing else than that you pursue in the most splendid way, until death, that same course of right living that you have followed since childhood. . . . Rightful therefore, should you also, famous Isotta, receive the highest praises, since you have, if I may so speak, overcome your own nature. For that true virtue that is proper to men you have pursued with remarkable zeal — not the mediocre virtue that many men seek, but that which would befit a man of the most flawless and perfect wisdom. . . . Therefore dissatisfied with the lesser studies, you have applied your noble mind to those highest disciplines, in which there is need for keenness of intelligence and mind. For you are engaged in the art of dialectic, which shows the way to learning the truth. After you have also digested this part of philosophy, which is concerned with human matters, equipped with your nobility of the soul you should also set out for that ample and vast other part [divine matters]. . . . Here you should begin especially with those disciplines that we call by the Greek term mathematics. . . . You should also make use of those studies, moreover, that you have splendidly embraced from your youth, and especially history, for history is as it were the teacher of life.”

Cassandra Fedele, In Praise of Letters, ca. 1485

“I shall speak very briefly on the study of the liberal arts, which for humans is useful and honorable, pleasurable and enlightening since everyone, not only philosophers but also the most ignorant man, knows and admits that it is by reason that man is separated from beasts. For what is it that so greatly helps both the learned and the ignorant? What so enlarges and enlightens men’s minds the way that an education in and knowledge of literature and the liberal arts do? . . . But erudite men who are filled with the knowledge of divine and human things turn all their thoughts and considerations toward reason as though toward a target, and free their minds from all pain, though plagued by many anxieties. . . .

But enough on the utility of literature since it produces not only an outcome that is rich, precious, and sublime, but also provides one with advantages that are extremely pleasurable, fruitful, and lasting — benefits that I myself have enjoyed. And when I meditate on the idea of marching forth in life with the lowly and execrable weapons of the little woman — the needle and the distaff [the rod onto which yarn is wound after spinning] — even if the study of literature offers women no rewards or honors, I believe women must nonetheless pursue and embrace such studies alone for the pleasure and enjoyment they contain.”

Sources: Isotta Nogarola, Complete Writings, Letterbook, Dialogue on Adam and Eve, Orations, ed. and trans. Margaret L. King and Diana Robin, pp. 108–113. Reproduced with permission of University of Chicago Press in the format Republish in a book via Copyright Clearance Center; Cassandra Fedele, Letters and Orations, ed. and trans. Diana Robin, pp. 159–162. Reproduced with permission of University of Chicago Press in the format Republish in a book via Copyright Clearance Center.

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