[889] Scardeonius, l. c.
[890] For biographies of women, see above, p. 147 and note 1. Comp. the excellent work of Attilio Hortis: Le Donne Famose, descritte da Giovanni Boccacci. Trieste, 1877.
[891] E.g. in Castiglione, Il Cortigiano. In the same strain Francesco Barbaro, De Re Uxoria; Poggio, An Seni sit Uxor ducenda, in which much evil is said of women; the ridicule of Codro Urceo, especially his remarkable discourse, An Uxor sit ducenda (Opera, 1506, fol. xviii.-xxi.), and the sarcasms of many of the epigrammatists. Marcellus Palingenius, (vol. i. 304) recommends celibacy in various passages, lib. iv. 275 sqq., v. 466-585; as a means of subduing disobedient wives he recommends to married people,
‘Tu verbera misce
Tergaque nunc duro resonent pulsata bacillo.’
Italian writers on the woman’s side are Benedetto da Cesena, De Honore Mulierum, Venice, 1500, Dardano, La defesa della Donna, Ven. 1554, Per Donne Romane. ed. Manfredi, Bol. 1575. The defence of, or attack on, women, supported by instances of famous or infamous women down to the time of the writer, was also treated by the Jews, partly in Italian and partly in Hebrew; and in connection with an earlier Jewish literature dating from the thirteenth century, we may mention Abr. Sarteano and Eliah Gennazzano, the latter of whom defended the former against the attacks of Abigdor (for their MS. poems about year 1500, comp. Steinschneider, Hebr. Bibliogr. vi. 48).
[892] Addressed to Annibale Maleguccio, sometimes numbered as the 5th or the 6th.
[893] When the Hungarian Queen Beatrice, a Neapolitan princess, came to Vienna in 1485, she was addressed in Latin, and ‘arrexit diligentissime aures domina regina saepe, cum placide audierat, subridendo.’ Aschbach, o. c. vol. ii. 10 note.
[894] The share taken by women in the plastic arts was insignificant. The learned Isotta Nogarola deserves a word of mention. On her intercourse with Guarino, see Rosmini, ii. 67 sqq.; with Pius II. see Voigt, iii. 515 sqq.
[895] It is from this point of view that we must judge of the life of Allessandra de’ Bardi in Vespasiano Fiorentino (Mai, Spicileg. rom. i. p. 593 sqq.) The author, by the way, is a great ‘laudator temporis acti,’ and it must not be forgotten that nearly a hundred years before what he calls the good old time, Boccaccio wrote the Decameron. On the culture and education of the Italian women of that day, comp. the numerous facts quoted in Gregorovius, Lucrezia Borgia. There is a catalogue of the books possessed by Lucrezia in 1502 and 3 (Gregorovius, ed. 3, i. 310, ii. 167), which may be considered characteristic of the Italian women of the period. We there find a Breviary; a little book with the seven psalms and some prayers; a parchment book with gold miniature, called De Coppelle alla Spagnola; the printed letters of Catherine of Siena; the printed epistles and gospels in Italian; a religious book in Spanish; a MS. collection of Spanish odes, with the proverbs of Domenico Lopez; a printed book, called Aquila Volante; the Mirror of Faith printed in Italian; an Italian printed book called The Supplement of Chronicles; a printed Dante, with commentary; an Italian book on philosophy; the legends of the saints in Italian; an old book De Ventura; a Donatus; a Life of Christ in Spanish; a MS. Petrarch, on duodecimo parchment. A second catalogue of the year 1516 contains no secular books whatever.
[896] Ant. Galateo, Epist. 3, to the young Bona Sforza, the future wife of Sigismund of Poland: ‘Incipe aliquid de viro sapere, quoniam ad imperandum viris nata es.... Ita fac, ut sapientibus viris placeas, ut te prudentes et graves viri admirentur, et vulgi et muliercularum studia et judicia despicias,’ &c. A remarkable letter in other respects also (Mai. Spicileg. Rom. viii. p. 532).