CVII. I think it is now time to depart from the labyrinths of physics,
and to enter on the open and pleasing plains of history, and to
persuade by examples, that the understandings of the women, are not
inferior to those of the men, even for the attainment of the most
difficult sciences. This is the best method, which can be fallen upon
to convince the vulgar, who are generally more influenced by examples,
than arguments. To recite all that occur, would be tiresome, and
therefore, I shall only mention some of those women, who, in these
latter ages, have been the most eminently distinguished for their
learning, and who have flourished in our own country Spain, and in the
neighbouring kingdoms.
CVIII. Spain, which strangers hold cheap in this particular, has, to
the honour of literature, produced many women, remarkably eminent for
all sorts of learning. The principal ones are the following.
CIX. _Donna Anna de Cervaton_, lady of honour to the Germanic Queen
de Fox, second wife of Don Ferdinand the Catholic; she was a most
celebrated woman, but more so on account of her learning and rare
talents, than for her uncommon beauty, which was so striking, that she
was generally allowed to be the finest woman about the court. In Lucio
Marino Siculo, may be seen the Latin letters which that author wrote
her, and the lady’s answers in the same idiom.
CX. _Donna Isabel de Joya_, in the sixteenth century, was esteemed a
woman of great learning. It is told of her, that she preached in the
church of Barcelona, to the amazement of a great concourse of auditors.
I suppose the prelates who permitted it, judged that the injunction of
the Apostle, which in the First Epistle to the Corinthians, prohibits
women to speak in the church, admitted of some exceptions, in the
same manner the injunction did, which prohibits them to teach in
the Epistle to Timothy; for it is a fact, that Priscilla, who was
the companion of this same apostle, taught and instructed Apollo
Pontonicusin the evangelic doctrine, as appears from the Acts of the
Apostles; and that afterwards passing to Rome in the pontificate
of Paul III. she, in the presence of the cardinals, much to their
satisfaction, explained many of the difficult passages in the books of
the subtile Scotus; but what redounded most of all to her honour, was
her having converted in that capital of the world, a great number of
Jews to the catholic faith.
CXI. _Luisa Sigea_, a native of Toledo, but of French extraction,
besides being skilled in philosophy, and sound literature, was
ornamented in a singular manner, with a knowledge of languages, for she
understood Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, and Syriac; and it is said,
she wrote a letter to pope Paul III. in each of these languages. Her
father, Diego Sigea, being afterwards called to the court of Lisbon,
as preceptor to Theodosius of Portugal duke of Braganza; the infanta
Donna Maria of Portugal, daughter of the king Don Manuel, and of his
third wife, Donna Leonora of Austria, who was a great lover of letters,
took much pleasure in the company of the learned Sigea; who afterwards
married with Francisco de Cuevas, the Lord of Villanasur, and a
cavalier of Burgos, from which marriage, as Don Luis Salazar informs us
in his history of the house of Farnese, there descended a fine progeny,
which are now living in Castile.
CXII. _Donna Oliva Sabuco de Nantes_, a native of Alcaraz, was a
woman of sublime penetration, and of an elevated genius, eminent for
her knowledge of physical, medicinal, moral, and political matters,
as may be seen by her writings; but the thing which most illustrated
and distinguished her, was her new phisiological system, where, in
opposition to all the antients, she maintained, that it is not the
blood which invigorates the body, but a white fluid issuing from the
brain, which pervades the whole nervous system; and she attributes
almost all disorders to this vital dew being vitiated. This system,
which the incuriosity of Spain neglected, the curiosity of England
embraced with eagerness, and now we receive from the hands of strangers
as their invention, that, which in reality was originally our own.
Fatal genius of Spaniards, who, in order that what is produced in
their own country should seem pleasing to them, must have it first
monopolized by strangers, and afterwards by those strangers sold to
them again. It seems also, that this great woman was beforehand with
Renard Descartes, in broaching the opinion, that the brain was the
seat of the rational soul, though she did not, like Descartes, confine
its habitation to the pineal gland only, but supposed it to occupy
the whole substance. The confidence which Donna Oliva had in her
own abilities to defend her singular opinions, was such; that in an
epistle-dedicatory addressed to count Barajas, president of Castile,
she intreats him to use his authority, to convene together the most
learned natural philosophers, and doctors of medicine in Spain, and
that she would undertake to convince them, that the physics, and
medicinal doctrines, which were taught in the schools, went all on
erroneous principles. She flourished in the reign of Philip II.
CXIII. _Donna Bernarda Ferreyra_, a Portuguese lady, the daughter
of Don Ignatio Ferreyra, a knight of the order of St. Jago, besides
knowing and speaking with ease various languages, understood poetry,
rhetoric, philosophy, and the mathematics. She left many poetical
writings; and our famous Lopez de Vega, had such a veneration for the
extraordinary merit of this lady, that he dedicated to her his elegy,
intituled La Philis.
CXIV. _Donna Juana Morella_, a native of Barcelona, was a woman of
wonderful learning. Her father having killed a man, was obliged to
fly, and carried her with him into Lyons in France, where this
extraordinary child, betaking herself to study, made so rapid a
progress, that at twelve years of age (which was in the year 1607)
she defended conclusions in philosophy publicly, which she afterwards
committed to writing, and dedicated to Margaret of Austria, queen of
Spain. At the age of seventeen, according to the relation of Guidon
Patin, who lived at that time, she entered upon public disputations in
the jesuits college at Lyons. She understood philosophy, music, and
jurisprudence, and it is said, that she spoke fourteen languages. She
took the veil, in the Dominican convent of saint Præxedis at Avignon.
CXV. The celebrated nun of Mexico, _Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz_, is so
well known to every body by her learned and ingenious poetical works,
that it is needless to say any thing in her eulogium. I shall only
mention, that the least of her accomplishments was her talent for
poetry, although that was the thing, for which she was most celebrated.
Many Spanish poets have been superior to her in point of poetical
genius, but perhaps no one has equalled her, with regard to her
universal knowledge, in all kinds of faculties. Her poetry was natural,
but she wanted energy. In the critical part of the sermon of father
Viera, he gives her credit for her ingenuity; but to speak the truth,
she was not equal in that respect, to that learned jesuit himself, of
whom she was the opponent: nor is there any thing extraordinary, in a
woman’s being found inferior to a man, who, for elevation of thought,
reasoning with perspicuity, and explaining himself with clearness, has
not yet been equalled by any preacher whatever.
CXVI. The panegyric of the late _duchess of Aveiro_, is also needless,
as her memory is still recent at court, and all over Spain.