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· Glorification of Women in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries ·
· Their New Cult of Knowledge ·
· Bitisia Gozzadina ·
· Ideals of the Early Poets ·
· Dante · Petrarch · Boccaccio · Medieval Saints ·
· Catherine of Siena · Women in Universities ·
· Precocious Girls · Olympia Morata ·
· Women Poets · Veronica Gambara ·
· Vittoria Colonna ·
· High Moral Tone of Literary Women ·
· An Exception · Tullia d’Aragona ·
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I
There was a curious book written early in the sixteenth century by a
savant of Cologne, on “The Superiority of Women over Men.” It was one
out of many that were devoted to the glorification of the long-secluded
sex, but its title serves to indicate the nature of the epidemic of
eulogies that raged more or less for nearly two hundred years after
Boccaccio set the fashion. This he did by singing the praises of the
great heroines he brought out from the shadows of the past to adorn the
pages of his “Illustrious Women.” It seemed as if men had been struck
with a sudden remorse for the unkind things they had been saying about
women since the dawn of the world, and were trying to make amends by
putting them, theoretically at least, on a pinnacle of glory. Some
celebrated their beauty, others their virtues, and still others their
talents, while a few did not stop short of awarding them all the graces
and perfections. Paul de Ribera published “The Immortal Triumphs and
Heroic Enterprises of Eight Hundred and Forty-five Women,” which was
comprehensive if not convincing. Hilarion of Coste devoted two large
volumes to eulogies of women of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries,
finding nearly two hundred to put into his Temple of Fame. What their
special claims to glory may have been I do not know beyond the fact
that they were pious and devout Catholics. One man who had contended
for the equality of the sexes tried afterward to refute himself;
but his recantation was half-hearted, as he confessed his private
conviction that logic was against him.
Cardinal Pompeo Colonna takes it upon himself to demolish the old
creed that a woman is an inferior creature, convenient in the house,
but unfit for any large responsibility. He proves her capacity for
public life by many examples, treats lightly the plea of the moral
dangers that would beset her, and shows what men become when left
to their own devices. After giving exalted praise to the masterful,
accomplished women of his time, he cites his beautiful cousin, the
“divine Vittoria,” as a living model of talent and strength, as well as
of virtue, magnanimity, and devotion. More pointed and concise, though
less definite, was Monti, a famous Roman prelate, who said: “If men
complain of seeing themselves equaled or surpassed by women, so much
the worse for them. It is because they are not worthy of their wives.”
The climax of praise was reached in a work written to prove that women
are “nobler, braver, more tactful, more learned, more virtuous, and
more economical than men.” Such a pitch of adulation could hardly be
maintained without a protest, and there were a few men ungallant enough
to say that the best proof of their own sovereignty was the effort
needed to combat it.
It is pleasant to record that the most ardent champions of feminine
ability were men of more than ordinary caliber. As men rarely
exaggerate the talents of women, though they sometimes make goddesses
of them, we may safely conclude that their pictures were not overdrawn
on that side. Truth, however, compels me to say that some of the
eulogists were accomplished courtiers with special appreciation of
queens and princesses who might make or mar their fortunes; also that
this complaisance was by no means universal. Whether the satirists,
novelists, and minor poets found the wicked more effective, from a
dramatic point of view, than the good, as many of their successors
do to-day, or the sensual age was more interested in pretty sinners
than in saints, it is certain that these writers paid scant honor to
women, and delighted to put them in the worst light, though satire
was in the main directed against the ignorant and the frivolous, not
against the intelligent or the strong. Even Montaigne refused to
look upon a woman otherwise than as a useful but inferior animal,
though he inconsistently chose one of these “inferior animals” as his
confidante and literary executor, because she was the “only person
he knew in whose literary judgment he could confide.” The scholarly
Erasmus said she was “a foolish, silly creature, no doubt, but amusing
and agreeable.” He was happy in the belief that “the great end of
her existence is to please men”; but he pays his own sex a poorer
compliment than we should like to when he adds that “she could not do
this without folly.”
So much for the man’s point of view. But the women were not silent, and
a few glorified themselves as naïvely as some of their modern sisters
have done. If we ever had any doubts as to our own modesty they ought
to convince us of it. Lucrezia Marinelli, a clever Venetian and a
poet, defined herself quite clearly in a work entitled “The Nobleness
and Excellence of Women and the Faults and Imperfections of Men.”
As a comparison this seems rather unfair, but considering the fact
that men had for ages given themselves all the noble qualities and
women all the weak ones, they could not take serious exception to it.
Indeed, they evidently found it refreshing. It furnished them with a
new sensation, and was quite harmless on the practical side, as they
still held the reins of power. Marguerite of France, the brilliant and
lettered wife of Henry IV, tried to prove that women are very superior
to men, but, unfortunately, in her category of superiorities morals had
no place. Mlle. de Gournay was more generous, as well as more just, and
declared herself content with simple equality, though one cannot help
wondering how she settled that matter with her friend Montaigne. But
Mlle. Schurmann of Cologne thought that even this was going too far. It
seems as if she might fairly have claimed to be the peer of the average
man, since she spoke nine languages and was more or less noted as
painter, musician, sculptor, engraver, philosopher, mathematician, and
theologian. Just how much solid learning was implied in this formidable
list of accomplishments we cannot judge, but it is clear that there has
been a time before to-day when women aimed to know everything, though
there was a safeguard against shattered nerves in the fact that there
were not so many books to read nor so many brain-splitting problems
to solve. It is fair, however, to suppose that this learned lady did
not waste much time on clothes or five-o’clock teas. Louise Labé, the
poet and savante of Lyons, takes a more modern tone. In claiming
intellectual equality for women, she begs them not to permit themselves
to be despoiled of the “honest liberty so painfully won--the liberty of
knowing, thinking, working, shining.” In spite of her courageous words,
however, this paragon of so many talents and virtues, the glory of her
sex and the pride of her city, asserts herself in a half-deprecating
way, as if she were asking pardon for presuming to publish her little
verses, and shelters herself behind the admiring friends who are
willing to “take half the shame.” But she was a Frenchwoman, and her
day was not yet. Women had so long hidden their light, if they had any,
that it blinked perceptibly when exposed to the winds of heaven or the
more chilly breezes of masculine criticism.
It is needless to extend the list of writers on this subject, but it
is a long and remarkable one. The books would make rather interesting
reading to-day, whatever we might think of their quality, as problems
familiar to us were pretty thoroughly if not always ably discussed,
and apparently with great good nature. A distinguished Frenchman, well
known in the salons of the eighteenth century, unearthed a great many
curious facts and opinions hidden away in these books, which are now
mostly buried too deep in the dust of old libraries for resurrection,
and his own wise and quite modern conclusions entitled him to more
consideration than he received from the women of his time. But this
rapid glimpse will suffice, perhaps, to show the spirit in which
latter-day questions were treated four or five centuries ago; also
to throw a strong light on the position of women during the period,
without very precise limits, known as the Renaissance--a period of
special interest to us, as it marks the dawn of a new era of feminine
intelligence.