FEMININE EDUCATION
There is probably no more interesting phase of Columbus' Century for
our time than its feminine education, for the education of women had a
period of important development in the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries which affected a very large number of women of the time and
afforded abundant opportunity to all those who wished to obtain the
highest intellectual culture. This was not, in spite of the apparently
very prevalent impression to that effect, the first time that women
had been given a chance to secure the higher education, for on the
contrary whenever there was a new awakening of educational interest,
women asked and obtained the privilege of sharing in it and showed how
thoroughly they could take advantage of such opportunities as were
afforded them. In the early days of the universities women had been
welcomed not only among the students but also the professors. They had
full charge of the department of women's diseases down in the south of
Italy where the most important part of the university was the medical
school, and then later at Bologna they had been professors in every
department,--in law, when the law school was the central university
feature, in mathematics, in literature, even in anatomy. As a
consequence of the tradition thus established there has never been a
century since the twelfth in which there have not been distinguished
women professors at some of the Italian universities.
Earlier when Charlemagne was reorganizing education on the continent
with the help of the Irish and English monks, the women of the court
attended the palace school as well as the men, and we have many
records of their interest. The women of the Benedictine monasteries
shared the interest of the Benedictines generally in literature, made
many copies of books, possessed large and important libraries and even
{314} became distinguished as writers. Hroswitha, the nun dramatist of
the tenth century, who came into prominence in Columbus' Century
because of the issuance of an edition of her work by Celtes, the
German Renaissance humanist, is but one example of the literary
interest in the Benedictine convents which must have been ardent and
widespread. Later we have the works of the great Abbess Hildegarde,
who wrote on many subjects and who was probably the most important
writer of her time. This is certainly true so far as physical sciences
are concerned. St. Bernard, who was her contemporary, has enjoyed more
reputation in subsequent generations than Hildegarde but she was
almost as well known in her own as the great founder of the
Cistercians.
Earlier still than Charlemagne or the foundation of the convent
schools St. Brigid had established a college for women at Kildare, in
Ireland, to which there came many of the nobility not only of Ireland
itself but also of England and of the neighboring shores of Europe,
seeking the opportunity for higher education. We have learned more of
the details of this Irish phase of feminine education in recent years,
and it has grown ever more and more important in the history of
education.
At every new phase of educational development, then, the women had had
their share in the movement, and it is not surprising that when the
Renaissance brought with it that deep interest in the ancient
classics, that was known as the New Learning, women also had their
share in this. The very first of the great Italian teachers of the
Renaissance Vittorino da Feltre insisted that there should be two
conditions for his teaching. One was that the young women should be
allowed to take advantage of it as well as the young men and the other
that the poor who desired to study should not be denied access to his
classes. The magnificent success that he made of education at Mantua
was soon followed by similar movements in other Italian cities and
everywhere the tradition of feminine education for those who desired
to have it, came into existence. Guarino's influence for feminine
education is only less than that of Vittorino. As a consequence there
was not a city of any importance in Italy in which there were not some
women {315} noted for their knowledge of the classics and their
interest in the New Learning, and in many of the cities there were
distinguished woman students who, even in their early years, exhibited
scholarly qualifications that made them famous.
Vittorino da Feltre, the great teacher of the beginning Renaissance,
had during the first half of the fifteenth century a school at Mantua,
where on the border of the lake he was teaching a group of noble
youths and maidens according to the high ideals of education which he
has so well laid down. Their course of study included Latin, Greek,
philosophy, mathematics, grammar, logic, music, singing and dancing.
Besides this, however, his scholars were taught "to live the simple
life, to tell the truth and to remember that true scholarship was
inseparable from virtue and a sense of lofty gratitude towards the
Creator." As might have been expected from the Greek traditions of
education, which were then attracting so much attention, the training
of the body was not neglected and various outdoor games were insisted
on so that there might be a healthy mind in a healthy body.
Some of the traditions of that school at Mantua make very interesting
reading and show how much some of the intervening periods in the
history of education degenerated from those early days. For instance,
we hear that not infrequently when Vittorino wanted to make a passage
of Virgil impressive his scholars were taken out to Pietole, which has
been identified as probably the village of Andes, in which, according
to Donatus, Virgil was born, and here in the shady groves Virgil would
be read and discussed and then there would be games and a return to
the castle. While Vittorino was broad in his selections in the classic
authors, and Virgil and Cicero and Homer and Demosthenes were read
with explanations and then certain passages required to be learned by
heart so as to form their style, he was no pedant and no friend of any
exhibition of mere erudition. His most important bit of advice for his
students was "First be sure that you have something to say, then say
it simply." No wonder one of the D'Estes declared "that for virtue,
learning and a rare and excellent way of teaching good manners, this
master surpassed all others."
{316}
It would be easy to think that perhaps the young noblewomen of the
time got but a very superficial knowledge of the classics, but we have
a tradition of Cecilia Gonzaga, the daughter of the reigning house of
Mantua and Vittorino's favorite pupil, that she could read Chrysostom
at the age of eight and could write Greek with singular purity at the
age of twelve. No wonder we hear of her later as the marvel of the
age. Evidently all prejudice with regard to feminine education was at
an end when Bembo said: "A girl ought to learn Latin, it puts the
finishing touch to her charm."
Sandys in his Harvard lectures on the Revival of Learning, has told
the story of some of these young women scholars of Vittorino da Feltre
and Guarino with some interesting details which show that success in
scholarship did not prove an inflater of vanity in the young women of
the time nor impair their religious spirit.
"Women, as well as men, retained a grateful remembrance of the
intellectual training, which they had received from Guarino and
Vittorino. Vittorino's pupil, Cecilia Gonzaga, a daughter of the
ruling house of Mantua, whose fresh and simple grace may be admired
in the medallion of Pisanello, was already learning Greek at the age
of seven; while, among the pupils of Guarino, Isotta Nogarola was
skilled in Latin verse and prose, and quoted Greek and Latin authors
in the course of those learned letters to her tutor, which were not
entirely approved by the public opinion of Verona. In cases such as
these, the studious temper was often associated with retiring habits
and with strong religious feeling; and, like Baptista dei Malatesti,
the former correspondent of Leonardo Bruni, both of these learned
ladies ultimately took the veil."
While so much attention was paid to the classics, the great Italian
authors were not neglected and the Italian girls of the Renaissance
were brought up to know the classic literature of the vernacular. It
was the custom to have Dante and Petrarch and Ariosto read to them
while they were doing embroidery, and these charming young women of
the Renaissance in every country in Europe had the reputation for
doing most wonderful embroidery. They also learned to play on {317}
various musical instruments, and their voices were cultivated to the
best possible advantage. It is often a source of wonder where they got
the time to do all these things. Some of the letters from the French
and Spanish ambassadors at these various Italian courts tell of the
marvellous ability of these charming young women. As a rule the
ambassador's idea in writing such descriptions was to suggest the
possibility of marriages being arranged between the scions of the
noble houses of their own countries with these women. It was rather
important, therefore, that there should not be much exaggeration or
the ambassador might well be discredited.
It is easy to think that with all this of intellectual life the young
women of the time must have had very little exercise, especially in
the outer air, and above all must not have indulged in what we think
of as sport. The story of Vittorino da Feltre's school is a
contradiction of this, and besides the traditions that have come to us
show that every young woman of the nobility learned to ride horseback
at this time. All of them could ride boldly. They hunted and many of
them went hawking. Riding was of course an absolutely necessary
accomplishment at that time, for carriages were very rare, and such as
there were were almost impossibly uncomfortable for long journeys.
Good roads had not as yet been made outside of the towns, and the only
way to go visiting friends at any distance was on horseback. Many of
these young women had to travel long distances, especially at the time
of their marriage, and later on they sometimes accompanied their
husbands on rather long journeys.
In spite of their reputation for scholarship, we have not any very
serious remains of their intellectual efforts, and yet some of them
wrote poetry and prose well above the average in merit, and at least
in Italy their works are still read by students of Italian literature.
For instance, we have the poems of Lucretia de Medici, the mother of
Lorenzo the Magnificent, who had been one of the Tornabuoni family,
merchant princes of Florence, with many of the solid virtues of the
middle class from which she sprang. Tradition tells us that she was
ever her great son's most trusted councillor, and he has left it on
record that he thought her the wisest. She was {318} noted for her
princely alms, her endowment of poor convents, her dowries to orphan
girls, and though it has sometimes been said that these were all so
many bids for popularity, any such discount of her good works wrongs
her deeply, for she was profoundly religious, took particular care to
bring up her children piously, and it is to the fact that she wrote
hymns for them that we owe the poetic works that have come to us and
which rank high among this form of poetry.
The best known of these women of the Renaissance, that is, the most
famous for their learning, were the sisters D'Este, Isabella and
Beatrice, of whom we have so many interesting traditions. The famous
Battista Guarino of Verona was chosen as teacher for the girls, and
with him they learned to read Cicero and Virgil and study the history
of Greece. They learned Italian literature from the many distinguished
literary men, some of them themselves gifted poets, who came to the
beautiful palace and its gardens at Ferrara, and were welcomed by the
well-known patron of learning, the Duke of Ferrara. They learned to
read French at least and to enjoy Provencal poetry. Their mother,
Leonora of Aragon, the daughter of Ferdinand, or as he is sometimes
called, Ferrante, King of Naples, was herself a scholarly woman. The
traditions of scholarship at the Court of Naples were deep, and of
long duration. As their father was the famous scholar and patron of
learning, Duke Ercole I, there was a precious heritage of culture on
both sides. Their mother, however, was more known for her piety even
than for her learning, though this was so noteworthy as to be
historical. Her charities made her looked up to by all of her people
until it is not surprising that the chroniclers of her time speak of
her as a saint.
[Illustration: BELLINI, MADONNA, ST. CATHERINE AND MARY MAGDALEN
(VENICE)]
Often it is said that only a few of the daughters of the nobility had
the opportunity for the higher education, and it is even the custom to
declare that most of these were instances where fathers had expected
sons instead of daughters and then raised the girls as companions and
gave them the education that ordinarily was reserved for boys. George
Eliot's picture of the times as given in "Romola," has sometimes
emphasized this, and she herself seems not to have been quite able to
persuade herself that there were liberal and abundant {319}
opportunities for the education of women in Italy towards the end of
the fifteenth century. It was so difficult in her (George Eliot's)
time for a woman to obtain education that it was almost impossible to
bring oneself to think of ample facilities existing nearly four
centuries before. Anyone who reads Burckhardt, however, or indeed any
of the modern writers on the Renaissance, will not be likely to think
that education was reserved for single daughters of families, or that
they indeed had any better opportunities than others except for the
fact that family attention was centred on them as it is now.
Burckhardt notes that it was especially the wives and daughters of the
_condottieri,_ that is, of the hired leaders of armies, the self-made
men of the time, who were lifting themselves up into positions of
prominence, who were the most frequent among the educated women of the
Renaissance.
The records are complete enough to show that there was probably as
much, if not more, feminine education in Italy at least than in our
own time. This will probably be hard for many people to believe, but,
as I have said, no important city was without it. What may be called
the important cities of that time nearly all contained less than
100,000 inhabitants and many of them had not more than ten to twenty
thousand. When one finds schools for the higher education of women in
every one of these it is easy to understand how widely diffused the
feminine movement was. Lest it should be thought that the education
provided for or allowed the women of the time was narrow in its scope,
with so many limitations that intellectual development in the true
sense of the word was hampered, it may be as well to recall that women
were even encouraged in the public display of their talents. We read
of the young princesses and their court attendants taking part in
Latin plays given before the Pope and other high ecclesiastics, as
well as visiting rulers at this time. We have the story of Ippolita
Sforza saluting Pope Pius II, who had been the scholarly AEneas
Sylvius before his elevation to the pontificate, with a graceful Latin
address when he came to the Congress at Mantua. Another of the
oratorical princesses of the time was Battista Montefeltro, who is
famous for addresses delivered on many important occasions.
{320}
While the D'Estes have been probably better known, historians declare
that the women of the House of Gonzaga reached the highest excellence
in this Renaissance period of feminine education. Everywhere, however,
woman received the opportunity for whatever education she desired.
Down in Naples the old Greek traditions had survived, and when the
disturbance of the Grecian Empire by the Turks brought about a
reawakening of Greek culture in the south of Italy, the women shared
it as well as the men. At the Court of Joanna or Giovanna, whose
career is of special interest as an anticipation of the ill-fated
Mary, Queen of Scots, many of the women reached high intellectual
distinction. It is to these lofty Neapolitan educational influences
that we owe the intellectual development of Vittoria Colonna.
Everywhere, however, the same story might be told. At Rome, at
Florence, at Verona, at Padua, even at Forli and Ravenna and Rimini,
as well as at Genoa, though Genoa was so much more intent on making
money than developing its culture, the women took excellent advantage
of the opportunities for learning, often proved to be more successful
in their studies than their brothers, and though they did not
accomplish much that was to endure in the intellectual life, they seem
to have been thoroughly respected by their contemporaries and looked
up to as cultured, scholarly personalities.
In his "Heroines of Genoa and the Rivieras," Edgcumbe Staley [Footnote
27] has said something of the productivity of the literary women even
of Genoa during this period. Genoa was known as probably more
interested in mere luxury and less interested in the intellectual life
for its own sake than any of the cities of Italy with which we are
familiar. The Genoese were the merchant princes whose wives and
children, like our own, were much more occupied with the display of
their wealth than in the development of a taste for art and letters
and the cultivation of a true critical faculty. I have already
mentioned some of the products of the Genoese intellectual life among
women, however, and this will add to the impression that I think is so
true that in proportion to the population there were just as many
women interested in education and in {321} literature, women writers
and poets in that time as there are in our own. Mr. Staley said:
[Footnote 27: Scribner & Sons, New York.]
"Among the glittering bevies of intellectual and virtuous damsels,
who delighted in the beauties and revelled in the romances of the
Villetta di Negro and similar pleasures, were such _gentildonne_ as
Peretta Scarpa-Negrone and Livia Spinola, who wrote poems of the
heart and the home; Benedetta--Livia's sister--and Caterina
Gastadenghi--she sang and played the folk songs of Liguria; Leonora
Cibo and Pellegrina Lescara, sweet translators of the 'Aeneid' of
Virgil and the 'Odes' of Horace."
These educated women of the Renaissance were particularly noted for
the application of their education to the concerns of their home.
Their artistic taste was exercised, as we have already shown, in
selecting various ornaments for it and in directing artists in its
decoration. They did not have many art objects around them, but what
few there were had been made as a rule by distinguished artists and
represented something of the personality of the mistresses of the
household. But it must not be thought that they devoted themselves
exclusively to the cult of beauty in things. They realized their
influence for good over the men of their time and exercised it. The
example of Vittoria Colonna is often cited in this regard, but not
because it is exceptional, rather what was characteristic. These
educated women of the Renaissance were model wives and mothers. They
were sedulous for the education of their children, and the poetry that
we have from them, or the letters that have been preserved, and which
show very clearly their high intellectual development, were meant for
their children or for their relatives. Their homes were evidently
always their first thought. They planned their own dresses, often
executed some of the decoration for them, or had them designed or made
under their direction, bought beautiful books for the home, encouraged
the illuminators and the embroiderers and beautiful needleworkers of
the time, and in general proved to be ready and able to help through
their households to give opportunities for the artists, but also for
the artisans and the arts and crafts workers of the time.
We find a number of their names on the list of Aldus' {322} regular
customers at Venice, his subscribers, who made it possible by assuring
him at least the cost of his books to go on with his magnificent
editions of the classics. We have letters in which they complain of
the cost of these first editions because there were other household
expenses to be met, but undoubtedly they were always greatly helpful
in the educational cause.
Most interesting perhaps of all that they did is the beautiful
gardens, which, now that our generation through better transportation
facilities is able to live out of town, are coming to be more properly
appreciated than before. The Renaissance gardens have been the subject
of much writing and illustration in our magazines and books in recent
years, and it must not be forgotten that we owe them above all to the
women of the Renaissance. They invited artists and architects, who
designed them, and trained landscape gardeners to execute them, but it
was their interest that was most important. Their gardens came to be
an enlargement of their houses, and in the sunny land of Italy
afforded many refuges for pleasant living, even in the warmest
weather, and for the privacy of even their crowds of guests, which
made their homes welcome repairs for the nobility of the time.
Perhaps the best criterion of the thoroughness of the education given
women at this time is the influence exerted by the women of the period
on art and artists and literary men of the time, and above all the
cultivated taste displayed in their homes. A typical example is
afforded by Isabelle D'Este whose _camerini_, her private apartments,
are reproduced at South Kensington and described in one of their
manuals on Interior Decoration in Italy in the fifteenth century and
the sixteenth century. As these decorations for the dowager Duchess
D'Este were made just about the middle of Columbus' Century, the
authoritative description of them will be the best document. The
Museum of South Kensington has had one side of her painting room
reconstructed, and it shows, as no mere description could, the beauty
of the apartment and the taste of its owner.
A quotation from the description of the three rooms as given in the
South Kensington Art Handbook "Italian Wall Decorations of the
Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries" will {323} serve better than any
praise to give an idea of the charming retreat that Isabella made for
herself when her position as Dowager Duchess gave her the leisure as
well as the opportunity to devote herself to the construction of a
retreat which should reflect her personality.
"The 'Grotta,' on the ground floor of the old Palazzo Bonnacolsi,
remained set apart for her collections of art and for receptions;
princes on their travels, ambassadors on their missions, travellers
of distinction and artists came to visit her. She accumulated in it
statues and rare objects, and even added a 'Cortile,' with fountains
playing during the summer. But the three new rooms at the top of the
'Paradiso' became the object of her predilection, and it is amidst
such surroundings, the real 'paradise' of Isabella D'Este, that
historians must place her portrait.
"The first room was dedicated to music, the favorite pursuit of
Isabella. The cupboards were filled with beautiful instruments:
mandolines, lutes, clavichords inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and made
specially for her by Lorenzo of Pavia; and here stood the famous
organ by the same master, the description of which is to be found in
the princess's correspondence. Round the walls of this first room
were reproduced views of towns in 'intarsia' of rare woods, and on
one of the panels figured a few bars of a 'Strambotto,' composed by
Okenghem to words dictated by Isabella, and signed by that famous
singing master. On the ceiling was the 'Stave,' which exists in the
coat-of-arms of the House of Este, and along the cornices friezes
were formed of musical instruments carved in the wood.
"In the second room, devoted to painting and also to study, six
masterpieces by the greatest painters of the time adorned the walls
above the panelling.
"The third room was reserved for receptions. Everywhere in the
ceiling, in the compartments, in the friezes (delicately carved in
gilded stucco upon an azure background) are found the devices
commented on at length by the humanists of her court: 'Alpha and
Omega' and the golden candlestick with seven branches, on which a
single light has resisted the effects of the wind, with the motto,
_'Unum sufficit in tenebris;'_ and {324} everywhere is to be read
the mysterious motto of which she was so proud, _'Nec Spe nec
Metu,'_ the highest resolution of a strong mind, which henceforth
'without hope, without fear,' ended in solitude a tormented life. In
the recess of the thick wall slightly raised above the floor,
Isabella placed her writing table within reach of the shelves
containing her favorite books; while she read there or wrote those
letters addressed to the poets and artists of Italy, overflowing
with enthusiasm for arts and letters, when she lifted her eyes
beyond the tranquil waters at the mouth of the Po, towards
Governolo, she would see coming the gilded Bucentaur with the
coat-of-arms of Ferrara, which brought her news of her family,
D'Este, and that of Aragon."
Lucretia Borgia at Ferrara not only continued the tradition of
aesthetic good taste so characteristic of the D'Este family into which
she had married, but even her years as mistress of the palace at
Ferrara mark an epoch in its history. She succeeded in securing the
services of some of the greatest of the artists of this wonderful
period, who came and contributed to the decoration of her private
apartments. Unfortunately her _camerini,_ private apartments, in the
Castello Rosso of Ferrara were destroyed by fire in 1634. They had
been adorned with paintings by Bellini, Titian and Dosso Dossi, fitted
into recesses of white marble carved by Antonio Lombardi. These rooms
as elsewhere were of small size, real living rooms, reflecting the
character of the personal taste of the owner. They were sanctuaries of
art and of literature with selected libraries of chosen volumes in
fine bindings and of music with beautiful musical instruments.
Many of these women of the Renaissance in Italy were famous for their
devotion to works of charity. Indeed I know nothing that is more
admirable than the story of their care for the ailing poor. It is
often presumed that between their interest in education and literature
and the artists of the time, and above all their devotion to the
pleasures of dress and decoration, silks and jewels and perfumes, then
coming in so rapidly from the East, these women must have had very
little time for anything but selfish display of their personal beauty
or intellectual talent. The rapid accumulation of wealth, {325}
proportionally at least as great as in our time, might very readily be
supposed to direct them as it has many other generations from the more
serious side of life. The actual story of their lives is very
different. There were exceptions, who have unfortunately attracted
more attention than others, of whom little that is good can be said.
The proportion, however, who devoted themselves with a nobility of
soul that deserves to be commemorated to unselfish care for those who
needed it was very large. Mr. Staley in his "Heroines of Genoa" (p.
225) has a paragraph on this subject which well deserves to be
recalled, for it refers almost entirely to the women of Columbus'
Century, and it must not be forgotten that Genoa was much more of a
commercial city, with a more rapid rise in wealth, than any other in
Italy except possibly Venice, and the beautiful spirit of personal
service for the poor is therefore all the more admirable.
"Women in every age and land are prone much more to works of mercy
and religion; of such surely was 'the crown of daughters of
Genoa'--so-called by many writers. Benedettina Grimaldi, 'chaste,
self-denying, amiable, charitable, moderate in dress and personal
pleasures,' a munificent patroness of the great Ospedale di
Pammatone, nursed patients suffering from plague and leprosy and
endowed beds for their treatment and alleviation; Argentina,
daughter of Signore Opicio Spinola, and wife of the Marchese di
Monferrato: Violanta, daughter of Signore Gianandrea Doria; and
Isabella, daughter of Signore Luca Fiasco, and wife of Luchino,
Prince of Milan, were contemporaries in the beneficent field of
charity. Devoted to the offices of religion, they proved the
sincerity of their faith by their eleemosynary services to sick and
dying men and women in prison and to debased mariners in port.
Benevolent institutions were founded and endowed, under the style of
'Le Donne di Misericordia,' in 1478 and in 1497, 'La Campagnia del
Mantiletto'--'Wearers of the Veil,' by the munificence of
noble-hearted women. All these threw open to the suffering objects
of their regard the healthful pleasure grounds of their villas, and
it was no rare sight to find a lady, fashionably attired, seated
under the {326} colonnade of a temple, or beneath a shady tree,
talking to and cheering poor and friendless sufferers."
The names of the princesses who were prominent in the feminine
education of this time have led many to conclude that only women of
the higher classes were given the chance to be educated at this time.
To a certain extent this is true, but at all times it must be true,
for they alone have the leisure for the intellectual life. To recall
what the nobility of Italy were at this time is to appreciate better
the real situation. They were the successful merchant-bankers and
their descendants (as the House of Medici), leaders of victorious
armies, the scions of old families, who had made their influence felt
in the politics of their cities for from three, sometimes even less,
to ten, rarely more generations, the children of great navigators or
admirals, even of successful traders and manufacturers--as the glass
makers of Murano and the merchant princes of Genoa--in a word they
represented exactly the same elements of the population as our
better-to-do classes of to-day. It was the daughters of these who were
accorded and took so well at this time the opportunity for education
and culture.
Besides these there were not a few of what may be called the lower
classes who became famous for their scholarship. This had always been
true in Italy particularly. Catherine of Siena was a dyer's daughter.
Dante's inamorata and her companions, whom we think of as cultured
because of the poems addressed to them, were the daughters of men in
trade. But in the Renaissance the opportunities even for the
comparatively poor to obtain education were greatly widened, and it is
evident that any of the young women of the time who had the ambition
for learning might obtain it and undoubtedly many of them did. The
tradition created by Vittorino da Feltre, according to which women and
those of less means might obtain education, maintained itself and
proved the seed of further developments in the liberal provision of
opportunities for education for all classes.
[Illustration: PINTURICCHIO, HOLY FAMILY (SIENA)]
The names of a number of women scholars have come down to us who did
not belong to the higher nobility, and some of {327} their
achievements have become a part of the great tradition of scholarship
of the time. Alessandra Scala and Cassandra Fedele, for instance, were
among the most learned correspondents of Politian and were looked upon
as ladies with whom deep questions of scholarship might be discussed
seriously. Domitilla Trivulzio delivered Latin orations before
thronged assemblies and women orators were quite common. The tradition
that women should not speak in public did not obtain at all at this
time in Italy and we hear much of their eloquence. The impression so
prevalent at the present moment, that this is the first time in
history that women have dared to proclaim their rights publicly, is
quite erroneous and is founded on a deep ignorance of realities, with
a corresponding characteristic presumption of knowledge. Isotta of
Verona took part in public controversies with regard to the relative
value of men and women in life. It is strangely familiar to find that,
for instance, one of the subjects which she discussed was whether man
or woman was most to be blamed for what happened in the Garden of
Eden, and still more familiar to find that her argument was that man
was the responsible party. These learned women, however, were touched
also by the tender passion, and one of the most distinguished of the
feminine scholars, Veronica de Gambara, comes down to us in history as
a pattern of conjugal faithfulness, while Gaspara Stampa, the
distinguished poetess, according to tradition, died of love.
One of the little known scholars among the Women of the Renaissance,
who deserves a better fate than oblivion, is Olympia Morata, a
veritable prodigy of learning. She received most of her education at
the court of Duchess Renee at Ferrara. When she came, at the age of
twelve, to be the companion of the Duchess's daughter, she was already
familiar with Greek and Latin literature. This is surprising enough,
but her subsequent progress is even more remarkable. "At fourteen she
wrote Latin letters and essayed to imitate the dialogues of Cicero and
Plato. At sixteen she lectured at the University of Ferrara on the
Ciceronian Paradoxes" (Sandys). At twenty she married a good German,
of whom almost the only thing we know is that he was her husband, and
she {328} died at the early age of twenty-nine at Heidelberg. When her
literary remains were collected they were dedicated to one who was
reputed "the most learned lady of her age, Queen Elizabeth of
England."
The movement for the education of women of this time would have been
quite incomplete, however, if the women themselves had not taken part
in the organization of feminine education. In treating of "The Women
of the Century" I have already suggested that this important element
of feminine education was not lacking. There is abundant evidence of
the presence and enduring work of at least one great woman educator,
in the sense of an organizer of educational methods, whose influence
has been continuously felt in many parts of the world ever since and
whose work is not only alive in our time but has shown its power to
adapt itself even to the needs and demands of the twentieth-century
woman. This is, after all, only what might be expected of an educator
of this time, since the other accomplishments of her contemporaries
have proved so lasting in their effects.
This very interesting woman of Columbus' Century, whose life is
comparatively little known, though her work occupies a very important
place in the history of education ever since, was Angela Merici, the
foundress of the Ursulines. When twenty years of age this daughter of
the lesser Italian nobility became convinced that the great need of
that time was the better instruction of young girls in Christian
doctrine and their training in a thoroughly Christian life. She
converted her home into a school, where at certain hours of the day
she gathered all the little girls of her native town of Desenzano, a
small municipality on the southwestern shore of Lake Garda in
Lombardy, and gave them lessons in the elements of Christianity. The
work, thus humbly begun, proved to have so many factors of worth in it
that it very soon attracted attention. Before long she was invited to
the neighboring city of Brescia to establish a similar school, but on
a much larger scale and more ambitious scope. She did so all the more
willingly because one day during her earlier life in the small town of
Desenzano she had had a vision in which it was revealed to her that
she was to found an association of young women {329} who would take
vows of chastity and devote their lives to the religious training of
young girls.
After years of patient waiting and thoughtful consideration of the
subject of organizing the education of young women and providing for
continuance of her work--the delay mainly due to the fact that Angela
feared that she might not be capable of accomplishing it properly--she
came to the establishment of a religious order that would take up this
service. When the constitutions which she had written were presented
to Paul III, the Pope, who in spite of his resolve not to increase the
number of religious orders, had felt compelled to approve the Jesuits
after reading their constitutions because, as he said, he perceived
"the finger of God is here"; also found himself forced to approve of
those written by Angela Merici, saying to St. Ignatius, the founder of
the Jesuits, as he did so, "I have given you sisters." What the
Jesuits did for the education of young men during the next two
centuries, the Ursulines did for the young women. They spread rapidly
until they had communities in all the Catholic countries of Europe,
and then houses were established beyond the seas in the Latin-American
countries and almost wherever missionaries succeeded in founding
churches. Mother Incarnation came to Quebec and is one of the most
wonderful women in the early history of the continent. That was before
the end of the seventeenth century. At the beginning of the eighteenth
(1726) they established a house in New Orleans.
When persecutions came the Ursulines were, as a rule, picked out as an
object of special enmity by those who sought to injure the Church.
During the French Revolution they were the special butt of the
intolerance of the French Republic and gave many martyrs to the cause
of religion. When the Kulturkampf came in Germany they were as
specifically selected for banishment as the Jesuits, and indeed they
have nearly always shared the fate of the Jesuits in times of trial.
They have not been without special distinction by persecution even
here in America. Their convent was burned down at Charlestown in
Massachusetts during the bitter wave of feelings against the religious
orders that had been aroused among Protestants in 1835. Their house
was the very centre of {330} danger in the "Know Nothing" riots in
Philadelphia some twenty years later.
To-day, four centuries after their foundation, the institute is still
actively alive and doing its work in every part of the world. When the
first sisters elected Angela as their superior they asked that the
name of the institute should be the Angelines, after her own name. She
was shocked and insisted that, as their superior, she would require
them to take the name of Ursulines in honor of St. Ursula. With all
this humility, her personality was so pervasive that it still lives in
all her houses. There are schools for young women in many of the
States of the Union and in many parts of Canada. They are to be found
in distant Alaska, teaching within the Arctic Circle. There are
Ursulines under the equator, both on this continent, in Brazil and in
Africa. This is only another example of the sort of work that the
wonderful characters of Columbus' Century accomplished. Whatever they
did had a vital force in it that made it live and prove a stimulus and
an example to the generations and the centuries down to our own time.
Angela of Merici, though almost unknown outside of the Catholic
Church, was one of the very great women of the Renaissance. Probably
no woman of the time, not even St. Teresa, has had so wide and deep an
influence over succeeding generations as the retiring Angela of
Merici.
As might well be expected, the movement for feminine education which
was felt so strongly in Italy affected France to a scarcely less
degree. Indeed, there were much more intimate relations between the
nobility of the two countries and among the scholars of the time all
over Europe than is usually supposed. As all the scholarly writing was
done in Latin, the barrier of language was removed and educational
interests readily became very widely diffused. Early in Columbus'
Century, Queen Anne of Bretagne is famous for her insistence on
education for the women of the French Court. There was a school of
Latin at which they all attended, but besides they were expected to
know Italian as well as French, and while doing their needlework books
were read to them that were calculated to enrich their memories and
enhance their literary taste. Queen Anne believed very thoroughly in
the fullest of {331} intellectual development for women, and yet
insisted also on their duties as managers of their households, and
above all as home-makers in the best sense of the term. She knew the
dangers of merely intellectual education, and expressions of hers on
this subject are often quoted.
The court of Queen Marguerite of Navarre was at least as intellectual
as that of Queen Anne, and besides it had the advantage of the deeper
knowledge of the classics that had come in the meantime. Marguerite
encouraged literature, and herself contributed to it. She had the
large tolerance of mind of the educated woman and used it to protect
some of those who had fallen under the suspicion, so rife at the time
because of the religious troubles in Germany, of favoring or
attempting to teach heretical doctrines. As a consequence, she has
herself fallen under the suspicion of leanings towards heresy and
sympathy with the reformers. This was only, however, to the extent in
which that sympathy was shared by Erasmus and others of the time, who
saw the abuses that needed correction and hoped that the reform
movement would correct them, but who broke with it at once when they
realized that revolution and not true reformation was intended. The
correspondence between Vittoria Colonna and Marguerite is evidence at
once of the intimate relations of the learned women of different
countries and also of the sympathy existing between these two
scholarly women whose influence over their contemporaries meant so
much for the intellectual life of the time. The education given Mary
Queen of Scots, which is mentioned later in this chapter, shows how
much intellectual development was appreciated for the ruling classes
of the time in France.
There are certain expressions from some of these educated women,
especially those without much to do, that are wonderful anticipations
of some of the things that are heard very commonly now as regards the
attitude of educated women toward man's suppression of her in the
preceding time. How strangely familiar are these words from Louise
Labe, the French poetess of the middle class, one of whose poems of
passion will be found in the chapter on French literature. "The hour
has now struck," she declared, "when man can no {332} longer shackle
the honest liberty which our sex has so long yearned for, when women
are to prove how deeply men have hitherto wronged them." That
expression is not, however, any more familiar than one of the comments
of a masculine contemporary on this occupation of the educated women
of the time with political ideas, which is quoted by Miss Sichel in
her "Men and Women of the French Renaissance": "Political women go on
chattering as if it were they who did everything."
The women of the time, however, occupied themselves with practical
work of many kinds, and not merely with book-learning or political
scheming. There is a tradition of a feminine architect of the
Tuileries--Mlle. Perron (Porch) being her not inappropriate name. Many
Frenchwomen were particularly interested in the diffusion of education
among the poorer classes, and we have the story of many school
foundations. Mlle. Ste. Beuve, who founded a school and took up her
residence opposite to it, became very much interested in the pupils,
whom she called her "bees," and whom she encouraged by prizes and
distinctions of various kinds. After her death, by the request of the
scholars her place was set at table in their midst for the occasions
on which she used to come to them, for they felt that her spirit was
still with them. Mlle. Saintonge wanted to take up the work of
education, but was opposed by her father. She was very much
misunderstood, and at one time was stoned by the children on the
street. She began with the teaching of five little girls in a garret.
Ten years later she was brought in procession by all the people to the
great new convent school erected for her, because they realized now
how much her work was to mean and how thoroughly unselfish was her
devotion to the cause of education and uplift for their children. In
the course of the single century after the beginning of our period
over three hundred Ursuline schools were opened in France for the
education of girls, and the opportunities for education were greatly
extended.
Perhaps the greatest surprise for most people in our time is the fine
development of feminine education that took place in Spain during this
period. English-speaking people have, {333} as a rule, inherited
English prejudices with regard to Spain and are likely to be somewhat
in the position of asking, Has any good ever come out of Spain? As a
matter of fact, the century just after Columbus' Century belongs to
Spain for achievement in every department of intellectual and artistic
culture. Her literature, her painting, her philosophy, her educators
ruled the world of thought and aesthetics. For those who know
something of the high worth of Spanish achievement it is no surprise
to learn that education reached a high standard of development in the
peninsula during Columbus' Century and that, above all, feminine
education was magnificently organized, so that the intellectual
achievements of the women of this time deserve a high place in the
world's history. All this is mainly due to the influence of Isabella
of Castile, and has been known for as long as the history of this
period has been properly understood.
In his "History of Ferdinand and Isabella" Prescott has told the story
of the education and scholarship of Spain with words of high praise.
With regard to the feminine education of the time he said in the
chapter on "Castilian Literature" (Vol. II):
"In this brilliant exhibition, those of the other sex must not be
omitted who contributed by their intellectual endowments to the
general illumination of the period. Among them the writers of that
day lavish their panegyrics on the Marchioness of Monteagudo, and
Dona Maria Pacheco, of the ancient house of Mendoza, sisters of the
historian, Don Diego Hurtado, and daughters of the accomplished
Count of Tendilla, who, while ambassador at Rome, induced Martyr to
visit Spain and who was grandson of the famous Marquis of
Santillana, and nephew of the Grand Cardinal. This illustrious
family, rendered yet more illustrious by its merits than its birth,
is worthy of specification, as affording altogether the most
remarkable combination of literary talent in the enlightened court
of Castile. The queen's instructor in the Latin language was a lady
named Dona Beatriz de Galindo, called from her peculiar attainments
_La Latina_. Another lady, Dona Lucia de Medrano, publicly lectured
on the Latin classics in the University of Salamanca. And another,
Dona Francisca de Lebrija, {334} daughter of the historian of that
name, filled the chair of rhetoric with applause at Alcala. But our
limits will not allow a further enumeration of names which should
never be permitted to sink into oblivion, were it only for the rare
scholarship, peculiarly rare in the female sex, which they displayed
in an age comparatively unenlightened. Female education in that day
embraced a wider compass of erudition, in reference to the ancient
languages, than is common at present; a circumstance attributable,
probably, to the poverty of modern literature at that time, and the
new and general appetite excited by the revival of classical
learning in Italy. I am not aware, however, that it was usual for
learned ladies, in any other country than Spain, to take part in the
public exercises of the gymnasium, and deliver lectures from the
chairs of the universities. This peculiarity, which may be referred
in part to the queen's influence, who encouraged the love of study
by her own example as well as by personal attendance on the academic
examinations, may have been also suggested by a similar usage,
already noticed among the Spanish Arabs." [Footnote 28]
[Footnote 28: While Prescott's information with regard to the
education of Spanish women is very interesting, certain parts of
this passage are amusing because they represent mid-nineteenth
century ideas with regard to the Renaissance period. Prescott
talks of the age as "comparatively unenlightened," but then at
that time we had not taken to imitating Renaissance architecture,
studying Renaissance literature and art, copying Renaissance
book-making and binding, admiring the marvellous workers of the
Renaissance in every department and wondering how we could get
some of the superabundant intellectual and artistic life of that
time into ours. Prescott's complacency is typically American of
two generations ago. Since his time we have learned much more of
the old-time phases of feminine education as I have reviewed them
briefly at the beginning of this chapter. We have learned that
every country in Europe had a corresponding feministic movement to
that of Spain, with learned ladies in profusion everywhere. His
innuendo at the end of his paragraph on the subject that the
Spanish development was probably due to similar Arabian customs is
of a piece with that marked tendency in his time to find any source
for good except Christianity. The Christian nations were supposed
to have done nothing worth while till the Reformation. The Middle
Ages were still the dark ages and men were supposed to have
accomplished nothing. I need scarcely say that we have changed all
that and that now the later Middle Ages are looked upon as one of
the most productive periods of human history.]
{335}
The English ladies of the Renaissance are quite as distinguished as
their sisters of Italy, France and Spain for their interest in
education and the intellectual life. The first one who deserves
mention was, though a Queen of England, a Frenchwoman by birth. This
was Margaret of Anjou, the wife of the unfortunate Henry VI. If her
husband had possessed half the spirit or administrative ability of his
wife, the future history of England might have been very different. As
it was, the failure of Margaret to secure the throne either for her
husband or her children, left it to the Tudors with all that their
tyranny meant for England and with the unfortunate religious
disturbances which came as a consequence of the headstrong ways of the
passionate descendants of the Welsh knight. Margaret founded Queen's
College, Cambridge, just about the beginning of Columbus' Century and
gave that example of enlightened patronage of learning which was to
bear ample fruit among the Englishwomen of the Renaissance during the
succeeding centuries. One of her successors, Queen Elizabeth
Woodville, who refounded Queen's College when it was threatened with
disaster because of the impairment of its endowment and efficiency by
the Wars of the Roses, is another of the enlightened patronesses of
learning at this time.
About the middle of Columbus' Century, Margaret Beaufort founded the
Divinity Lectureships of Oxford and Cambridge, since known as the
Margaret Lectureships. She refounded Christ's College and St. John's
College in Cambridge a few years later. She also founded a free school
at Wymbourn in Dorsetshire. Her own intellectual abilities and
education are attested by her translation of the "Imitation of Christ"
at this time. Her wise counsellor in all of her efforts for the
benefit of education was the martyred Bishop Fisher, who has left us a
panegyric of her which enables us to appreciate her place as one of
the distinguished learned women of the Renaissance. Like nearly all of
these women, she was interested not only in books, but also in
artistic work of many kinds and believed that an educated woman's
first duty must be the decoration of the home. She excelled in
ornamental needlework at a time {336} when a great many of the noble
ladies were accustomed to do this sort of art work and when many
beautiful examples of it were produced. Another member of the nobility
who became well known for her intellectual attainments was Mary,
Countess of Arundel, the compiler of "Certain Ingenious Sentences," a
collection of proverbial expressions that had a wide popularity at
this time.
Toward the end of our Century came the women on whom the Renaissance
had a more direct influence. A great many of the daughters of the
nobility were given the opportunity for the highest education, and
many of them took it very brilliantly. The names of the distinguished
women scholars, or at least of women who were noted for their
attainments, are numerous and include many even of royal blood.
Evidently feminine education had become the fashion, and many others
must have been interested in it since it affected the great ladies so
deeply. It would be quite impossible to think that what occupied so
much the attention of the daughters of the highest nobility would not
also prove a great attraction for many others. Perhaps the best known
of the "blue stockings" of the time is Lady Jane Grey, of whose
attainments we have so sympathetic an account from Roger Ascham. He
says that she was deeply read in philosophy, and that she knew Latin,
Greek, Hebrew, Chaldaic, Arabic and French. We are told that she cared
much more to read her Greek authors than to go to routs and parties,
or even to go hunting, which was the most fashionable amusement of the
time. Besides, she knew music well and was particularly skilled in
needlework. Indeed, there is none of these distinguished scholarly
women of England of whose devotion to needlework we do not hear.
Mary Queen of Scots comes at the very end of the century, and French
rather than English or Scotch influence was at work in her education,
but the roll of her distinguished teachers shows how seriously the
question of proper education for the future queen was taken at this
period. George Buchanan was her professor of Latin, she studied
rhetoric with Fauchet, history with Pasquier and poetry with Ronsard.
We have at least one very interesting Latin poem that has been {337}
attributed to her, and if the attribution be correct it is excellent
evidence for her scholarliness. [Footnote 29]
[Footnote 29:
"O Domine Deus!
Speravi in te;
O care mi Iesu!
Nunc libera me:
In dura catena,
In misera poena
Desidero te;
Languendo, gemendo,
Et genuflectendo
Adoro, imploro,
Ut liberes me!"
]
Her rival, Elizabeth, was only seventeen years of age when the century
closed, but this was also the age of Lady Jane Grey, when she was put
to death, yet we hear much of her attainments and Elizabeth was one of
her great scholarly rivals. Like Lady Jane, Elizabeth is said to have
known five languages and to have studied music, philosophy, rhetoric
and history to such good purpose that her accomplishments were much
more than mediocre or conventional. With these examples before us
there can be no doubt at all of the fashionableness of the higher
education for women, and whatever is fashionable attracts the
attention of all classes of women.
Probably the best example of the provision of opportunities for even
the highest education for women is to be found in Sir Thomas More's
household. He thought that his girls should share equally with his
boys in their opportunities for the new learning. His daughter
Margaret is quite famous for her attainments, Erasmus and others
having praised her so highly. She had a thorough knowledge of Greek
and Latin and much more than a passing or superficial acquaintance
with philosophy, astronomy, physics, arithmetic, logic, rhetoric and
music. The affection of her father for her, his encouragement of her
studies and the intimate relations between them have made her
illustrious not only in the history of feminine education, but in
world history. While near the end of his life More was Lord
Chancellor, his family was not of the higher nobility, and he himself,
as practically a self-made man, belonged only to the professional
classes of the time. It seems not far-fetched, then, to conclude that
a good many of the daughters of lawyers and physicians at this time
must have had abundant opportunities afforded them for as much
education as they cared to have, though of course they would {338} not
have the advantages of More's children, which were due, however, not
to his political importance, but to his friendship for the great
scholars of the time. While Margaret is so well known it must not be
forgotten, though we hear so much less of them, that More's two other
daughters were also very well educated. Leland, the antiquary, wrote
of "the three learned nymphs, great More's fair progeny." If so little
is known of More's other daughters, it is probable that there were not
a few others who had similar advantages to theirs, though no record of
it is in history.
Among the many demonstrations that this intellectual movement among
women was not confined to Italy, nor even to the Southern nations, is
the career of Charitas Pirkheimer, the Abbess of the Convent of the
Poor Clares in Nuremberg. She became famous as an educated woman with
whom many of the distinguished scholars of the Renaissance were proud
to be associated. Her brother Wilibald, who was her guide and teacher,
appreciated her so much that he dedicated several of his books to her,
and in the preface of one, "On the Delayed Vengeance of the Deity," a
Latin translation of Plutarch's treatise, he praises her education and
her successful devotion to study. More disturbed than astonished, she
protested that she was only the friend of scholars, but not herself a
scholar. When Conrad Celtes published his collection of the works of
Roswitha, he presented one of the first copies of the book to Charity
Pirkheimer, and in a eulogy written on that occasion lauds her as one
of the glorious ornaments of the German Fatherland. He enclosed a
volume of his poems at the same time, and the good abbess very
candidly asked him to devote himself rather to the study of the sacred
books and the contemplation of high things than to the study of the
sensual and low in the ancients. She was a great friend of Johann
Butzbach and of Albrecht Duerer. Christopher Scheurl dedicated to her
his book on "The Uses of the Mass," In his article in the Catholic
Encyclopedia, Klemens Loffler says of her: "But all the praise she
received excited no pride in Charitas; she remained simple, affable,
modest and independent, uniting in perfect harmony high education and
deep piety. It was thus she resisted the severe temptations which hung
over the last ten years of her life."
{339}
[Illustration: DUeRER NATIVITY ]
{340}
Some expressions of the women of the Renaissance are famous for their
wit and aptness. The famous reply of one of them, the Princess
Christina of Denmark, may be taken as evidence that witty power of
expression was not confined to the women of the Southern countries.
Her picture by Holbein, "The Lady with the Cloak," is so well known
that we seem to be able to recreate her personality rather completely.
She was approached by the ambassadors of Henry VIII after the death of
Jane Seymour with a proposal of marriage. Indeed, Holbein's picture
was made for the purpose of giving the uxorious Henry an idea of the
charms of the young woman. She was only eighteen at the time, but she
was already the widow of Francesco Sforza, and she is said to have
replied she would be quite willing to be the Queen of England if she
had two heads and could be sure of retaining one of them. As she had
only one, however, she could not take any risks in the matter. Julia
Cartwright's life of her, recently published, shows what a clever
woman of the Renaissance she was. Her reply is quite worthy of the
Italian ladies of the time, some of whom were noted for their rather
biting wit. One of the nobility in Italy having said that man's duty
was to fight and not to take part in social ceremonies, one of the
Gonzagas said; "It is too bad, then, that he does not hang himself up
in a closet with his armor whenever he is not actually engaged in
warfare."
It is often assumed that intellectual development, and especially the
higher education, has a tendency to take women away from that devout
attitude of mind which makes them religious. There are many examples
in the Renaissance time, however, which serve to disprove this idea.
The smaller and more superficial minds may be thus affected. It is not
true for the larger, more profound intelligence. St. Teresa, in her
directions to the Mothers of houses as regards the reception of
postulants, said: "Where there is ignorance and piety do not forget
that the piety may evaporate and the ignorance remain." Many of the
best-known intellectual ladies of the Renaissance time were deeply
pious, Vittoria Colonna is a typical example, so in spite of the
apparent testimony of her famous book to the contrary is Marguerite of
Navarre.
[Illustration: VIVARINI, ST. CLARE]
{341}
Lucretia Tornabuoni, the mother of Lorenzo the Magnificent, wrote some
charming religious verse. The difference of opinion between Clarice
dei Orsini, the wife of Lorenzo, and Politian as regards the teaching
of religion to her children, in which she came off victor, is well
known. Above all, these women were all close to the religious women of
the time. Many of them spent some days every year at least, often some
weeks, in favorite convents. They took their rest by following the
daily exercises of the monastic life in various convents. Vittoria
Colonna was noted for this, and during her widowhood spent very much
time in this way. Nothing that I know contradicts so completely the
slanders as to convent life at this time as these intimate relations
with the religious.
It is noteworthy that in our country and time, just in proportion as
education for women is widely diffused, the practice of more intimate
relations with convents grows more common. Many women of the world,
teachers, writers, take a few days each year now for a retreat in a
convent. Not a few of those who enter religion are very well educated.
A great many of those who belong to the teaching orders are thoroughly
trained, and often fine experts in their specialties. In the
Renaissance period the daughters of the great noble houses sometimes
entered religious orders. Not infrequently they met with opposition,
and especially parental and family influence was exerted to divert
them from their purpose. Paola and Cecilia Gonzaga both became
religious. There was considerable family opposition, especially on her
father's part, against Cecilia's accomplishment of her purpose, but
her great teacher, Vittorino da Feltre, one of whose favorite pupils
Cecilia was, took her side. When her father insisted on finding a
husband for her, Vittorino urged that women should be allowed to
choose their careers for themselves, and above all, if they felt the
call to the spiritual and intellectual life, should be given the
opportunity for the self-development that the peace and ordered life
of the cloister afforded.
Burckhardt has summed up the qualities of the women of {342} the
Renaissance in a single sentence, that is worth while recalling. So
much is said about the influence of the study of the classics in
producing pagan ideas and looseness of morals and relaxation of old
ethical standards during the Renaissance that it is well to recall
what this deep student of the time thought. His words will be found to
corroborate and sum up the character that we have been trying to paint
of the women of the Renaissance in these pages:
"Their distinction consisted in the fact that their beauty,
disposition, education, virtue and piety combined to make them
harmonious human beings."
{343}