In Praise of Women

Giovanni Sabadino degli Arienti’s Gynevera de le clare donne, a manuscript collection of 31 female biographies, completed in early 1492, aimed to defend, and even to normalize, the exercise of political authority by elite women. Based loosely on Giovanni Boccaccio’s De mulieribus claris, but written in Italian, not Latin, it departed radically from its model by excluding women who had acquired notoriety through wickedness or been undone by the supposedly innate failings of their sex. Instead, it focused on those who had achieved worldly renown through remarkable, but always virtuous, conduct. This essay analyzes the cultural and political context of this text and why it found favor with women such as the young Isabella d’Este, marchioness of Mantua.