Woman in Science Part 3

One of the most noted writers of her age was the famous nun of Gandersheim, Hroswitha, who was born in the early part of the tenth century. She was the pupil of the abbess Gerberg, who was of royal lineage, and one of the most zealous promoters of learning and culture in Saxony during the forty-two years of her rule in the convent to which she and her favorite pupil gave undying renown.

Hroswitha's literary work consists of legends and contemporary history in metrical form and of her dramas written in the style of Terence. As a writer of history and legends she ranks with the best authors of her time, while as a writer of dramas she stands absolutely alone. Hers, indeed, were the first dramatic compositions given to the world during the long interval that elapsed between the last comedies of cla.s.sic antiquity and the first of the miracle plays which had such a vogue between the twelfth and the sixteenth century.

Her dramas, which, of all her works, have attracted the most attention, are seven in number. They deal with the moral and mental conflicts which characterized the period of transition from heathendom to Christianity.

Some of them exhibit poetic talent of a high order as well as the inspiration and courage of genius. They reveal also a wide acquaintance with the cla.s.sic authors of Rome and Greece, besides a knowledge of many of the Christian writers. They are, likewise, distinguished by originality of treatment, complete mastery of the material used, as well as by genuine beauty of rhyme and rhythm. In form, all the plays preserve the simple directness of their model, Terence, while, in conception, they embody the n.o.blest ideals of Christian teaching. In marked contrast to her model, who invariably exhibits the frailties and lapses of woman, Hroswitha's plays turn on the resistance of her s.e.x to temptation, and on their steadfast adherence to duty and to vows voluntarily a.s.sumed. A recent English writer, W. H. Hudson, in an appreciative estimate of the work of this learned Benedictine nun expresses himself as follows:

"It is on the literary side alone that Hroswitha belongs to the cla.s.sic school. The spirit and essence of her work belong entirely to the Middle Ages; for beneath the rigid garb of a dead language"--she wrote in Latin--"beats the warm heart of a new era. Everything in her plays that is not formal but essential, everything that is original and individual, belongs wholly to the Christianized Germany of the tenth century.

Everywhere we can trace the influence of the atmosphere in which she lived; every thought and every motive is colored by the spiritual conditions of her time. The keynote of all her works is the conflict of Christianity with paganism; and it is worthy of remark that in Hroswitha's hands Christianity is throughout represented by the purity and gentleness of woman, while paganism is embodied in what she describes as the vigor of men--_virile robur_."[40]

Among her legends the one ent.i.tled _The Lapse and Conversion of Theophilus_ has a special interest as being the precursor of the well-known legend of Faust.

In Hroswitha's time, as in our own, there were people who were strongly opposed to the higher education of women. There were others who would deny them even the elements of an education--who declared that they should be taught anything rather than reading and writing, which were a cause of temptation and sin--that their knowledge should be confined solely to the duties of an ordinary housewife, that their books should consist solely of thimble, thread and needles--"_Et leurs livres, un de, du fil et des aguilles._" Some, it is true, were willing to make an exception in favor of nuns; but, as to all others, the less they knew the better it was for their spiritual, if not for their temporal, welfare also.[41] To those who were thus minded, Hroswitha pithily replied that it was not knowledge itself but the bad use of it that was dangerous--"_Nec scientia scibilis Deum offendit, sed injust.i.tia scientis._"

Among other women who were Hroswitha's equals in knowledge, if not in literary attainments, were several other nuns who illumined the closing centuries of the Middle Ages. Chief among these were St. Hildegard, "the sybil of the Rhine"; Herrad, the noted author of the _Hortus Deliciarum--Garden of Delights_--and Matilda and Gertrude, those remarkable mystical writers, whose descriptions of heaven and h.e.l.l so closely resemble those in the _Divina Commedia_ that many writers are of the opinion that the great Florentine poet must have been familiar with the accounts which they gave of their visions.

St. Hildegard was for a third of a century the abbess of the convent of St. Rupert at Bingen. So great was her reputation for sanct.i.ty and for the extent and variety of her attainments that she was called "the marvel of Germany." She is without doubt one of the most beautiful and imposing as well as one of the greatest figures of the Middle Ages--great beside such eminent contemporaries as Abelard, Martin of Tours and Bernard of Clairvaux. People from all parts of the Christian world sought her counsel; and her convent at Bingen became a Mecca for all cla.s.ses and conditions of men and women. But nothing shows better the immense influence which she wielded than her letters of which nearly three hundred have been preserved.

Among her correspondents were people of the humble walks of life as well as the highest representatives of Church and State. There were simple monks and n.o.ble abbots; dukes, kings and queens; archbishops and cardinals and no fewer than four Popes. Letters came to her from the orient and the occident, from the patriarch of Jerusalem, from Queen Bertha of Greece, from Frederick Barbarossa, Philip the Count of Flanders, St. Bernard, the professors of the University of Paris; from Henry II of England, and from his grand-daughter Eleonora, "The Damsel of Brittany." It is safe to say that no woman during the Middle Ages exercised a wider or more beneficent influence than did this humble Benedictine abbess of Bingen on the Rhine and had unsought so large a number of distinguished correspondents. And, if we accept the criterion that influence is measured by the number and nature of one's relations, it would be difficult to find in any age relations that were more select or more cosmopolitan.

But her astonishing collection of letters is the slightest product of her intellectual activity. She is without doubt the most voluminous woman writer of the Middle Ages. Her works on theology, Scripture and science make no less than six or eight large octavo volumes. The Bollandists, than whom there is no more competent authority, express their amazement at the amount and quality of Hildegard's work. Witness the following language of one of their number: "Although we may not be surprised that our saint was interrogated regarding secret things by so many men eminent both by reason of their dignity and their learning, I am nevertheless forced to recognize with stupefaction that a woman without instruction, and who had not acquired knowledge by study, was consulted concerning the most difficult questions of theology and the most subtle of Holy Scriptures, and that she gave, without hesitation, the answers that were demanded by theology and Scripture."[42]

Is it, then, surprising that the famous William of Auxerre, after a critical examination of her works, should compare her with Peter Lombard, the celebrated "Master of the Sentences,"[43] and one of the most learned of the Schoolmen, and write that Hildegard is _Sententiarum Magistra_--Mistress of the Sentences--and that "in her works the words are not human but divine"? Has any woman writer ever received higher praise, and from one so competent to express an opinion as the scholarly divine of Auxerre?

Herrad, the gifted abbess of Hohenburg in Alsace, was a contemporary of Hildegard, and, like her, was noted for her culture and wide range of knowledge. She is chiefly known for her _Hortus Deliciarum_, a remarkable work, encyclopaedic in character, which she wrote for the nuns of her convent and which was designed to embody in words and in pictures the knowledge of her age.

Nothing that time has bequeathed to us gives us a clearer conception of the manifold activities of a mediaeval nunnery, of the industry, talents and enthusiastic love of learning of its inmates, than Herrad's wonderful _Garden of Delights_. Nor is there any other work that gives us a better knowledge of the manners, customs and ideals of the twelfth century, or one that, in its particular sphere, is of more value to the student of art, philology and archaeology. It exhibits Herrad's intense interest in the intellectual advancement of her nuns and pupils as well as her superior talent and acquirements. Unfortunately the ma.n.u.script copy of this work was destroyed at the time of the bombardment of Strasburg by the Germans in 1870, and our knowledge of it is limited to portions of it which had previously been transcribed or to accounts left of it by those who had examined it before its destruction. Of such exceptional value was this unique work that the editor of the great collection of pictures, which ill.u.s.trates this remarkable book, does not hesitate to declare that "Few illuminated ma.n.u.scripts had acquired a fame so well deserved as the _Hortus Deliciarum_ of Herrad."[44]

No sketch, however brief, of the literary nuns of mediaeval Germany would be complete without some reference to the learned religious of the convent of Helfta, near Eisleben in Saxony. Of the abbess Gertrude we read that her enthusiasm for knowledge was so great that she not only inspired others with the same enthusiasm, but that she was an incessant collector of books, which she had her nuns transcribe. Among her most distinguished subjects were two religious by the name of Matilda, one of whom was her sister, and a third, who, to distinguish her from the abbess, is known as "Gertrude the Great."

The writings of these nuns were inspired by that great mystic movement which then prevailed in various parts of Europe and are among the most impa.s.sioned productions of the age. For this reason they still have a special claim on the attention of students of art and literature, as well as those of theology and mysticism. Impressed by the similarity of their ideas and descriptions as compared with those found in Dante's great masterpiece, there are not wanting scholars who contend that the prototype of the Matelda in the earthly paradise of the _Purgatorio_ was none other than one of the Matildas of the famous convent of Helfta.[45]

The writings of Hroswitha, Hildegard, Herrad, Gertrude and the Matildas, to speak of no others, are the best evidence of the studious character of the nuns of mediaeval times, and of their devotion to the cause of education. They command, likewise, our admiration for the system of training which made such development possible, and show that, in certain departments, the schools as then conducted were on as high a plane as any we have to-day.[46] They show us, too, that nuns and convent-bred women of the age in question were of quite different mental calibre from that of the "gentle lady of chivalry living in her bower, playing upon her lute and waiting patiently for the return of her triumphant knight," and quite different, too, from that of the castle lady-loves--whose sole attractions were often no more than youth and beauty--who inspired the impa.s.sioned lyrics of troubadour and minnesinger.

A recent writer sums up in a few words the status and the accomplishments of the lady of the abbey in the following paragraph:

"No inst.i.tution of Europe has ever won for the lady the freedom and development that she enjoyed in the convent in early days. The modern college for women only feebly reproduces it, since the college for women has arisen at a time when colleges in general are under a cloud. The lady-abbess, on the other hand, was part of the two great social forces of her time, feudalism and the Church. Great spiritual rewards and great worldly prizes were alike within her grasp. She was treated as an equal by the men of her cla.s.s, as is witnessed by letters we still have from popes and emperors to abbesses. She had the stimulus of compet.i.tion with men in executive capacity, in scholarship, and in artistic production, since her work was freely set before the general public; but she was relieved by the circ.u.mstances of her environment from the ceaseless compet.i.tion in common life of woman with woman for the favor of the individual man. In the cloister of the great days, as on a small scale in the college for women to-day, women were judged by each other as men are everywhere judged by each other, for sterling qualities of head and heart and character."[47]

Nor is this all. Never was woman more highly honored, never was her power and influence greater than during the period of conventual life extending from Hilda of Whitby to Gertrude and the Matildas of Helfta, and especially during that golden period of monasticism and chivalry when cloister and court were the radiant centers of learning and culture. Abbesses took part in ecclesiastical synods and councils and a.s.sisted in the deliberations of national a.s.semblies. In England, they ranked with lords temporal and spiritual, and had the right to attend the king's council or to send proxies to represent them, while in Germany, where they held property directly from the king or emperor, they enjoyed the rights and privileges of barons and, as such, took part in the proceedings of the imperial diet either in person or through their accredited representatives. In Saxony, the abbesses had the right to strike coins bearing their own portraits, notably the abbesses of Gandersheim and Quedlinburg. In England they were invested with extraordinary powers, and in certain cases owed obedience to none save the Pope. In Kent abbesses, as representatives of religion, came immediately after bishops.

Possessing such power and prestige, it is not surprising to learn that abbesses wielded great influence in temporal as well as spiritual matters; that it pervaded politics and extended to the courts of kings and emperors. Thus, Matilda, the abbess of Quedlinburg, together with Adelheid, the mother of Otto III who was but three years old at the time of his father's death, practically ruled the empire. At a later period during the prolonged absence in Italy of Otto III, the control of affairs was entrusted to the abbess alone; and so successful was her administration, and so vigorous were the measures which she adopted against the invading Wends, that she commanded the admiration of all. In view of these facts, the learned auth.o.r.ess of _Woman Under Monasticism_ is fully warranted in declaring as she does "The career open to the inmates of convents in England and on the Continent was greater than any other ever thrown open to women in the course of modern European history."[48]

"The educational influence of convents during centuries," continues the same writer, "cannot be rated too highly. Not only did their inmates attain considerable knowledge but education in a nunnery, as we see from Chaucer and others, secured an improved standing for those who were not professed."[49] It prepared the way for, if it did not train, those highly educated women who appeared during the time of the transition between the Middle Ages and what is now designated as the Modern Period.

Among these were Christine de Pisan, who was a prolific writer on many subjects in both prose and verse, and who, it is said, was the first woman to earn a livelihood by her pen.[50] There were also some of those remarkable women who lectured on law in the University of Bologna, among whom were Bettina Gozzadini,[51] who, some writers will have it, occupied the chairs of law in her _alma mater_ as early as 1236, and the celebrated Novella d'Andrea, of the following century, who frequently acted as a subst.i.tute for her father, a professor of canon law in the university, and who, by reason of her varied and profound knowledge, held a prominent place among the most learned men of her time. Both of these noted women were worthy prototypes of that long list of learned Italian women who, during the Renaissance, won such honor for themselves and such undying glory for their country. Not less remarkable were several women of the school of Salerno, who, during its palmiest days, distinguished themselves as teachers, writers and medical pract.i.tioners,[52] and the still more remarkable daughters of one Mangord, a professor of Paris, whose daughters taught Sacred Scripture.[53] There were few in number, it is true, but they were the worthy prototypes of those learned and brilliant women who achieved such distinction and glory for their s.e.x during that most interesting period of history known as the Renaissance.

WOMAN AND EDUCATION DURING THE RENAISSANCE

By the Renaissance we understand not only a phase in the development of the nations of Europe but also that period of transition between the mediaeval and the modern world during which the latent spiritual energies of the Middle Ages developed into the intellectual forces and moral habits of thought which now pervade the civilized world. Various dates are a.s.signed for its starting point. Among them is the fall of Constantinople in 1453, when there was a great influx of scholars from the famed metropolis on the Bosphorus to the Italian peninsula, who brought with them those forgotten treasures of science and literature which were so instrumental in producing that interesting phenomenon known in history as the Revival of Learning. But whatever date be a.s.signed for the beginning of the Renaissance, whether it be the year when Constantinople fell into the hands of the Turk or the fateful millennial year which was to witness the termination of all things, there certainly was never at any period a distinct breach of historical continuity between the old order and the new.

This is particularly true of Italy where the Renaissance had its origin.

For here, during the entire mediaeval period, there never was a time when the study of antiquity was completely neglected; when the traditions of the old Roman culture had died out, or when the art and the literature of the cla.s.sical ages of the past had ceased to exert an influence on artists and scholars. Ozanam was, then, right when he declared that the night of the Dark Age, which in Italy intervened between "the intellectual daylight of antiquity and the dawn of the Renaissance,"

was, in reality, like "one of those luminous nights in which the fading brightness of evening is prolonged into the first beaming of the morning."[54]

So much, indeed, was this the case that those who have made the most profound study of the Middle Ages recognize a first Renaissance in the twelfth century, which was not less real than the Renaissance _par excellence_ of the fifteenth century, a renaissance which counts such masters of Latinity as Abelard, John of Salisbury and Hildebert of Tours, and such schools as that of Chartres, where cla.s.sical Latin was taught with as much thoroughness as in the great universities of Europe during the brilliant age of the humanists. It was then, as Rashdall truly observes, that "a revival of architecture heralded, as it usually does, a wider revival of Art. The schools of Christendom became thronged as they were never thronged before. A pa.s.sion for enquiry took the place of the old routine. The Crusades brought different parts of Europe into contact with one another and into contact with the new world of the East--with a new religion and a new philosophy, with the Arabic Aristotle, with the Arabic commentators on Aristotle, and eventually even with Aristotle in the original Greek."[55]

Roughly speaking, the Renaissance attained its culmination during the second half of the fifteenth century. It was during this period that gunpowder and printing with movable types were invented--the first completely revolutionizing the methods of warfare and the second marvelously facilitating the diffusion of knowledge. And it was during the same period also that Vasco da Gama doubled the Cape of Good Hope, that Columbus crossed the Sea of Darkness and that Copernicus laid the foundation of modern astronomy.

But this wonderful half-century const.i.tuted only a small portion of the period embraced by the Renaissance. From the fall of Constantinople until it attained the highest phase of development in England, the Renaissance covers a period of nearly two centuries. The progress of the intellectual and moral movement which it represented, from the land of its birth, to the northern and western parts of Europe, was comparatively slow. Thus, while Italy was exhibiting the full effulgence of the re-birth, England was still in the feudal condition of the Middle Ages. A striking ill.u.s.tration of this truth is seen in the fact that "a brother of the Black Prince banqueted with Petrarch in the palace of Galeazzo Visconti--that is to say, the founder of Italian humanism, the representative of Italian despotic state-craft, and the companion of Froissart's heroes met together at a marriage feast." "In Italy," as Symonds has shown, "the keynote was struck by the _Novella_, as in England by the drama."[56] The supreme exponents of the Renaissance as manifested in literature were, without doubt, Ariosto in Italy, Rabelais in France, Cervantes in Spain, Camoens in Portugal, Erasmus in the Netherlands and Shakespeare in England.

Considering the splendid achievements of men during the Renaissance in every department of intellectual activity, one would imagine that women also would have attained to a somewhat proportionate distinction, at least in literature and the arts. But, outside of Italy, this was far from being the case. In France, Spain, Portugal and England there were, it is true, a certain number of women who won distinction by their talents and learning, but these were the exceptions which but served to throw into greater relief the prevailing ignorance of the great ma.s.s of their s.e.x, which had few, if any, of the advantages of instruction, even in the most elementary branches of knowledge.

The Italian women, as we have already seen, had commanded marked recognition for their talents and learning even before the close of the Middle Ages. The most famous of these were among those who, having obtained the doctorate, became lecturers and professors in the great university of Bologna. The existence and accomplishments of some of these may, perhaps, be more or less legendary, but there can be no doubt that many of them, some before the time of the Renaissance, had gained a European reputation for the breadth and variety of their attainments.

But it was during the Renaissance that the remarkable flowering of the intellect of the Italian woman was seen at its best. While the women in the other parts of Europe, especially in England and Germany, were suffering the ill effects consequent on the suppression of the convents, which, for centuries, had been almost the only schools available for girls, the women of Italy were taking an active part in the great educational movement inaugurated by the revival of learning, and winning the highest honors for their s.e.x in every department of science, art and literature. Not since the days of Sappho and Aspasia had woman attained such prominence, and never were they, irrespective of cla.s.s-condition, accorded greater liberty, privileges or honor. The universities, which had been opened to them at the close of the Middle Ages, gladly conferred upon them the doctorate, and eagerly welcomed them to the chairs of some of their most important faculties. The Renaissance was, indeed, the heydey of the intellectual woman throughout the whole of the Italian peninsula--a time when woman enjoyed the same scholastic freedom as men, and when Mme. de Stael's dictum, _Le genie n'a pas de s.e.xe_, expressed a doctrine admitted in practice and not an academic theory.

It would require a large volume, or rather many volumes, to do justice to the learned women of Italy who conferred such honor upon their s.e.x during the period we are considering. Suffice it to mention a few of those who achieved special distinction and whose memories are still green in the land which had been made so ill.u.s.trious by their talent and genius.

That which the modern reader finds the most surprising in the Italian women of the Renaissance is their enthusiasm for the _literae humaniores_--the Latin and Greek cla.s.sics--and the proficiency which so many of them, even at an early age, attained in the literature and philosophy of antiquity. It was no uncommon thing for a girl in her teens to write and speak Latin, while many of them were almost equally familiar with Greek.[57] Thus Laura Brenzoni, of Verona, had such a mastery of these two languages that she wrote and spoke them with ease, while Alessandra Scala was so familiar with them that she employed them in writing poetry. Lorenza Strozzi, who was educated in a convent and eventually became a nun, was distinguished for her great versatility, for her profound knowledge of science and art, as well as for her proficiency in Latin and Greek. Her Latin poems were so highly valued that they were translated into foreign languages. Livia Chiavello, of Fabriano, was celebrated as one of the most brilliant representatives of the Petrarchan school. Her style was so pure and n.o.ble that, had Petrarch not lived, she alone would have upheld the honor of the vulgar tongue. So successful was Isotta of Rimini in the cultivation of the Muses that she was hailed as another Sappho. Ca.s.sandra Fedele, of Venice, deserved, according to Polizian, the noted Florentine humanist, to be ranked with that famous universal genius, Pico de la Mirandola. So extensive were her attainments that in addition to being a thorough mistress of Latin and Greek, she was likewise distinguished in music, eloquence, philosophy and even theology. Leo X, Louis XII of France, and Isabella of Spain were eager to have her as an ornament for their courts, but the Venetian senate was so proud of its treasure that it was unwilling to have her depart. Catarina Cibo, of Genoa, was another prodigy of learning; for, besides a knowledge of Latin and Greek, philosophy and theology, she was well acquainted with Hebrew. Donna Felice Rasponi, of Ravenna, devoted herself to the study of Plato and Aristotle, of Scripture and the Fathers. But, for the extent and variety of her attainments, Tarquinia Molza seems to have eclipsed all her contemporaries. She had as teachers the ablest scholars of an age of distinguished scholars. Not only did she excel in poetry and the fine arts, but she also had a rare knowledge of astronomy and mathematics, Latin, Greek and Hebrew. And so great was the esteem in which she was held that the senate of Rome conferred on her the singular honor of Roman citizenship, transmissible in perpetuity to her descendants. The Sovereign Pontiff and the flower of the Roman prelacy begged her to take up her residence in the Eternal City, but she could not be prevailed upon to leave the land of her birth.

In the arts of sculpture and painting the women of Italy, during the Renaissance, were no less ill.u.s.trious than they were in science, literature and philosophy. Indeed, many of the treasures in the Italian churches and art galleries that still delight all lovers of the beautiful are from the chisel and the brush of women who achieved distinction between three and four centuries ago.[58]

Probably the most famous sculptress was Properzia de Rossi, whose ability was so remarkable that she excited the envy of the men who were her compet.i.tors.[59] Among painters there was Suor Plantilla Nelli, who was a nun and prioress in the convent of Santa Catarina in Florence.

Both Lanzi and Vasari bestow high praise on her work and declare some of her productions to be of rare excellence. There were also Maria Angela Crisculo, of whose splendid work many examples are still preserved in the churches of Naples, and Lavinia Fontana of Bologna, who exhibited such extraordinary ability as an artist that some of her pictures pa.s.sed for the work of her great contemporary, Guido Reni.[60] Still more remarkable were the achievements of four sisters of the noted family Anguisciola of Cremona. So admirable was the work of the eldest sister, Sofonisba, that Philip II invited her to his court in Spain, where she excited the amazement of every one by the splendid canvases which she executed for her ill.u.s.trious patron and for the members of the royal family.

Of the fifty female poets who flourished in Italy during the Renaissance the most eminent were Gaspara Stampa, Veronica Gambara, and Vittoria Colonna. Of such merit and exquisite finish were the productions of their Muse that they are still read with never failing pleasure. So highly did Cardinal Bembo,--the famous "dictator of letters"--value the scholarship and critical ac.u.men of Veronica Gambara that he never published anything without previously submitting it to her judgment. But far more eminent as a poet was the n.o.ble and accomplished Marchesa of Pescara, Vittoria Colonna, who, on account of her talents and virtues, was named _La Divina_. The friend and adviser of scholars and the confidante of princes, she represented, as has truly been said, "the best phases of the Renaissance, its learning, its intelligence, its enthusiasm, its subtle Platonism, combined with a profound religious faith and the trace of the mysticism of a simpler age." The chorus of universal praise which was sung by her contemporaries is well echoed by Ariosto when he writes of her: "She has not only made herself immortal by her beautiful style, of which I have heard not better, but she can raise from the tomb those of whom she speaks or writes and make them live forever." But it was as the friend and inspirer of Michaelangelo that she is best known to us to-day. "Without wings," he writes to her, "I fly with your wings; by your genius I am raised to the skies; in your soul my thought is born."

Among those who specially distinguished themselves for their profound scholarship, as exhibited in the halls of universities, were Dorotea Bucca, who occupied a chair of medicine in the University of Bologna, where, by reason of her rare eloquence and learning, she had students from all parts of Europe; Laura Ceretta, of Brescia, who, during seven years, gave public lectures on philosophy; Battista Malatesta, of Urbino, who taught philosophy with such marked success that the most distinguished professors of the day were forced to recognize themselves as her inferiors; and Fulvia Olympia Morati, who "at the age of fourteen wrote Latin letters and dialogues in Greek and Latin in the style of Plato and Cicero," and who, when she was scarcely sixteen, "was invited to give lectures in the University of Ferrara on the philosophical problems of the _Paradoxes of Cicero_." So great, indeed, was her knowledge of the ancient languages that she was offered the professorship of Greek in the University of Heidelberg; but death cut short her brilliant career before she could enter upon her duties in this famed inst.i.tution of learning. It was female professors of this type--masters of Greek and Latin letters, who in the words of a recent writer, "sent forth from Italy such students as Moritz von Spiegelberg and Rudolph Agricola, to reform the instruction of Deventer and Zwoll and prepare the way for Erasmus and Reuchlin."

In the preceding list of learned women--and but a few only have been named of the many who in every city of importance conferred undying glory on their s.e.x--it is clear that the Renaissance in Italy was, indeed, the golden age of women. Never in history had they greater freedom of action in things of the mind; never were they, except probably in the case of the English and German abbesses of the Middle Ages, treated with more marked deference and consideration or fairness; never were their efforts more highly appreciated or more generously rewarded, and never was their success more highly and enthusiastically applauded. Temporal and spiritual rulers, princes and cardinals, Popes and emperors vied with one another in paying just tribute to woman's genius as well as to woman's virtue. The nun in the cloister as well as the lady in the palace shared in the general enthusiasm for learning, and they enjoyed throughout the peninsula the same opportunities as men and received the same recognition for their work. Everywhere the intellectual arena was open to them on the same terms as to men.

Incapacity and not s.e.x was the only bar to entrance.

But the men of those days, especially scholars of the type of Bembo, Politian and Ariosto, were liberal and broad-minded men, who never for a moment imagined that a woman was out of her sphere or uns.e.xed because she wore a doctor's cap or occupied a university chair. And far from stigmatizing her as a singular or strong-minded woman, they recognized her as one who had but enhanced the graces and virtues of her s.e.x by the added attractions of a cultivated mind and a developed intellect. Not only did she escape the shafts of satire and ridicule, which are so frequently aimed at the educated woman of to-day, but she was called into the councils of temporal and spiritual rulers as well.

Woe betide the ill-advised misogynist who should venture to declaim against the inferiority of the female s.e.x, or to protest against the honors which an appreciative and a chivalrous age bestowed upon it with so lavish a hand. The women of Italy, unlike those of other nations, knew how to defend themselves, and were not afraid to take, when occasion demanded, the pen in self-defense. This is evidenced by numerous works which were written in response to certain narrow-minded pamphleteers--_miseri pedanti_, pitiful pedants,--who would have the activities of women limited to the nursery or the kitchen.[61]

A striking characteristic of these learned women was the entire absence of all priggism or pedantry. Whether lecturing on law or philosophy, or discoursing in Latin before Popes and cardinals, or taking part in discussions on art and literature with the eminent humanists of the day, they ever retained that beautiful simplicity which gives such a charm to true greatness of mind and is the best index of true scholarship and n.o.ble, symmetrical womanhood.

Nor did the rare intellectual attainments of these daughters of Italy destroy that harmony of creation which, some will have it, is sure to be jeopardized by giving women the same educational advantages as men. So far was this from being the case that there were never more loyal and helpful wives nor more devoted and stimulating mothers than there were among those women who wrote verses in the language of Sappho, or delivered public addresses in the tongue of Cicero. Still less did their serious and long-protracted studies entail any of the dangers we hear so much of nowadays. The large and healthy families of many of them prove that intellectual work, even of the highest order, is not incompatible with motherhood; and still less that it, _per se_, conduces, as is so often a.s.serted, to race-suicide. These facts are commended to the consideration of our modern opponents of the higher education of women and to those militant conservatives and old-time reactionaries who are still averse to opening the doors of some of our older universities to women--even such universities as Oxford, several of whose colleges were founded on the revenues derived from suppressed educational inst.i.tutions which had been built and used for generations for the sole behoof of women.

But distinguished as were the women of Italy for their culture and scholarship, they were yet more distinguished as patrons of learning, as leaders and inspirers of the eminent men who were the chief representatives of the Renaissance. Reference has already been made to the influence of Vittoria Colonna on Michaelangelo--"who saw with her eyes, acted by her inspiration, was lifted by her beyond the stars"--but this is only one of many similar instances that might be adduced.

Indeed, to the student of the Italian Renaissance, the most interesting feature of it was, not its women doctors and professors, but those n.o.ble and accomplished ladies who made the courts of Ferrara, Mantua, Milan and Urbino the most noted intellectual centers of Europe.

The most beautiful ornaments of the first three courts were Renee, d.u.c.h.ess of Ferrara; Isabella d'Este, marchioness of Mantua, and Beatrice d'Este, d.u.c.h.ess of Milan. They were all women of exceptional learning and culture, and each was the center of a galaxy of talent such as is rarely witnessed in any one place.

Among the men attracted to their courts were the most ill.u.s.trious scholars, artists, poets and musicians of the Renaissance. Here they found congenial homes and breathed an atmosphere made fragrant by the appreciation shown by their charming hostesses for their power and genius. Here they found inspiration and a stimulus that spurred them on to their greatest achievements. In Ferrara, where it was said that "there were as many poets as there were frogs in the country round about," were gathered the most gifted poets of the Renaissance who had been attracted there to recite their latest masterpieces. Among them were Clement Marot, the first poet of modern France, and Ariosto, the immortal author of _Orlando Furioso_. There were the great painters, t.i.tian and Bellini, and the ill.u.s.trious poet, Torquato Ta.s.so, whose love subsequently immortalized Renee's youngest daughter Leonora.

A similar artistic and intellectual supremacy was held by Isabelle d'Este. For portrait painters she had t.i.tian and Leonardo da Vinci, while, as decorators of her home, she had Bellini and Perugino, whose compositions she herself arranged, even in the minutest details. So it was likewise in the gay and brilliant court of Beatrice d'Este, in Milan,--a place where artists and scholars of all nationalities were always sure of a cordial welcome.