THREE EARLY RENAISSANCE TREATISES ON WOMEN

Abstract

AbstractThe purpose of this article is to describe three prose treatises on the equality or superiority of women, written in Italy at the end of the fifteenth century. These works are among the first examples of a type which became very common in the Cinquecento. Numerically, treatises on this subject constitute the biggest of the groups into which sixteenth-century works concerning women can be divided. Although many of them were written by men who are unimportant or even almost unknown, there are several from the pens of important figures in the intellectual and cultural life of Italy, particularly in the period 1530–1550. These include a dialogue by Speroni, an oration by Alessandro Piccolomini to the Accademia degli Intronati of Siena, and a lecture by Vincenzo Maggi, originally delivered in Latin to members of the Estense court, translated into Italian and published in 1545. The subject discussed in these works is treated in a disappointingly abstract fashion. The arguments used are almost all genera...