IOANNES BOCCATIVS,

of past women, as a rival, you will stir your excellent spirit for the better. And even if you sometimes find lewdness mixed with sacred things (which the opportunity of needing to cut things down compelled me to do), do not omit or hesitate; rather, persisting, just as entering a garden you extend your ivory hands to the flower having set aside the prickles of the thorns, so too, having set aside the obscene, collect what is worthy of praise. And as often as you read of something in a pagan woman that is worthy of a woman who professes the Christian religion, which you do not perceive to be in yourself, stir up a blush of the mind and rebuke yourself, that you, anointed with the chrism of Christ, are surpassed in honesty, modesty, or virtue by a foreigner. With your spirit provoked to action (in which you possess great power), not only allow yourself not to be surpassed, but strive to surpass everyone with your exceptional virtue, so that just as you are conspicuous for your body's joyful youth and flowering beauty, so too, above others, not only your contemporaries but even the ancients, you may become more outstanding through the integrity of your spirit. Remember that beauty is not to be adorned with cosmetics (as most of you women do), but is to be decorated with honesty, holiness, and pious works, so that while you have given grace to Him who gives it, you may not only be one among the shining stars in this fleeting mortality, but also, taking off the man from the same Giver of Graces, you may be received into eternal brightness. Furthermore, if you think it worthy, most excellent of women, provide the boldness for it to proceed into the midst of others; it will indeed go (as I believe), sent out under your auspices, safe from the insults of the malignant, and it will carry your name splendidly through the mouths of men along with the others of illustrious women, and will make you known to the present, since you cannot be offered everywhere in person, and will preserve you eternally for posterity.

IOANNIS BOCCATII DE CERTALDO on Famous Women, to Andrea de Acciarolis of Florence, Countess of Altevilla.

Many of the ancients wrote books on famous men in summary, and in our age, our teacher, the illustrious man and excellent poet Francis Petrarch, writes with a broader volume and a sharper style, and rightly so. For those who surpassed others in famous deeds, having devoted all their effort, possessions, blood, and soul when the opportunity demanded, truly deserved that their names be carried down to posterity in perpetual memory. Truly, I have wondered very much that women have been able to achieve so little among the men of this age, such that they have not attained the grace of memory in any special description, even though it is clearly established by more ample histories that some women acted as strenuously and as bravely. And if men are to be praised when they have done great things with the strength granted to them, how much more so should the women (to whom, to almost all, a softness is ingrained by the nature of things, and a weak body and slow wit)...