The Saber and Scroll Journal Volume 8, Number 2, Winter 2019 | Page 37

es of Quattrocento Venice:
arola’s Humanist Career
德加德 · 冯 · 宾根、克里斯蒂
, 后两位女性在中世纪时期和有女性问题的著作。
sotta Nogarola), 人道主义 ,
, 圣洁的女人
5
acceptable way for a fifteenth-century,
unmarried Italian woman to pursue
humanism and reject her culture’s misogyny
without being condemned.
The Attack on Isotta’s Humanist
Career (1436–1441)
In quattrocento Italy, it was customary
for men entering humanist
circles to correspond with statesmen,
clergymen, and prominent male
humanists in the hope that a good response
of praise and encouragement,
which would have been made public,
would soon follow. 2 For women, it was
customary to write within their “intellectual
family,” which included male
teachers, noblemen, clergymen, and
other male intellectuals closely associated
with the family. 3 Isotta Nogarola’s
humanist career began in Verona in just
that way, when she was just eighteen
years old. Yet, she pushed the bounds
of what was considered customary and
normal for her gender in quattrocento
Italy.
It was considered inappropriate
for women to write outside of their intellectual
family, 4 but Isotta did just that.
She wrote to men she did not know, like