The Saber and Scroll Journal Volume 8, Number 2, Winter 2019 | Page 44

The Aristotelian Philosophi
The Effect on Isotta Nog
her for feeling humiliated, and he lost
his admiration for her because of it. 29 He
believed that there should be no room
in her life for femaleness and went on to
tell her that she must be manlier.
Although Isotta vehemently denied
the allegations made against her,
which were also publicly denounced
by Niccolo Barbo, a prominent Venetian
patrician and humanist, the damage
had been done to her reputation.
Isotta Nogarola went silent in all of her
communications between the publication
of the “Pliny” letter and her letter
to Guarino from 1439 to 1441. During
that time, a humiliated Isotta must have
realized that if she wanted to continue
her pursuit of scholarly learning as
a humanist, she would have to make a
great sacrifice and conform to Venetian
society’s gender ideal of women,
for in 1441, at the age of twenty-three,
five years after she entered Veronese
and Venetian humanist circles, Isotta
moved back to Verona and took up the
life of a holy woman, devoted her life to
sacred studies, pledged virginity, and
lived life in semi-solitude.
Aristotelian Venice
Venice was unlike any other
city-state in Italy during the
Middle Ages (500–1500) and
the Italian Renaissance (1300–1600).
Beginning in 1204, Venetians created
a unique government that shared the
combined traits of a monarchy, an aristocracy,
and a republic, which focused
solely on trade. Conversely, the other
Italian city-states were republics, like
Florence, or principalities, like Naples.
1