Table Of ContentTHE NOBILITY AND
EXCELLENCE OF WOMEN,
AND THE DEFECTS AND
VICES OF MEN
A SeriesEditedbyMargareLt.KingandAlbertRabilJr.
OTHER BOOKS IN THE SERIES
HENRICUS CORNELIUS AGRIPPA MODERATA FONTE
Declamation ontheNobility and The Worth of Women
PreeminenceoftheFemaleSex
EdIted and Translated by VirginIa Cox
EdIted and translated by Albert Rabd Jr
VERONICA FRANCO
Poemsand SelectedLetters
LAURA CERETA
Edited and Translated by Ann Rosalind Jones
CollectedLetters and Margaret F Rosenthal
Edited and translated by DIana RobIn
ANTONIA PULCI
FlorentineDramafor Convent
TULLIA D'ARAGONA andFestival
Dialogue ontheInfinity ofLove Translated by James Wyatt Cook
Edited and Translated by Rlttaldlna Russell EdIted by James Wyatt Cook and Barbara
and Bruce Merry CollIer Cook
ANNA MARIA VAN SCHURMAN
CECILIA FERRAZZI Whether a Christian Woman Should
Autobiography ofanAspiring Saint BeEducatedand Other Writings
from HerIntellectual Circle
EdIted and Translated by
Anne Jacobson Schutte EdIted and Translated by Joyce L IrwIn
Lucrezia Marinella
THE NOBILITY AND
EXCELLENCE OF WOMEN,
AND THE DEFECTS AND
VICES OF MEN
Edited and Translated by
Anne Dunhill
Introduction by
Letizia Panizza
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS
Chicago London
&
AnneDunhillisa novelist and translator who lives in London.
LetiziaPanizzaisa senior lecturer in Italian at Royal Holloway
College, University of London.
The Uruversity of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
© 1999 by The University of Chicago
Allrights reserved. Published 1999
Pnnted in the United States of Amenca
08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 00 99 12 34 5
ISBN0-226-50545-6 (cloth)
ISBN 0-226-50546-4 (paper)
This translation was supported by agenerous grant
from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Marinella, Lucrezia, d. 1653.
[Nobilta et l'eccellenza delle donne, co' difetti et mancamenti
degli uomoni. English]
The nobility and excellence ofwomen, and the defects and vices of
men
p. cm.-(Other voice in early modern Europe)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-226-50545-6 (cloth: alk. paper).-ISBN 0-226-50546-4
(pbk. :alk. paper)
1 Women-Early works to 1800. 2.Women-History-Renaissance,
1450-1600. 3.Women-Italy-History-Renaissance, 1450-1600
I.Dunhill, Anne. II.Panizza, Letizia. III.TItle. IV.Series.
HQ1148.M2713 1999
305.4-dc21 99-39095
CIP
@The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
the American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence
of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
CONTENTS
Introduction to the Series
by Margaret L. King and Albert Rabil lr vii
Acknowledgments xxvii
Introduction to the Translation
by Letizia Panizza 1
The Nobility and Excellence of Women,
and the Defects and Vices of Men 35
Part I
The Nobility and Excellence of Women 43
Chapter I
On the Nobility of the Names Given to the Female Sex 45
Chapter II
The Causes That Produce Women 52
Chapter III
Of the Nature and Essence of the Female Sex 55
Chapter IV
The Reasons for Men's Noble Treatment of Women and
the Things They Say about Women 69
Chapter V
Of Women's Noble Actions and Virtues, Which Greatly Surpass
Men's, as Will Be Proved by Reasoning and Example 77
Chapter VI
A Reply to the Flippant and Vain Reasoning Adopted
by Men in Their Own Favor 119
Part II
The Defects and Vices of Men 147
Chapter IV
Of Wrathful, Eccentric, and Brutal Men 149
Chapter XII
Of Obstinate and Pertinacious Men 155
Chapter XIII
Of Ungrateful and Discourteous Men 156
Chapter XIV
Of Fickle, Inconstant Men 160
Chapter XV
Of Evil Men Who Hate Others Easily 164
Chapter XXII
Of Men Who Are Ornate, Polished, Painted, and Bleached 166
Chapter XXX
Of Men Who Kill Their Mothers, Fathers, Brothers,
Sisters, and Grandchildren 176
Bibliography 185
Index
191
THE OTHER VOICE IN
EARLY MODERN EUROPE:
INTRODUCTION TO THE SERIES
Magaret L. King and Albert Rabil Jr.
THE OLD VOICE AND THE OTHER VOICE
Inwestern Europe and the United States women are nearing equality inthe
professions, in business, and in politics. Most enjoy access to education,
reproductive rights, and autonomy in financial affairs. Issuesvital to women
areon the public agenda: equal pay,child care, domestic abuse, breast cancer
research, and curricular revision with an eye to the inclusion ofwomen.
These recent achievements have their origins in things women (and
some male supporters) said for the first time about six hundred years ago.
Theirs is the "other voice," in contradistinction to the "first voice," the
voice of the educated men who created Western culture. Coincident with
ellgeneral reshaping of European culture in the period 1300 to 1700 (called
the Renaissance or early modern period), questions of female equality and
opportunity were raised that still resound and are still unresolved.
The "other voice" emerged against the backdrop of a three-thousand
year history of misogyny-the hatred of women-rooted in the civiliza
tions related to Western culture: Hebrew, Greek, Roman, and Christian.
Misogyny inherited from these traditions pervaded the intellectual, medical,
legal, religious, and social systems that developed during the European
Middle Ages.
The following pages describe the misogynistic tradition inherited by
early modern Europeans, and the newtradition which the "other voice" called
into being to challenge reigning assumptions. This review should serve as
aframework for the understanding of the texts published in the series "The
Other Voice in Early Modern Europe." Introductions specific to each text
and author follow this essay in allthe volumes of the series.
vii
viii Introduction to the Series
THE MISOGYNIST TRADITION, 500 B.C.E.-l 500 C.E.
Embedded in the philosophical and medical theories of the ancient Greeks
were perceptions ofthe female asinferior to the male inboth mind and body.
Similarly, the structure ofcivillegislation inherited from the ancient Romans
wasbiased against women, and the views on women developed by Christian
thinkers out of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian New Testament were
negative and disabling. Literary works composed inthe vernacular language
of ordinary people, and widely recited or read, conveyed these negative
assumptions. The social networks within which most women lived-those
of the family and the institutions of the Roman Catholic church-were
shaped by this misogynist tradition and sharply limited the areas in which
women might act in and upon the world.
GREEK PHILOSOPHY AND FEMALE NATURE Greek biology assumed
that women were inferior to men and defined them merely aschildbearers
and housekeepers. This view was authoritatively expressed in the works of
the philosopher Aristotle.
Aristotle thought in dualities. He considered action superior to inac
tion, form (the inner design or structure of any object) superior to matter,
completion to incompletion, possession to deprivation. In each of these
dualities, he associated the male principle with the superior quality and
the female with the inferior. "The male principle in nature," he argued, "is
associated with active, formative and perfected characteristics, while the
female ispassive, material and deprived, desiring the male inorder tobecome
complete. 1Men are always identified with virile qualities, such asjudgment,
courage, andstamina; women with their opposites-irrationality, cowardice,
and weakness.
The masculine principle wasconsidered tobesuperior even inthe womb.
Man's semen, Aristotle believed, created the form of anew human creature,
while the female body contributed only matter. (The existence ofthe ovum,
and the other facts of human embryology, were not established until the
seventeenth century.) Although the later Greek physician Galen believed
that there was a female component in generation, contributed by "female
semen," the followers ofboth Aristotle and Galen sawthe malerole inhuman
generation asmore active and more important.
Inthe Aristotelian view, the male principle sought always to reproduce
itself. The creation of a female was always a mistake, therefore, resulting
from an imperfect act of generation. Every female born was considered a
1 Aristotle, Physics, 1.9 192a20-24, 10 TheCompleteWorksofAristotle,ed.Jonathan Barnes,rev
Oxford translation, 2vols. (Pnnceton, 1984), 1.328.
Introduction to the Series ix
"defective" or"mutilated" male (asAristotle's terminology has variously been
translated), a"monstrosity" of nature.'
For Greek theorists, the biology of males and females was the key
to their psychology. The female was softer and more docile, more apt to
be despondent, querulous, and deceitful. Being incomplete, moreover, she
craved sexualfulfillment inintercourse with amale.The malewasintellectual,
active, and in control of his passions.
These psychological polarities derived from the theory that the uni
verse consisted of four elements (earth, fire, air, and water), expressed in
human bodies asfour "humors" (black bile, yellow bile, blood, and phlegm)
considered respectively dry, hot, damp, and cold, and corresponding to
mental states ("melancholic," "choleric," "sanguine," "phlegmatic"). In this
schematization, the male, sharing the principles of earth and fire, was dry
and hot; the female, sharing the principles of air and water, was cold
and damp.
Female psychology was further affected by her dominant organ, the
uterus (womb), hysterainGreek. The passions generated by the womb made
women lustful, deceitful, talkative, irrational, indeed-when these affects
were incxccss-s-Trysterical."
Aristotle's biology alsohad social and political consequences. Ifthe male
principle was superior and the female inferior, then in the household, as in
the state, men should rule and women must be subordinate. That hierarchy
did not rule out the companionship ofhusband and wife,whose cooperation
was necessary for the welfare of children and the preservation of property.
Such mutuality supported male preeminence.
Aristotle's teacher, Plato, suggested adifferent possibility: that men and
women might possess the same virtues. The setting for this proposal isthe
imaginary and ideal Republic that Plato sketches in his dialogue of that
name. Here, for aprivileged elite capable of leading wisely, all distinctions
of class and wealth dissolve, as do consequently those of gender. Without
households orproperty, asPlato constructs hisideal society, there isno need
for the subordination of women. Women may, therefore, be educated to
the same level asmen to assume leadership responsibilities. Plato's Republic
remained imaginary, however. Inreal societies, the subordination ofwomen
remained the norm and the prescription.
The views of women inherited from the Greek philosophical tradi
tion became the basis for medieval thought. In the thirteenth century, the
supreme scholastic philosopher Thomas Aquinas, among others, stillechoed
2 Aristotle,GenerationofAnimals,23737a27-28 (Barnes, 11144)
