Bartolommeo Goggio: A Feminist in Renaissance Ferrara
R EADERS in late medieval and early modem Europe had access to a lively and extensive literature on the nature of women. Philosophers, theologians, poets, physicians, and antiquarians of all kinds and degrees sought to describe and classify, analyze and dissect, justify or vilify the "second sex."1 As with other intense debates in those times, writers called upon the ancient sources of scientia and sapientia-factual knowledge and moral truth-to witness and buttress their arguments. The range of authorities was immense, both in time and substance, offering the diverse views of Aristotle and Augustine, of Ovid and Jerome, of Genesis and the Song of Solomon. One could go on, but these polarities suffice to make the point that ancient history, literature and legend, whether "pagan" or Christian, provided an arsenal of argument and example to misogynist and anti-misogynist alike. By the beginning of the fifteenth century, one can discern a stock of commonplace arguments used by detractors and defenders of women. These arguments are addressed to a handful of recurrent topics, such as the inferior circumstances of the creation of woman; her role in original sin; her sexuality; her deficiency in the moral virtues of