Humanistic Education for Young Women

Humanistic education for young women usually occurred within the supportive environment of court culture, beginning in northern Italy during the 15th century. The main exception was the educational program for young women taught by members of the various religious orders, such as the Ursulines during the latter 16th century. In their schools, chiefly in northern Europe and Venice, the students learned Latin, geography, and composition, in addition to the usual spiritual training. Learned women of ancient Greece and Rome were presented as role models in the humanistic education of upper-class young women. The basic text for this information was Giovanni Boccaccio’s (1313-75) De claribus mulieribus (On famous women, c. 1362). For the first time in western Europe, biographies of famous women of classical times were gathered into one work. It has rightly been pointed out that the virtuous models presented by Boccaccio, along with the harsh punishments of women who misbehaved, emphasized the “proper” roles for women during the Renaissance. Nevertheless this text and others like it helped to open the door to study of the classics for young

Education

Women because they read them in Latin. In addition young women learned in school that a woman could achieve recognition outside her home and family for notable achievements; Isis, “Queen of Egypt,” for example, was credited with inventing an alphabet and a written language. But at the same time female students were encouraged to admire the great women of history acclaimed as weavers and spinners of cloth.

We should note that young women enrolled in humanistic schools who did not plan to become nuns were expected to learn the domestic skills necessary to run a household, and all young women were taught that their spiritual and religious training took priority. Young men, on the other hand, could focus almost exclusively on their studies of the classics. The few pedagogical treatises that included advice about schooling for girls, even those that supported secondary education for young women, cautioned that there were limits to what they should (and could) learn. Advanced oratory was considered inappropriate and unnecessary, as was higher training in mathematics. The Spanish humanist Juan Luis Vives wrote the most comprehensive Renaissance treatise specifically about female education, De institutione feminae christianae (On the instruction of a Christian woman, 1523). Published in Spanish in 1528 and in English in 1540, this influential book had dozens of editions during the Renaissance. Although its curriculum advocated the reading (in Latin) of Cicero, Plato, and Seneca, in addition to biblical texts and church fathers, Vives insinuated that young women should learn to be silent, chaste, and obedient. They were not trained in rhetoric and oratory, which might teach them to speak their mind, or logic, which might teach them how to argue. Above all young women were advised not to neglect their family in favor of their studies. In spite of all these obstacles, the Renaissance produced some outstanding learned women, as the following examples demonstrate. In most instances, however, such women had little influence on the education of other women.