MAGGI, Vincenzo

The first edition of this very scarce ‘defence of women’. The first part praises the excellence of women, whilst the second exhorts men not to let women overtake them. Vincenzo Maggi (1498-1564) was professor of philosophy at Ferrara and tutor to Ercole II’s son. For the Duke’s daughter Anna, Maggi penned ‘Mulierum praeconium’ (1545), translated into Italian and first published in Brescia in the same year as ‘Breve Trattato’. The humanist Ortensio
Lando (1510-58) has been identified as the author of the second treatise. In the first work, Maggi compares men and women from the point of view of their souls and bodily complexion; he proceeds to examine their virtues, concluding that women are superior in terms of inner strength (especially when faced with the ‘evil and tough habits of their
husbands’), munificence (as widows can manage wealth more wisely and with greater generosity), prudence, continence, and love. That women cannot achieve as much as men is due to unequal opportunities, especially in education. The second part urges men to improve themselves, not by taking women as examples of virtue as Maggi suggests, but by recovering their social role. It mentions how women ‘have begun studying Greek and Latin letters, as well as sacred and profane’, listing numerous examples of erudite women’s circles in Venice, Ferrara, Lucca, Florence, etc. A solution to restore men’s faltering honour would be ‘to take books off women’s hands, and keep them busy instead with sewing and needlework’, as more educated women will begin to despise men and consider them their inferiors. A scarce works that resonates to date.