Return to the index of "Other Women's Voices."
Updated 06-28-08
Laura Cereta /Cereto
(1469-1499)
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"THEY DENY... THAT ANY WOMAN MIGHT MASTER THE MOST ELEGANT
ELEMENTS OF ROMAN ORATORY."
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Laura Cereta was born in Brescia, the eldest of six children of a prominent family. Her early education was at a convent school, but when she was 11 she was brought home to help care for her younger brothers and sisters. Through her father's tutoring and her own reading, she acquired a strong education in Latin, Greek, and mathematics. At 15 she was married to a merchant; her husband died less than two years later, leaving her childless. Cereta never remarried.
Before her husband's death, Cereta had begun to correspond with and meet humanist scholars in the area around Brescia, who, like her, were involved in studying, imitating, and adapting classical sources. When she was a widow these contacts increased, especially through her correspondence. In 1488 a Latin manuscript of Cereta's Epistolae familiares, containing 82 letters and a mock funeral oration in the classical style, circulated in Venice and Verona as well as Brescia.
In the last letter of the 1488 collection Cereta speaks of writing more, but if she did, nothing survived. We do know that her father, always a major supporter of her studies, died six months after Epistolae familiares was completed. Of the details of the rest of Cereta's life, nothing appears to be known.
On this page you'll find:
Links to helpful sites online.
Excerpts from translations in print.
Information about secondary sources.
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1. In English:
(a) The opening and some later parts of Cereta's letter to "Bibulus Sempronius," translated by Margaret L. King and Albert Rabil.
(b) Also from King and Rabil, the second half of the same letter.
(c) After excerpts from her commentary in her 1997 translation of Cereta, Diana Robin's version of another section of the letter to "Bibulus."
(d) With a biography, Robin's translation of the passage that immediately precedes the above.
(e) After a brief essay, King's and Rabil's translation of an excerpt from a letter to "Augustinus Aemilius."
(f) At #13 in a collection, a brief passage from a letter to a woman,"Lucilia Vernacula," translated by King and Rabil (for information on King's and Rabil's anthology, see below, under "In print").
2. Links to the individual pages of a 1640
partial edition of Cereta's Epistolae, which includes
the Latin original of 73 of the letters (the first, to Cardinal
Ascanius Maria Sforza, is here identified as a prologue). Linking
to page 1 will bring you a portrait believed to be based on one
made during Cereta's life.
3. Essays:
(a) A biographical essay by Jennifer Haraguchi, with a 2003 bibliography of Cereta editions and studies.
(b) With five of Cereta's Latin letters, English-language commentary on four of them (letters to Cardinal Ascanius Maria Sforza, Nazaria Olympica, Peter Zenus Patavius, and Bibulus Sempronius), by Jen Ebbeler. There are also links to essays by Ebbeler on Cereta's use of Latin and on the history of her manuscript.
4. Reviews (for excerpts from the translation, see "In print"; for information on the other books' treatment of Cereta, see "Secondary sources"):
(a) Carrie Hintz on Robin's 1997 translation, Collected Letters of a Renaissance Feminist; and elsewhere, another review, this by Constance Jordan.
(b) Anna Dronzek on Prudence Allen's 2002 second volume of The Concept of Woman series, The Early Humanist Reformation, 1250-1500.
(c) Elissa B.Weaver on the 2000 essay collection, Women in Italian Renaissance Culture and Society.
(d) Fiora A. Bassanese on the 2000 collection, A History of Women's Writing in Italy.
5. For historical background:
(a) An essay on humanism and the studia humanitatis by Richard Hooker.
(b) In this outline of the growth of humanism by Albert Rabil, Jr., see the section (half way down the page), "The Spread of Humanism Throughout Italy."
(c) After an introduction, Leonardo Bruni's letter to Baptista Malatesta of Montefeltro, written in the early 1400s and translated in1912 by William Harrison Woodward. Bruni illustrates the early humanist belief that classical studies are "worthy to be pursued by men and women alike."
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[Diana Robin has translated all of Cereta's letters and her "Funeral oration for an ass." The letters are arranged in groups according to their themes. Robin's commentary is thought-provoking, although some of her conclusions may seem drawn from inadequate evidence. The notes and the bibliography are helpful. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
Cereta, Laura. Collected letters of a Renaissance feminist
/ transcribed, translated, and edited by Diana Robin (The other
voice in early modern Europe). Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, c1997. (xxv, 216 p.)
LC#:PA85.C4 A4 1997; ISBN: 0226100111, 0226100138
Includes bibliographical references (p. [203]-209) and index.
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"...as though my mind were challenging itself to scale new
heights."
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[From the first letter of Cereta's Epistolae, a dedication
to and request for support from a possible patron, Cardinal Ascanio
Maria Sforza:]
Though I was untrained and scarcely exposed to literature, through my own intelligence and natural talents I was able to acquire the beginnings of an education. While my pleasure in embarking on such a journey of the mind and my love of study were strong at the outset, the weak seeds of my small talent have grown to such a degree that I have written speeches for public occasions, and these I embellished grandly, painting pictures with words in order to influence people and stimulate their minds.
My love of study caused me to sample different kinds of subjects, and only in study did I feel a sense of inner contentment. And, although I remained ill-equipped for the task despite my passion for learning, I reached a decision that awakened in me a desire for fame and honor, as though my mind were challenging itself to scale new heights. As my eagerness for knowledge grew, so did the capacity of my mind, and in the course of this growth, the fruitfulness and the fertility of my pen caused me to prefer philosophy over all other studies, just as fruit would have given me more pleasure than leaves.
(But here a blush of modesty would expose the fact that I
am only writing with such painstaking elegance---and taking so
much time to do so---to beguile a patron!) [pp.37-38]
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"Still her mind does not accede...."
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[From a letter to the Bishop of Brescia, objecting to the lack of care for the cathedral church in which the consecrated host, believed to be the body of Christ, was kept:]
Who is so crazy that he would leave his cash or clothes or pearls lying around in a public place? Look at how our church, which is half in ruins, languishes under a crumbling roof. No one need call out the guard, for none was commissioned; no one knows that this place is a shrine. No one batters on doors already open, for the entrances lie free and accessible to one and all. The host is protected by no bolt, no barrier, and never by any lock....
Although these may not be suitable professions for an unlearned girl who for the most part agrees with what the popes' decrees have sanctified, still her mind does not accede to the notion that the great only-born son of the virgin of Judaea should be left in an open shrine both day and night, freely accessible to the impious.
However, if my audacious criticisms are in any way untrue,
I beg you, most perfect and honorable proconsul and one most
learned in all law, to decide either what I should think on this
subject or what I, your little daughter in Christ, should unlearn.
[pp.47-48]
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"I am said to show the extraordinary intellect...."
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[The opening of a letter to a probably fictitious "Bibolo Semproni," who has apparently praised Cereta as a rare exception among women. (You can link to more of the letter above, under "Online"):]
Your complaints are hurting my ears, for you say publicly and quite openly that you are not only surprised but pained that I am said to show the extraordinary intellect of the sort one would have thought nature would give to the most learned of men --- as if you had reached the conclusion, on the facts of the case, that a similar girl had seldom been seen among the people of the world. [pp.74-75]
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"...women who... harm with their petulant talk not only
their sex but themselves."
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[And the opening of a letter on women who disparage those other women who have sought a classical education:]
I should think that the tongues should be cut to pieces and the hearts brutally lacerated of people whose minds are so wicked and whose envious rage is so incredible that they deny in their ignorant rantings the possibility that any woman might master the most elegant elements of Roman oratory.
I would pardon the morally hopeless and even people destined
for a life of crime, whose wagging tongues are accustomed to
castigate with obvious fury. But I cannot tolerate the gabbling
and babbling women who, burning with wine and drunkenness, harm
with their petulant talk not only their sex but themselves. These
mindless women --- these female counselors who emerge victorious
from the cookshop jar after a prodigious vote among their neighbors
--- hunt down with their bilious poison those women who rise
to greater distinction than they. [p.81]
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[This 1981 anthology of translations by Margaret L. King and Albert Rabil, Jr. includes three letters by Cereta; the introductions to the letters are sometimes clearer than those in Robin, above. In this new edition the content is unchanged, the notes and bibliography updated. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
Her immaculate hand: selected works by and about the women
humanists of Quattrocento Italy / edited by Margaret L. King
and Albert Rabil, Jr. Asheville, NC: Pegasus Press, c1997. (x,
173 p.)
LC#: PA8163 .H47 1997; ISBN: 0866981241
Includes bibliographical references (p. [157]-166) and index.
[Reprint of revised 1992 edition.]
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Secondary sources
[This second volume of Prudence Allen's study on the philosophy
of gender includes a substantial section (pp. 969-1050) on Cereta's
original contributions to humanist philosophical thought. (See
the book's table of contents online.):]
Allen, Prudence. The concept of woman. Volume 2, The early
humanist reformation, 1250-1500. Grand Rapids, Mich.: W.B. Eerdmans
Pub., c2002. (xxiv, 1161 p.: ill.)
LC#: BD450 .A4725 2002; ISBN: 0802847358
Includes bibliographical references (p. 1091-1129) and index
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[Diana Robin's essay in this collection, "Humanism and Feminism in Laura Cereta's Public Letters," discusses six of Cereta's letters, some in greater detail than in Robin's introductions in her 1997 translation above. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
Women in Italian Renaissance culture and society / edited
by Letizia Panizza (Legenda). Oxford: European Humanities Research
Centre, 2000. (xxi, 523 p : ill, facsims, ports)
LC#: HQ1149.I8 W66 2000; ISBN:1900755092
Includes bibliographical references
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[This collection includes an earlier essay by Robin, "Women,
Space, and Renaissance Discourse," which analyzes Cereta's
use of pastoral in two letters. (See
the book's table of contents online.):]
Sex and gender in medieval and Renaissance texts: the Latin
tradition / edited by Barbara K. Gold, Paul Allen Miller, and
Charles Platter (SUNY series in medieval studies). Albany: State
University of New York Press, c1997. (viii, 330 p.)
LC#: PA8030.F45 S48 1997; ISBN: 0791432459, 0791432467
Includes bibliographical references (p. 287-319) and index.
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[This study of Cereta's life and work by Albert Rabil gives
summaries of all her works and the Latin original of some:]
Rabil, Albert. Laura Cereta, quattrocento humanist (Medieval
& Renaissance texts & studies; v. 3). Binghamton, N.Y.:
Center for Medieval & Early Renaissance Studies, 1981. (viii,
179 p.)
LC#: PA85.C4 R3; ISBN: 0866980024
Includes bibliographical references and index.
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[The collection contains an essay by Margaret L. King, "Book-Lined Cells: Women & Humanism in the Early Italian Renaissance," which discusses Cereta and her contemporaries:]
Labalme, Patricia H., ed. Beyond their sex: Learned women
of the European past. NY: NYUP, 1984.
LC#: HQ1148 .B49; ISBN: 084749984, 084750074
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[Letizia Panizza's essay in this history briefly discusses Cereta and her position among humanist women of the 1400s. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
A history of women's writing in Italy
/ edited by Letizia Panizza and Sharon Wood. Cambridge [England]
; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000. (xvi, 361 p.)
LC#: PQ4055.W6 H57 2000; ISBN: 0521570883, 0521578132
Includes bibliographical references (p. 282-350) and index
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Updated 06-28-08