Her Immaculate Hand: Selected Works by and About the Women Humanists of Quattrocento Italy (Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 20)

Twenty-four letters, orations, and encomia by and to Renaissance women, translated from Latin. Quattrocento Italy produced a number of such learned women; though they were granted neither great status in the world of humanism nor recognition of intellectual parity with men, they surpassed their medieval forebears and most of their contemporaries in other parts of Europe, and they transmitted to following centuries the important notion that women could participate as creative intellectuals in the shaping of culture. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)