ABSTRACT
This chapter overviews the unusual synthesis of Quattrocento humanism and protofeminism that marks Laura Cereta's work as different from those of any other humanist of her time. Many of her letters concern private, familial matters, such as her difficult relationships with both her mother and her husband, subjects considered taboo in a humanist letter book. The urban, upper-middle class Brescian culture Cereta was born into in 1469 assumed the attributes of both Christian piety and humanist learning. The oration on marriage begins with a prologue on the position of the certain planets and constellations indicating a propitious moment for her correspondent, Pietro Zecchi, to marry. To persuade him that the loving commitment of a woman in marriage is good for a man, Cereta presents a series of famous exempla of virtuous wives from ancient world. While the intellectual and sexual aspects of women's lives are closely connected in Boccaccio—where thoughts of learning always trigger thoughts of sex—in Cereta they do not.
