ABSTRACT
An ultra modern note was sounded by Masuccio Salernitano who, in the middle of the fifteenth century, considers the woman who makes the first overtures in love worthy of praise for her strong spirit. If, legally, woman was placed in an inferior position to man, in facilities for high education the lady of the upper classes enjoyed equal advantages with him. The damsels of the upper classes were instructed by the most famous men of their time, and some, throwing aside both the natural modesty and the acquired self-repression of their sex, set themselves to imitate and excel. More than once, women of epicene temper, like Catalinade Erauso, “the Spanish Military Nun,” have been known to escape from the trammels of sex and, donning male attire, to enter on military service. Women rewarded the admirers from whom they received insincere amatory compliments by returning bald imitations, frigid conceits, and insipid affectations.
