ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the bases for Isotta's decision to abandon a secular humanist career and will examine the character of her life and work after her hermitage began. In the fifteenth century, one way to embark upon a humanist career was to write letters to prominent and learned men who would, it was hoped, respond with praise and encouragement a response made as public as possible. Isotta began her career in just this way. Her male correspondents praised her warmly enough, but a persistent and underlying theme could be heard: her accomplishments were great not in themselves but because of her sex—not in comparison with learned men but with other women. Isotta spent the rest of her life on her own property, perhaps with her mother, never in total isolation but nevertheless alone and in semihermitic retreat.18 Suggestive clues about this retreat can be culled from letters.
