ABSTRACT
Following centuries of medieval hagiography in which female virtue was represented almost exclusively in terms of self-denial and a disdain for this life in expectation of the next, the emergence from classical authors of a catalog of powerful, worldly, valiant women stood in stark contrast to established notions of the feminine role. Boccaccio's decision to compose a text replete with diatribes against the corrupting influence of female authority may have been motivated in part by his own experience with a domineering stepmother whose avarice and essential emasculation of his father usurped Giovanni's own prospects. Modern scholarship in women's and gender studies is frequently condemnatory of medieval and Renaissance authors and artists whose focus on women fails to articulate a program of gender equality. Renaissance writers and painters assimilated Boccaccio's renditions of classical heroines differentially depending on the prevailing conditions of patronage.
