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Women and Family in the Renaissance

•  I. Women before the Renaissance •  Classical •  Christian •  Medieval

•  II. Women During the Renaissance •  Joan Kelly, Margaret King •  Diversity of experience: wives, mothers, widows, nuns,

scholars, court ladies

•  III. Women After the Renaissance •  Prot. Reformation •  Catholic Reformation

Women: The Classical legacy

Aristotle: “imperfect men”

•  Plato: Republic’s female guardians

•  Xenophon: women suited for indoor tasks

•  Rome: paterfamilias

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Women: The Christian legacy •  Old Testament •  Jesus & parables & M.

Magdalene •  St. Paul: the “weaker vessel” •  St. Augustine, Confessions •  St. Thomas Aquinas •  Vincent de Beauvais

(Dominican), in Speculum: “she is the confusion of man, an insatiable beast, a continuous anxiety, an incessant warfare, a daily ruin, a house of tempest, and a hindrance to devotion.”

Women: the Medieval legacy

•  Courtly love •  Bocaccio: De mulieribus claribus &

Griselda •  Christine de Pizan, Book of Ladies

Women of the Renaissance

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Castiglione

Mothers and Wives

Court Lady

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Nuns

Scholar/Humanist