Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/373

Rh indeed, Lorenzo, a surprizing woman, as well from her acquirements in her own language, as in the Latin; and, in my opinion, she may be called handsome. I left her, astonished at her talents. She is much devoted to your interest, and speaks of you with great esteem. She even avows her intention of visiting you at Florence, so that you may prepare yourself to give her a proper reception."

From a letter of this lady's many years afterwards to Leo X. we learn, that an epistolary correspondence had subsisted between her and Lorenzo de Medicis; and it is with concern we find, that the remembrance of this intercourse was revived, in order to induce the pontiff to bestow upon her some pecuniary assistance, she being then a widow, with a numerous train of dependants. She lived, however, to a far more advanced period, and her literary acquirements, and the reputation of her early associates, threw a lustre over her declining years; and, as her memory remained unimpaired to the last, she was resorted to from all parts of Italy as a living monument of those happier days to which the Italians never reverted without regret. The letters and orations of this lady were published at Pavia in 1636, with some account of her life. She wrote a volume of Latin poems also, on various subjects.

She is thus spoken of by M. Thomas, in his Essay on Women:

"One of the most learned women in Italy, who wrote equally well in the three languages of Homer, Virgil, and Dante, in verse and in prose; who possessed all the philosophy of her own and the preceding ages; who, by her graces, embellished even theology; sustained thesises with eclat, and many times gave public lessons at Padua;