Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/628

614  are summed up, in 1600 honoured her with the title of Singular, and bestowed the rights of a Roman citizen on her, and the whole family of Molsa. Part of the patent runs thus: 'Though it be new and uncommon for the senate to admit women into the number of citizens, whose excellencies and fame, as they ought to be confined to family affairs, are seldom of service to the common wealth in public matters; yet if there be any one among them, who not only surpasses the rest of her own sex, but even the men, in almost all virtues, it is reasonable, that by a new example, new and unusual honours should be paid to new and unusual merit. Since therefore Tarquinia Molsa, a native of Modena, &c. resembles by her virtues those famous Roman heroines, so that she seems to lack nothing, but being a Roman citizen, that this alone might not be wanting to complete her glory, the senate and people of Rome have decreed to present her with the freedom of the city, &c.'

She was the wife of Paulus Porrinus, but losing him, would never consent to be married again, although then young and without children. She gave such lively tokens of her grief, that Patricius compares her to another Artemisia. 1em

had been brought up in a christian family; but was not so much indebted to her mother's cares as to that of a decrepid old servant of the house, who had nursed her father, and who superintended the education of her master's daughters. She never suffered them to drink even water, except at meals, telling