Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/780

766  most diseases and complaints. This system, which was neglected in Spain, raised the admiration, and inflamed the curiosity of England, so that others assumed the honour of it, though due to a Spanish lady. She was prior to the celebrated Descartes, in the opinion that the rational soul resided in the brain, but extended it to the whole substance, and did not like him confine it to the pineal gland. Donna Oliva was so confident of her ability to maintain her opinions, that, in the dedication of one of her works to the president of Castile, she requested that an assembly of the most learned naturalists and physicians might be convened; offering to shew, beyond denial, that the natural philosophy and physic then taught in the schools, were wide of the mark."

indiscreetly become a nun in that city, some years after her profession, protested against her vows, and obtained absolution from the at the court of Rome. Afterwards she went to live with her mother, where she addicted herself to the study of the belles letters; she composed many works, and the only recreation she allowed herself was that of instructing children in the intervals of her study.

for the enthusiastic admiration, and constant love of Petrarch, who, after he became