Page:Women in the Fine Arts From the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentiet.djvu/417

 poets their Sappho and their Comeille. She was born in 1607, but as her family were Protestants and frequently changed their residence in order to avoid persecution, the place of her birth is unknown. When Anna Maria was eight years old, they went permanently to Utrecht.

This distinguished woman was one of the exceptions said to prove rules, for though a prodigy in childhood she did not become a commonplace or stupid woman. Learning was her passion and art her recreation. It is difficult to repeat what is recorded of her unusual attainments and not feel as if one were being misled by a Munchausen! But it would be ungracious to lessen a fame almost three centuries old. We are told that Anna Maria could speak in Latin when seven years old, and translated from Seneca at ten. She acquired the Hebrew, Greek, Samaritan, Arabic, Chaldaic, Syriac, Ethiopian, Turkish, and Persian languages with such thoroughness that her admirers claim that she wrote and spoke them all. She also read with ease and spoke with finished elegance Italian, Spanish, English, and French, besides German and her native tongue. Anna Maria Schurmann wrote verses in various languages, but the chief end which her exhaustive studies served was to aid her in theological research; in this she found her greatest satisfaction and deepest interest. She was respectfully consulted upon important questions by the scholars of different countries.

At the University of Utrecht an honorable place was reserved for her in the lecture-rooms, and she frequently