62 WOMAN IN SCIENCE 



raise from the tomb those of whom she speaks or writes and 

 make them live forever. " But it was as the friend and 

 inspirer of Michaelangelo that she is best known to us to- 

 day. ' l Without wings, ' ' he writes to her, 1 1 1 fly with your 

 wings; by your genius I am raised to the skies; in your 

 soul my thought is born." 



Among those who specially distinguished themselves for 

 their profound scholarship, as exhibited in the halls of uni- 

 versities, were Dorotea Bucca, who occupied a chair of 

 medicine in the University of Bologna, where, by reason 

 of her rare eloquence and learning, she had students from 

 all parts of Europe; Laura Ceretta, of Brescia, who, dur- 

 ing seven years, gave public lectures on philosophy; Bat- 

 tista Malatesta, of Urbino, who taught philosophy with 

 such marked success that the most distinguished professors 

 of the day were forced to recognize themselves as her in- 

 feriors; and Fulvia Olympia Morati, who "at the age of 

 fourteen wrote Latin letters and dialogues in Greek and 

 Latin in the style of Plato and Cicero, ' ' and who, when she 

 was scarcely sixteen, "was invited to give lectures in the 

 University of Ferrara on the philosophical problems of 

 the Paradoxes of Cicero." So great, indeed, was her 

 knowledge of the ancient languages that she was offered 

 the professorship of Greek in the University of Heidelberg ; 

 but death cut short her brilliant career before she could 

 enter upon her duties in this famed institution of learning. 

 It was female professors of this type masters of Greek 

 and Latin letters, who in the words of a recent writer, 

 "sent forth from Italy such students as Moritz von Spiegel- 

 berg and Rudolph Agricola, to reform the instruction of 

 Deventer and Zwoll and prepare the way for Erasmus and 

 Reuchlin." 



In the preceding list of learned women and but a few 

 only have been named of the many who in every city of 

 importance conferred undying glory on their sex it is 

 clear that the Renaissance in Italy was, indeed, the golden 



