Perhaps the most famous and accomplished learned woman of the century, Isotta Nogarola's career followed the pattern which would be repeated time and again over the centuries. A product of an intellectually stimulating home, tutored by some of the best minds of the time, praised as a child for her learning, Nogarola met sharp resistance when she attempted to continue her work as an adult. Her public life as a Renaissance humanist lasted only 2 years, 1436-1438. Rejected by her male contemporaries, Nogarola did not succumb to pressures of the age and either marry or enter religious orders. Rather she retreated to her mother's home and to a life of private study and contemplation. The price Nogarola paid for her intellectual freedom was high: perpetual virginity and isolation from other learned people.¹

      Yet, in spite of, or perhaps because of, her isolation she was an ardent feminist. Her isolation was briefly broken in 1451 when she engaged in an intellectually passionate correspondence with the noted humanist and Venetian nobleman, Ludovico Foscarini. Possibly the most important debate on the woman question in fifteenth century Italy and certainly the work for which Nogarola is best remembered today, Foscarini and Nogarola exchanged a series of letters wherein they debated the relative guilt of Adam and Eve in the cause of the Fall with Foscarini defending Adam and Nogarola defending Eve. Manuscript copies of the debate circulated throughout Europe. Two centuries later, in the second half of the seventeenth century 564 of them could be found in one Parisian library alone.² Her work would be remembered for centuries: she is mentioned in both An Essay to Revive the Antient Education of Gentlewomen (1673) by Bathsua Makin and Women and the Alphabet (1859) by Thomas Wentworth Higginson.

      Although Nogarola at times argues from the weak position that women are inherently inferior to men, her defense of Eve when viewed as a whole is really quite strong. Indeed, at times, she seems to be conceding Eve's weakness only to satirically point out Adam's alleged strength. But judge for yourself.

      From Isotta's first letter to Ludovico:

" But I see things - since you move me to reply - from quite another and contrary viewpoint. For where there is less intellect and less constancy, there there is less sin; and Eve [lacked sense and constancy] and therefore sinned less. Knowing [her weakness] that crafty serpent began by tempting the woman, thinking the man perhaps invulnerable because of his constancy. [For it says in ] Sentences 2: Standing in the woman's presence, the ancient foe did not boldly persuade, but approached her with a question: "Why did God bid you not to eat of the tree of paradise?" She responded: "Lest perhaps we die." But seeing that she doubted the words of the Lord, the devil said: "You shall not die," but "you will be like god, knowing good from evil."
      [Adam must also be judged more guilty than Eve, secondly] because of his greater contempt for the command. For in Genesis 2 it appears that the Lord commanded Adam, not Eve, where it says: "The Lord God took the man and placed him in the paradise of Eden to till it and to keep it ," (and it does not say, "that they might care for and protect it") ". . . and the Lord God commanded the man" (and not "them"): "From every tree of the garden you may eat" (and not "you" [in the plural sense]), and [referring to the forbidden tree], "for the day you eat of it, you must die," [again, using the singular form of man more highly than the woman.
      Moreover, the woman did not [eat from the forbidden tree] because she believed that she was made more like God, but rather because she was weak and [inclined to indulge in] pleasure. Thus: "Now the woman saw that the tree was good for food, pleasing to the eyes, and desirable for the knowledge it would give. She took of its fruit and ate it, and also gave some to her husband and he ate," and it does not say [that she did so] in order to be like God. And if Adam had not eaten, her sin would have had no consequences. For it does not say: "If Eve had not sinned Christ would not have been made incarnate," but "If Adam had not sinned." Hence the woman, but only because she had been first deceived by the serpent's evil persuasion, did indulge in the delights of paradise; but she would have harmed only herself and in no way endangered human posterity if the consent of the first-born man had not been offered. Therefore Eve was no danger to posterity but [only] to herself; but the man Adam spread the infection of sin to himself and to all future generations. Thus Adam, being the author of all humans yet to be born, was also the first cause of perdition. For this reason the healing of humankind was celebrated first in the man and then in the woman, just as [according to Jewish tradition], after an unclean spirit has been expelled from a man, as it springs forth from the synagogue, the woman is purged [as well].
      Moreover, that Eve was condemned by a just judge to a harsher punishment is evidently false, for God said to the woman: "I will make great your distress in childbearing; in pain shall you bring forth children; for your husband shall be your longing, though he have dominion over you." But to Adam he said: "Because you have listened to your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I have commanded you not to eat" (notice that God appears to have admonished Adam alone [using the singular form of "you"] and not Eve) "Cursed be the ground because of you; in toil shall you eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to you, and you shall eat the plants of the ground, since out of it you were taken; for dust you are and unto dust you shall return." Notice that Adam's punishment appears harsher than Eve's for God said to Adam: "to dust you shall return," and not to Eve, and death is the most terrible punishment that could be assigned. Therefore it is established that Adam's punishment was greater than Eve's.
      I have written this because you wished me to. Yet I have done so fearfully, since this is not a woman's task. But you are kind, and if you find any part of my writing clumsy you will correct it."³ p 58-61

1. Her Immaculate Hand, p. 25-27
2. Encyclopedia, see entry for Nogarola, p. 921-922
3. Her Immaculate Hand, p. 58-61

References:

      Her Immaculate Hand, Margaret L. King and Albert Rabil, Jr., (Binghampton, NY:, Medieval & Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1991) pp. 57-68

      Encyclopedia of Continental Women Writers, Vol 2, K. Wilson, Garland Press, 1991

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