1 - Introduction

Summary

1.1.1 A comprehensive modern history of woman in Renaissance Europe has yet to be written. No doubt, when it appears it will show the evolution of woman's place in society and relate this to suitable models – demographic, anthropological, economic, sociological. Such a study will draw on data from a wide variety of sources, and make use of the information and conclusions of numerous monographs and theses. The present study aspires only to survey a narrow band of the spectrum which such a comprehensive history would need to cover; it does not set out to answer questions about society or demography, but is limited to the sphere of scholarship and scholarly texts. It is intended as a modest contribution not only to the study of attitudes towards woman in the Renaissance, but also to that of its intellectual infrastructure. It attempts to offer tentative answers to the questions: what is the notion of woman to be found in Renaissance texts, and how does it evolve? What is the relationship between the notion of woman and that of sex difference, and how is sex difference related in turn to other differences? Two presuppositions underlie these questions. The first is that there is less change in the notion of woman throughout the Renaissance than intellectual ferment and empirical enquiry of various kinds might lead one to expect. The second is that, at the end of the Renaissance, there is a greater discrepancy between social realities and the current notion of woman than at the beginning.