Cassandra Fedele


Cassandra Fedele was the most renowned woman scholar in Italy during the last decades of the Quattrocento.

Early life

Fedele was born in Venice in 1465 to Barbara Leoni and Angelo Fedele. While Fedele does not mention her mother in her writings, we have evidence that her father was respected among the aristocracy and took a great interest in his daughter's learning. When Fedele reached fluency in Greek and Latin at the age of twelve, she was sent by her father to Gasparino Borro, a Servite monk, who tutored her in classical literature, philosophy, the sciences, and dialectics. In 1487, at twenty-two years of age, she achieved success in Italy and abroad when she delivered a Latin speech in praise of the arts and sciences at her cousin's graduation at Padua. Her speech, Oratio pro Bertucio Lamberto, was published in Modena, Venice, and Nuremberg. From 1487 to 1497, she exchanged letters with prominent humanists and nobles throughout Spain and Italy. One of these correspondents, Isabella I of Castile, urged Fedele to join her court in Spain. Fedele declined the invitation, writing that she could not go while Italy was at war with France. However, Fedele's early biographers believed that the doge Agostino Barbarigo would not allow Fedele to leave Italy, although there is no evidence of such a decree.

Fame

Fedele achieved fame through her writing and oratorical abilities. In addition to the 123 letters and 3 orations published in Padua in 1636, it is believed that she also wrote Latin poetry. She participated with influential humanists in public debates on philosophical and theological issues and was asked to speak in front of the doge Agostino Barbarigo and the Venetian Senate on the subject of higher education for women. In a letter to Lorenzo de' Medici, Angelo Poliziano praised her for her excellence in both Latin and Italian and for her beauty.

Later life

Fedele's success was short lived. The climax of her scholarly activity occurred between the ages of twenty-two and thirty-three, just prior to her marriage at age thirty-four. After she married, and for almost sixty years, she wrote few letters and was invited only once, in 1556, to deliver a public address in honor of the Queen of Poland, Bona Sforza, who came to Venice. Some historians argue that Fedele abandoned her intellectual pursuits when she got married, as was the case for most learned women of her day who married and assumed full-time management of an entire household. Fedele may have also been discouraged by strong social forces that opposed the scholarly participation of married women. In a letter to Alessandra Scala, who wrote Fedele asking whether she should get married or devote her life to study, Fedele encouraged her to "choose the path for which nature has suited you".
In 1520, on Fedele's return from Crete with her physician husband, Giammaria Mapelli, she lost all her belongings in a shipwreck. Her husband died later that year, leaving her a widow, childless, and in financial difficulty. Fedele wrote to Leone X asking for help in 1521, but he did not reply to her letter. She tried again in 1547 and wrote to Paolo III, who responded by giving her a position as the prioress of an orphanage at the church of San Domenico di Castello in Venice where she resided until her death. Fedele may have also struggled with health problems. Before her marriage she complained of an illness that was depleting her strength and making it difficult to concentrate on reading and writing for any length of time.

Works by Cassandra Fedele