...Boccaccio said of almost all the illustrious women he commemorated in his De Claris mulieribus (1355-59), "What can we think except that it was an error of...endowed by God with a magnificent virile spirit?" 13 Only as viragos, as exceptions to their sex, could women aspire to the Renaissance ideal of "man."...

...sex. Of Artemisia, for example, who became a woman warrior after her husband died, Boccaccio inquires: "What can we think except that it was an error of...body which had been endowed by God with a magnificent and virile spirit?" (127). Those women whom Boccaccio treats are often exceptional because they combine...

...Artemesia, queen of ancient Casia, he conceded admiration for her deeds; yet he asked what one could think except that it was an error of Nature to give...body which had been endowed by God with a magnificent and virile spirit. Writers such as Thomas Heywood continued this tradition in the seventeenth century,...

...brilliant strategic abilities and courage and to conclude that "[w]hile we admire the deeds of Artemisia, what can we think except that it was an error of Nature...body which had been endowed by God with a magnificent and virile spirit?" (127; 236). Two comparisons are at work here. Artemisia is being compared with...

...Richards, 34. 39 'What can we think', he writes, recounting the deeds of Queen Artemisia of Caria, 'except that it was an error of Nature to give female...body which had been endowed by God with a magnificent and virile spirit?', De mulieribus claris, ed. Zaccaria, 236, tr. Guarino, 127; and see Benson, Invention...

...for the highest praise they can bestow on a woman is that she is like a man. In Boccaccio's words: "What can we think except that it was an error of...had been endowed by God with a magnificent virile spirit?"5 Christine de Pizan, the first female author to enter this debate, was not content simply...

...Aristotle ridden by Phyllis, and Samson and Delilah. Illustrated in Smith, Power of Women, fig. 44. 35 "What can we think except that it was an error of...endowed by God with a magnificent virile spirit?" Giovanni Boccaccio, Concerning Famous Women, translation and introduction by Guido Guarino (New Jersey:...

...metaphysics in his attempt to explain this phenomenon. In a discussion of Artemisia he asks: ". . . what can we think except that it was an error of Nature...body which had been endowed by God with a magnificent and virile spirit?" In a discussion of lipicharis, Boccaccio introduces a Christian understanding of...