Fedele, Cassandra (1465–1558)

A renowned scholar, born in Venice and educated in classical literature, rhetoric, science, philosophy, and the new humanistic tradition. While still a young girl, she learned to speak Greek and Latin and started to gain a reputation as a skilled, persuasive public speaker. She won notice throughout Italy with a stirring speech she gave at the University of Padua, on the graduation of her cousin, praising the study of the arts and sciences. This speech, the Oratio pro Bertucio Lambert, was printed in Italy and Germany. She corresponded with the leading scholars of Europe as well as the nobility. In 1488, she was invited by Isabella, the future queen of Spain, to join her court. She refused this invitation—some historians believe the Doge of Venice deliberately wished to keep her as an ornament of his city and prevented her from moving to Spain. After her marriage to Giammaria Mapelli in 1499 she traveled to Crete—then a possession of Venice—with her husband, a physician. On returning to Venice in 1520, the couple lost their possessions in a storm. Soon afterward, her husband died and she was thrown on hard times. She had ceased giving public orations and she gradually fell away from her studies and her correspondence. After writing to Pope Paul III for help, he appointed her as the prioress of an orphanage in the church of San Domenico di Castello. In 1556 she delivered her last public speech, to honor a distinguished visitor, Bona Sforza, the queen of Poland. Eighty years after her death, three of her speeches and 123 letters were published.