Laura Cereta
Encyclopedia
Laura Cereta was a Renaissance
humanist
and feminist. Most of her writing was in the form of letters to other intellectuals.
. She was the eldest of six children. Her father, Silvestro Cereto was an attorney and a king's magistrate. Her family was a very prominent Italian family. Laura Cereta was sent to a convent at the age of seven to be educated. She learned religious principles and to read and write. During this time she was a very sickly child and suffered from insomnia which became the topics of her first letters. She was then brought home by her father to take care of her younger siblings at the age of nine. She might have suffered from insomnia
keeping her awake and finishing chores while the other members of the family were sleeping. She learned Latin and Greek from her father.
She was married at the age of fifteen to Pietro Serina, who died of fever after only eighteen months of marriage. She was left childless and never remarried. Two years later she began a seven-year career of teaching moral philosophy at the University of Prada, but no public records exist verifying this. After the death of her husband she concentrated on scholarly pursuits, publishing a volume of her letters in 1488, called Epistolae familiares. She was highly criticized for publishing her own work. Her father died six months after she published her letters, and she no longer felt inspired to write because of her father's death and the large amount of criticism from both men and women of her time. Cereta died unexpectedly in 1499 at the age of 30. No writings from her last years of life survived.
. Unlike most women of her time, Cereta was able to partake in letter writing because she had social contacts to participate.
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
humanist
Humanism
Humanism is an approach in study, philosophy, world view or practice that focuses on human values and concerns. In philosophy and social science, humanism is a perspective which affirms some notion of human nature, and is contrasted with anti-humanism....
and feminist. Most of her writing was in the form of letters to other intellectuals.
Biography
Cereta was born in 1469 in BresciaBrescia
Brescia is a city and comune in the region of Lombardy in northern Italy. It is situated at the foot of the Alps, between the Mella and the Naviglio, with a population of around 197,000. It is the second largest city in Lombardy, after the capital, Milan...
. She was the eldest of six children. Her father, Silvestro Cereto was an attorney and a king's magistrate. Her family was a very prominent Italian family. Laura Cereta was sent to a convent at the age of seven to be educated. She learned religious principles and to read and write. During this time she was a very sickly child and suffered from insomnia which became the topics of her first letters. She was then brought home by her father to take care of her younger siblings at the age of nine. She might have suffered from insomnia
Insomnia
Insomnia is most often defined by an individual's report of sleeping difficulties. While the term is sometimes used in sleep literature to describe a disorder demonstrated by polysomnographic evidence of disturbed sleep, insomnia is often defined as a positive response to either of two questions:...
keeping her awake and finishing chores while the other members of the family were sleeping. She learned Latin and Greek from her father.
She was married at the age of fifteen to Pietro Serina, who died of fever after only eighteen months of marriage. She was left childless and never remarried. Two years later she began a seven-year career of teaching moral philosophy at the University of Prada, but no public records exist verifying this. After the death of her husband she concentrated on scholarly pursuits, publishing a volume of her letters in 1488, called Epistolae familiares. She was highly criticized for publishing her own work. Her father died six months after she published her letters, and she no longer felt inspired to write because of her father's death and the large amount of criticism from both men and women of her time. Cereta died unexpectedly in 1499 at the age of 30. No writings from her last years of life survived.
Feminism
In her letters, Cereta defended women's right to education and fought the oppression of married women. Her letters laid the groundwork for Feminism of the Enlightenment. Cereta's letters also discussed war, death, fate, chance, and malice. Her letter to Bibolo Semproni has one of the few medieval references to the 1st century BC woman poet, CornificiaCornificia
Cornificia was a Roman poet and writer of epigrams of the 1st century BC.-Life:Cornificia belongs to the last generation of the Roman Republic....
. Unlike most women of her time, Cereta was able to partake in letter writing because she had social contacts to participate.
Writings
- Collected Letters of a Renaissance Feminist, ed. by Diana Robin, University of Chicago Press (1997) ISBN 0-226-10013-8
- http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerete