Weaving Boccaccian Women

Abstract

In De mulieribus claris, written in the mid-fourteenth century, Giovanni Boccaccio presented the lives of 106 women. All but the last six subjects are women of antiquity, either real or mythological. Amazonian warriors and queens are included as well as women in more traditional roles, such as wives and mothers. It was a vital work, used by many others in the following centuries, including Christine de Pizan, to sustain a dialogue on the roles of women, both in its original Latin and in a variety of vernaculars. The most recent translator of Boccaccio's text, Virginia Brown, describes this work as the "fountainhead of the European tradition of female biography." Most scholars suggest that despite its importance as a source for defenders of women in the fifteenth and sixteenth century literary debate known as the querelle des femmes, Boccaccio's work underwrites the patriarchal status quo.