Christine de Pizan

Christine de Pizan was a French Italian medieval writer who became famous for her writing skills and for her pioneering feminist literature. She was born in Venice, Italy, in 1364, but  a few years later her family moved to France, after her father was appointed King Charles V's astrologer. Her father ensured she received a great education. De Pizan was knowledgeable in Greek and Latin, and had access to the King's royal archive, which included writings that ranged from science to literature. 

At the age of 15 de Pizan married a royal secretary, Etienne du Castel, who encouraged her intellectual interests. They had 3 children, but after 10 years of marriage, in 1389, her husband died. De Pizan then found herself alone to support her mother and her 3 children, since her father had already died in 1385. So she began to write poems that quickly became popular among members of the court. Impressed by her writing skills, many wealthy patrons started to support her. Nobles such as Queen Isabeau of Bavaria and Louis I, Duke of Orléans became her patrons. Between 1393 and 1412, de Pizan wrote over 300 ballads.

During the early 1400s she published a number of novels, including: Letters to the God of Love (1399),  and her most famous work, The Book of the City of Ladies (1405). In her books, de Pizan criticized the way women were often portrayed (as vain and flighty). In The Book of the City of Ladies she writes about powerful women from history, as the Queen of Shebba, Sappho and Dido, while advocating for women's education.

De Pizan is still remembered as a pioneering advocate of women's rights. Centuries later, Simone de Beauvoir, a French feminist writer and philosopher, refereed to de Pizan saying: "for the first time we see a woman take up her pen in defence of her sex." Her ideas are still influential, and inspirational for those who fight for equality. In Letters to the God of Love, she wrote:

Yet if women are so flighty, fickle, changeable, susceptible and inconstant (as some clerks would have us believe), why is it that their suitors have to resort to such trickery to have their way with them? And why don’t women quickly succumb to them, without the need for all this skill and ingenuity in conquering them? For there is no need to go to war for a castle that is already captured.