Giovanni Boccaccio was an Italian writer, poet, correspondent of Petrarch, and an important Renaissance humanist. He was known par excellence as the Certaldese, and one of the most important figures in the European literary panorama of the fourteenth century. Some scholars define him as the greatest European prose writer of his time, a versatile writer who amalgamated different literary trends and genres, making them converge in original works, thanks to a creative activity exercised under the banner of experimentalism.
Minerva is the Roman goddess of wisdom and strategic warfare, justice, law, victory, and the sponsor of arts, trade, and strategy. Minerva is not a patron of violence such as Mars, but of defensive war only. From the second century BC onward, the Romans equated her with the Greek goddess Athena. Minerva is one of the three Roman deities in the Capitoline Triad, along with Jupiter and Juno.
The Book of the City of Ladies or Le Livre de la Cité des Dames, is perhaps Christine de Pizan's most famous literary work, and it is her second work of lengthy prose. Pizan uses the vernacular French language to compose the book, but she often uses Latin-style syntax and conventions within her French prose. The book serves as her formal response to Jean de Meun's popular Roman de la Rose. Pizan combats Meun's statements about women by creating an allegorical city of ladies. She defends women by collecting a wide array of famous women throughout history. These women are "housed" in the City of Ladies, which is actually the book. As Pizan builds her city, she uses each famous woman as a building block for not only the walls and houses of the city, but also as building blocks for her thesis. Each woman added to the city adds to Pizan's argument towards women as valued participants in society. She also advocates in favour of education for women.
Venus is a Roman goddess, whose functions encompassed love, beauty, desire, sex, fertility, prosperity, and victory. In Roman mythology, she was the ancestor of the Roman people through her son, Aeneas, who survived the fall of Troy and fled to Italy. Julius Caesar claimed her as his ancestor. Venus was central to many religious festivals, and was revered in Roman religion under numerous cult titles.
In Greek mythology, Europa was a Phoenician princess of Argive Greek origin, and the mother of King Minos of Crete. The continent of Europe is named after her. The story of her abduction by Zeus in the form of a bull was a Cretan story; as classicist Károly Kerényi points out, "most of the love-stories concerning Zeus originated from more ancient tales describing his marriages with goddesses. This can especially be said of the story of Europa."
Penthesilea was an Amazonian queen in Greek mythology, the daughter of Ares and Otrera and the sister of Hippolyta, Antiope and Melanippe. She assisted Troy in the Trojan War, during which she was killed by Achilles.
In Roman mythology, Evander was a culture hero from Arcadia, Greece, who was said to have brought the Greek pantheon, laws, and alphabet to Italy, where he founded the city of Pallantium on the future site of Rome, sixty years before the Trojan War. He instituted the festival of the Lupercalia. Evander was deified after his death and an altar was constructed to him on the Aventine Hill.
In Greek mythology, Jocasta, also rendered Iocaste and also known as Epicaste, was a daughter of Menoeceus, a descendant of the Spartoi Echion, and queen consort of Thebes. She was the wife of first Laius, then of their son Oedipus, and both mother and grandmother of Antigone, Eteocles, Polynices and Ismene. She was also sister of Creon and mother-in-law of Haimon.
In Roman mythology, Lavinia is the daughter of Latinus and Amata, and the last wife of Aeneas.
According to Roman mythology, Amata was the wife of Latinus, king of the Latins, and the mother of their only child, Lavinia. In the Aeneid of Virgil, she commits suicide during the conflict between Aeneas and Turnus over which of them would marry Lavinia.
In ancient Roman religion, Ops or Opis was a fertility deity and earth goddess of Sabine origin. Her equivalent in Greek mythology was Rhea.
The sibyls were prophetesses or oracles in Ancient Greece. The sibyls prophesied at holy sites. At first, there appears to have been only a single Sibyl. By the fourth century BC, there appear to have been at least three, Phrygian, Erythraean, and Hellespontine. By the first century BC, there were at least ten sibyls, located in Greece, Italy, the Levant, and Asia Minor.
Tanaquil was the queen of Rome by marriage to Tarquinius Priscus, fifth king of Rome.
Artemisia II of Caria was a naval strategist, commander and the sister and the successor of Mausolus, ruler of Caria. Mausolus was a satrap of the Achaemenid Empire, yet enjoyed the status of king or dynast of the Hecatomnid dynasty. After the death of her brother/husband, Artemisia reigned for two years, from 353 to 351 BCE. Her ascension to the throne prompted a revolt in some of the island and coastal cities under her command due to their objection to a female ruler. Her administration was conducted on the same principles as that of her husband; in particular, she supported the oligarchical party on the island of Rhodes.
De Mulieribus Claris or De Claris Mulieribus is a collection of biographies of historical and mythological women by the Florentine author Giovanni Boccaccio, composed in 1361–62. It is notable as the first collection devoted exclusively to biographies of women in Western literature. At the same time as he was writing On Famous Women, Boccaccio also compiled a collection of biographies of famous men, De Casibus Virorum Illustrium.
In Greek mythology, Antiope was an Amazon, daughter of Ares and sister to Melanippe, Hippolyta, Penthesilea and possibly Orithyia, queens of the Amazons. She may have been the wife of Theseus and mother to his son Hippolytus, but differing sources claim this was Hippolyta.
Berenice or Laodice of Cappadocia, also known as Laodice was a princess from the Kingdom of Pontus and a queen of the Kingdom of Cappadocia by marriage to Ariarathes VI, and queen of Bithynia by marriage to Nicomedes III. She was regent of Cappadocia in 116 during the minority of her son Ariarathes VII.
Sulpicia was the wife of Quintus Fulvius Flaccus, and earned everlasting fame when she was determined to be the most chaste of all the Roman matrons.
There are several figures in Greek mythology named Manto, the most prominent being the daughter of Tiresias. The name Manto derives from Ancient Greek Mantis, "seer, prophet".
In Greek mythology, Manto was the daughter of the prophet Tiresias and mother of Mopsus. Tiresias was a Theban oracle who, according to tradition, was changed into a woman after striking a pair of copulating snakes with a rod, and was thereafter a priestess of Hera.
