Section 4, I/28-I/36 Summary and Analysis

In "Reason begins to speak about ladies who were blessed with great learning, starting with the noble maiden Cornificia," Cornifica is sent to school with her brother due to her parents' clever trick. She composes several distinguished works which are praised by St. Gregory and Boccaccio. "About Proba the Roman" details how Proba excels in seven liberal arts and becomes a remarkable poet, reworking Virgil's "Bucolics," "Georgics" and "Aeneid" to put the Bible into verse in a book called "Cento" which Boccaccio praises. Though Sappho is familiar with others' writing and treatises, she composes her own works, even inventing new forms of poetry, praised by Boccaccio, in "About Sappho, who was an extremely fine poet and philosopher." In "About the maiden Manto," Christine learns about Manto who has complete knowledge of pyromancy, or divining the future, causing...