Note 891 — Chapter VI · THE POSITION OF WOMEN.
S. G. C. (Samuel George Chetwynd) Middlemore translation
E.g. in Castiglione, Il Cortigiano. In the same strain Francesco Barbaro, De Re Uxoria; Poggio, An Seni sit Uxor ducenda, in which much evil is said of women; the ridicule of Codro Urceo, especially his remarkable discourse, An Uxor sit ducenda (Opera, 1506, fol. xviii.-xxi.), and the sarcasms of many of the epigrammatists. Marcellus Palingenius, (vol. i. 304) recommends celibacy in various passages, lib. iv. 275 sqq., v. 466-585; as a means of subduing disobedient wives he recommends to married people,
‘Tu verbera misce Tergaque nunc duro resonent pulsata bacillo.’
Italian writers on the woman’s side are Benedetto da Cesena, De Honore Mulierum, Venice, 1500, Dardano, La defesa della Donna, Ven. 1554, Per Donne Romane. ed. Manfredi, Bol. 1575. The defence of, or attack on, women, supported by instances of famous or infamous women down to the time of the writer, was also treated by the Jews, partly in Italian and partly in Hebrew; and in connection with an earlier Jewish literature dating from the thirteenth century, we may mention Abr. Sarteano and Eliah Gennazzano, the latter of whom defended the former against the attacks of Abigdor (for their MS. poems about year 1500, comp. Steinschneider, Hebr. Bibliogr. vi. 48).