Note 86 — Chapter IV · THE EDUCATION OF GIRLS

It was to an expert in high culture that Renée of France entrusted her daughters, in the person of Olympia Morata, who was noted for the eloquent Latin and Greek discourses she delivered as a precocious child of thirteen. While still under fifteen, Olympia’s pupils were sufficiently advanced to act a comedy of Terence before the pope. This education by means of the theatre was completed with serious readings in Ovid and Cicero, and the final polish was given by a Greek monk of known liberal views, Francesco Porto. There was no idleness or melancholy here.