Western Famous Women: The First Biographical Work on Women in Western History

Author: (Italian) Giovanni Boccaccio
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-01-01
Features: The great writer Giovanni Boccaccio blew the horn for the beginning of the Italian Renaissance with The Decameron, and 20 years later, he presented another timeless masterpiece to the world—Famous Women of the West. In this book, some well-known figures are revisited, brought to life by Boccaccio, with each person's life and deeds verified to appear before readers in a more authentic light. For example, Venus, as everyone knows, is a woman famous for her beauty, and in mythology, she is also the mother of Cupid, the god of love. However, as argued by Boccaccio, she is actually the inventor and promoter of an extremely vulgar and corrupt place—the brothel. Another woman recorded by Boccaccio in this book—Tiburtina, a young girl from Babylon—is likely known to few. But when it comes to Juliet in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, many will immediately think of the tragic love story. In fact, when Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet, he basically borrowed from Tiburtina, the Babylonian girl, as depicted by Boccaccio. If someone mentions Neostрата, you might not know her. According to Boccaccio's records, she was the daughter of the King of Arcadia. She once built the city of Palatine with her son, which later became the great ancient city of Rome. She also invented 16 letters and taught the locals how to combine them. These letters are the magical Latin alphabet still in use today. These stories, in Boccaccio's hands, in this book Famous Women of the West, are abundant, which is why this book became an important read for young ladies of the Western upper class from the moment of their birth.