Back in the 13^th century, Bettisia Gozzadini taught law classes at the University of Bologna, and was likely the first woman in history to teach at a university. As legend has it, however, as a student she had to attend her classes – where she very much thrived, so much that her teachers described her as an “exceptional monster”, as in “genius of monstrous scale” – disguised as a man. It might seem weird considering that a century earlier Héloïse d’Argenteuil had attended university dressed in her own clothes, catching the eye of Peter Abelard. But, as everybody knows, Paris is a different city.

Legend doesn’t stop there, though: Bettisia was so beautiful that she had to teach while donning a veil, so as to not stir the souls of the many students attending her classes. What’s mortifying is that the same rumours were spread about the second woman who would teach law classes in Bologna a hundred years later. Novella d’Andrea, daughter of canon law professor Giovanni d’Andrea, had studied at her father’s school and, in his absence, acted as his substitute teacher in some of his classes with the highest attendance rate. She was veiled too or, according to different rumours, had to teach from behind a curtain.

Judging by these rumours, we must presume either that they both used to teach while veiled or that their stories got tangled up, and we’ll never know the truth. We won’t understand whether the teacher donned a veil not to distract her students, or whether her students were a bunch of uncouth buffoons who, at her entering the classroom, would create such a ruckus by hurtling taunting and mocking words at her as if in a distasteful comedy show.

Be that as it may, the spread of their legends show us that speaking and teaching in public as a woman was not at all an ordinary thing, and society back then would have not let it slide so readily. Perhaps Bettisia (or Novella) did not wear a veil after all, but they certainly didn’t have an easy time teaching, even if, contrary to their myth, they had been of barely tolerable looks.

Bettisia and Novella covered themselves and didn’t leave any written works that would pass down their memories. Thankfully, society’s collective imagination somehow preserved their stories. But just how many women suffered the same fate, forced to hide their genius behind a veil?

To be fair, society’s collective memory and chronicles have been far more lenient with female poets and mystics, empresses and courtesans: to name a few, the fame of Phryne, Aspasia, Theodora, Christine de Pizan, Marie de France, Caterina da Siena, and Hildegard of Bingen was not smothered by the times they lived in. Nevertheless, except for the two aforementioned law professors, little is known about female philosophers and mathematicians. As if Kierkegaard was right when he said that men concern themselves with the infinite, and women with the finite.

If you ask me, dedicating oneself to illuminate the sense of the finite is no small matter at all. Kierkegaard’s words imply that men, unable to birth children, turned to Zenone’s paradoxes instead – as if Hildegard hadn’t faced the flaming infinite herself. It’s because of such claims that history (at least, up to the 20^th century) seemingly didn’t pass down the names of female philosophers and mathematicians, opting for poets, writers, saints, and scientists instead. Hypatia may be the only exception, but if Saint Cyril hadn’t had her lynched, we likely wouldn’t have known her name, either. As if, with no friends in higher places, a female philosopher had no chance at all to go down in history.

Female philosophers did suffer the same fate of female painters. It seemed that women were just not that good at painting, with the sole exceptions of Rosalba Carriera, Artemisia Gentileschi, or the like. But, at least for painters, there was a good reason for their lack of fame: for centuries, the painting business revolved around frescoes in churches, and getting up on scaffolds while wearing a skirt was utterly indecent, and so was opening a studio with thirty-something apprentices. But the moment that easel painting took hold, female painters were everywhere. It would be like saying that Jewish people were great at many types of art, except at painting until Chagall showed up. It’s true that Jewish culture was predominantly auditory and not visual, and that God himself could not be pictured, but many Jewish manuscripts do have some exquisite decorations.

The point is that, in those centuries where figurative arts were mainly in the hands of the Christian Church, it’s no surprise that Jewish artists were not encouraged to paint the Virgin Mary and crucifixes.

Let’s go back to female philosophers. Héloïse d’Argenteuil, a brilliant scholar of philosophy and theology, could not teach and had to settle by becoming an abbess. Not that being an abbess was of minor importance at the time, as we can see from Caterina da Siena’s and Hildegard of Bingen’s stories, but Héloïse was still forbidden from concerning herself with universal problems – she could only face particular ones, of course, given that her job as a woman was to give meaning to the finite.

But is it true that history buried the names of female philosophers? In 1690, a certain Gilles Ménage, Latin scholar and tutor of Madame de Sévigné and Madame de Lafayette, published the Mulierum philosopharum historia (“History of Women Philosophers”). Hypatia was far from being the only one: although it mainly focused on Classical philosophers, Ménage’s book talked about many intriguing women. Diotima the Socratic, Arete the Cyrenaic, Nicarete the Megaric, Hipparchia the Cynic, Theodora the Peripatetic, Leontion the Epicurean, Themistoclea the Pythagorean – the list didn’t stop there as Ménage, by looking through ancient texts and the works of the Fathers of the Church, had found sixty-five names, although his idea of what “philosophy” represented was not literal. By taking into account that in ancient Greek society women were confined within the walls of their house, that male philosophers were more partial to young boys than young girls, and that to enjoy public fame a woman had to be a courtesan, it’s easy to understand the effort exerted by these women to stand out. Aspasia, to this day, is remembered primarily as a courtesan, a good one at that; her being proficient in rhetoric and philosophy has been completely forgotten, as well as her being an acquaintance of Socrates (according to Plutarch). I’ve leafed through many modern philosophical encyclopedias and found no trace of these names, save for Hypatia and Diotima; the latter having to thank Plato for her fame; otherwise she would have been forgotten and maybe only rediscovered in the present time thanks to a fierce feminist group. More exhaustive than philosophical encyclopedias is Wikipedia, which has a page dedicated to Nicarete of Megara who, according to Diogenes Laertius, had an illicit relationship with her teacher Stilpo. Thus, she became a teacher thanks to her lover. When it’s not a lover it is a father – see Arete, known as Aristippus’s daughter. After all, in order to be able to freely teach philosophy Nicarete chose to become an hetaira – an escort, we would call her today. And Leontion was an hetaira as well, known for attending Epicure’s Garden, and she ought to be better remembered for the time she, apparently, dared to criticise the great Theophrastus.

Ménage also included in his list of philosophers Themistoclea, a Delphi priestess who is said to have inspired Pythagoras. A dwarf standing on the shoulders of a giant. Hipparchia of Maroneia seems more self-sufficient; the Palatine Anthology (VII, 413) quotes: «I, Hipparchia, chose not the tasks of amply-robed women, but the manly life of the Cynics. Nor do tunics fastened with brooches and thick-soled slippers, and the hair-caul wet with ointment please me, but rather the wallet and its fellow-traveller, the staff and the course double mantle suited to them, and a bed strewn on the ground.» When reproached for having given up loom work, she replied she had prioritised her own education, instead of wasting away weaving. Maybe, being as disheveled as she looked, she appeared ugly when she wasn’t, and thus didn’t have to cover herself up with a veil. Because of this, history left her behind. Poor cow.

In the end, it’s not that female philosophers (or women proficient in in utroque iure) were not a thing. It’s that their male peers would rather steal their ideas and then have them be erased from the records.


Transalted by Arianna Premoli.