In 1488, Laura Cereta, at just 19 years of age, wrote the Letter on the Defense of Liberal Instruction for Women. Laura Cereta was the eldest child of a prominent family from the city of Brescia. This particular letter by Cereta is said to be one of the most remarkable fifteenth-century Italian documents.
Laura Cereta’s letter was a response to a critic who had praised her as a prodigy, yet implied that true women humanist scholars were rare and that, perhaps, her father authored her letters. In her letter of defense to respond, she explained why so few women were scholars and defends her own learning. Laura Cereta argued that women, just like men, should choose to exercise their free will in pursuit of learning. Having access to this document that Cereta wrote in the 1400s, gives us valuable information to have and to know how men and women …show more content…
The document was later used to discover how men and women were treated and the lifestyle roles of both men and women during this time. Laura Cereta pursued writing this document to influence women not to hesitate further education. Women and men should have the freedom to obtain an equivalent amount of knowledge. Her father was the one that encouraged her to continue her studies while she was helping raise her family. This document causes the reader to assume the roles of men and women were extremely different during the 1400s than what they are today. One could assume that men were more educated and diverse – being more active and public, ex. working and socializing in the community; whereas women were to be homemakers –meaning to manage the domestic affairs, ex. cooking, cleaning, and caring for the children. We could also assume that only men could have word in the political government affairs and that Laura Cereta disagreed with these things at a young age and as a