 Lucrezia Marinella was born in Venice in 1571, and lived there until her death in 1653. Her father, Giovanni Marinelli, was a physician, and the author of a number of medical treatises, two of which concerned women. He encouraged her intellectual interests, and allowed her access to biological and medical works, as well as works of philosophy (natural and moral) and literature. She was thus able to obtain a good education. Marinella composed works in a number of different genres, including lyric and narrative poetry, and devotional literature, but her skill as a philosophical polemicist demonstrated direct knowledge of the classical literary tradition and training in rhetoric and dialectic, all of which were unusual among women at the time (Panizza and Wood 2000, 65). Marinella’s first published work appeared in 1595; her most important work, the treatise entitled The Nobility and Excellence of Women and the Defects and Vices of Men (hereafter The Nobility) was published in Venice in 1600, revised and expanded in 1601, and reprinted in 1620. She continued writing and publishing until her death.