 Marinella married another physician, Girolomo Vacca, relatively late in life. In the sixteenth century political and economic conditions in Venice, and their impact on marriage opportunities, gave women more liberty, which may have favored feminist polemics (see Cox 1995). In that context, Marinella’s late marriage may have afforded her greater opportunities for education and a measure of independence. There is some evidence that she was accepted as part of a group of intellectuals who formed the second Venetian academy, and that the academy supported and encouraged the expression of her feminist ideas (Kolsky 2001, 976). Marinella was commissioned to write The Nobility, either by Lucio Scarano, to whom it is dedicated (also a physician, and a philosopher) or by its publisher, Giovanni Battista Ciotti (Kolsky 2001, 975; Ross 2009, 291). It was intended as a response to a treatise by Giuseppe Passi, I donneschi diffetti (The Defects of Women). The commission attests both to the reputation Marinella enjoyed as an intellectual, and to the support she received from a wider circle.