olina Chapel in the Vatican. After Rome
was occupied and sacked by the forces of
the Holy Roman Emperor in 1527, San-
gallo left the city and was hired as a mili-
tary architect. He designed fortifications
for Florence, Perugia, Rome, and the city
of Ancona, on the Adriatic coast, and Saint
Patrick’s well at Orvieto. He also helped to
complete the Villa Madama, commissioned
by Giulio de’ Medici in Rome from the
artist Raphael. In 1539 he began work on
a large and detailed wooden model of
Saint Peter’s Basilica, a work that survived
as one of the most famous possessions of
the Vatican Museum.
de Gournay, Marie le Jars ..................
(1565–1645)
A writer and social critic, Marie de Gour-
nay is also known as the lifelong friend
and editor of the French essayist Michel
de Montaigne. She was born in Paris and
raised in the Picardy region north of the
city. She developed a literary career of her
own upon editing Montaigne’s works for
publication after his death in 1592. She
gained a reputation in literary circles for
her combative stance in favor of the intel-
lectual equality of women. To underline
her point, she produced a wide range of
works and managed to earn an indepen-
dent living from her poems, a novel(Le
Proumenoir de Monsieur de Montaigne),
stories, political tracts, and essays on edu-
cation, poetry, and language. Her works
The Equality of Men and WomenandThe
Ladies’ Grievance treated the moral
strength and intelligence of women, as ex-
pounded by ancient and contemporary au-
thors as well as the earliest leaders of the
church. In her essays de Gournay explains
that physical differences between the gen-
ders are irrelevant, and that a lack of edu-
cation and society’s restrictions on women
lead to the impression of inferior intelli-
gence and judgment on their part. She
criticizes men who lack the ability to take
women seriously, and believes their atti-
tude arises from their own fears and inse-
curity.de Pisan, Christine ............................
(1364–1430)
Writer and social critic, and one of the
first women to make a profession from
her literary pursuits, Christine de Pisan
was born in Venice, the daughter of a phy-
sician and Venetian official. She moved to
France when her father was appointed
physician and astrologer to King Charles
V. With her father’s encouragement, she
made an extensive study of the scientific,
philosophical, and literary books available
at the French court. She emerged as a
writer after the death of her husband Eti-
enne du Castel in 1390, an event that en-
tangled her in a series of lawsuits over her
husband’s estate and forced her to seek
out aristocratic patrons in order to sup-
port her family. She began writing lyric
poetry on commission for nobles at court.
In her workLetters to the God of Love, she
objected to the chivalric ideals of knight-
hood and its attitude toward women and
their role in society. This work brought
her into a famous public debate over the
depiction of women in theRoman de la
Roseof Jean de Meun, one of the well-
known chivalric ballads. An intense study
of the classical techniques of rhetoric and
debate allowed her to give a good account
of herself in a male-dominated world of
literary debate. She followed her early suc-
cesses withThe Book of the City of Ladies,
an allegory that considers the world and
social conventions from a woman’s per-
spective. She also wroteSong in Honor of
Joan of Arc, The Book of Three Virtues,as
well as books of history, biography, reli-
gion, and politics.de Gournay, Marie le Jars