A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Morata, Olympia Fulvia
MORATA, OLYMPIA FULVIA,
Was born at Ferrara, in 1526. Her father, preceptor to the young Princes of Ferrara, sons of Alphonsus the First, observing her genius, took great pains in cultivating it. Olympia was called to court for the purpose of studying belles-lettres with the Princess of Ferrara, where she astonished the Italians by declaiming in Latin and Greek, explaining the paradoxes of Cicero, and answering any question that was put to her. Her father's death, and the ill health of her mother, withdrew her from court, and she devoted herself to household affairs, and the education of her three sisters and a brother. A young German, named Andrew Grunthler, who had studied medicine, and taken his doctor's degree at Ferrara, married her, and took her, with her little brother, to Germany.
They went to Schweinfurt, in Franconia, which was soon after besieged and burnt, and they barely escaped with their lives. The hardships they suffered in consequence, caused Morata's death in the course of a few months. She died in 1555, in the Protestant faith, which she had embraced on her coming to Germany. Several of her works were burnt at Schweinfurt, but the remainder were collected and published at Basil, 1558, by Coeluis Secundus Curio. They consist of orations, dialogues, letters, and translations.