A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Piscopia, Cornaro Elene
PISCOPIA, CORNARO ELENE,
Was born at Venice, in 1646. This lady was remarkable for her learning. Her erudition was very highly appreciated by the scholars of that age, and there are many records of great praise being offered her by distinguished men. She understood Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Spanish, French, and Arabic. She was a professor of philosophy, mathematics, theology, and astronomy. She was presented with the wreath and dignity of laureate, in the Duomo of Padua, In 1678. To these grave acquirements she added skill in music and poetry, with a talent for improvisation. Early in childhood she announced a determination against matrimony, in which she persevered, though greatly opposed by her parents, who were desirous and urgent that she should form some illustrious connexion; but the duties of the married life she thought would be incompatible with her engrossing love for study. She possessed sincere piety, a little too much tinctured with ascetic superstition as regarded herself, but drawing forth most benevolent and kindly dispositions towards her relations, dependants, and the indigent populace. For the most part of her life she was a patient martyr to acute disease, and died In 1684. Her works which remain are, "Euloglums on several illustrious Italians," written In Latin, Latin epistles, academical discourses in the vernacular tongue, a translation from the Spanish of Lanspergio, besides a volume of poems.