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The Worlds of the Renaissance Projects, 2000

Women in the Renaissance Lab

(17)Document 15 Ludovico Foscarini to Isotta Nogarola, Her Immaculate Hand ed. Margaret L. King and Albert Rabil Jr. (Asheville, North Caroline: Pegasus Press, University of North Carolina, 1997)

Isotta Nogorola was one of the most learned female humanists. Because of her education and eloquence her chastity was attacked and she was forced to live in seclusion in Verona. She wrote to Ludovico Foscarini a Venetian nobleman and humanist between 1451-53. In this letter they debate whether Adam or Eve was more sinful.

LUDOVICO BEGINS: If it is in any way possible to measure the gravity of human sinfulness, then we should see Eve's sin as more to be condemned than Adam's (for three reasons). [First), she was assigned by a lust judge to a harsher punishment than was Adam. (Second], she believed that she was made more like God, and that is in the category of unforgiveable sins against the Holy Spirit. [Third], she suggested and was the cause of Adam's sin - not he of hers; and although it is a poor excuse to sin because of a friend, nevertheless none was more tolerable than the one by which Adam was enticed.

ISOTTA: But I see things-since you move me to reply-from quite another and contrary viewpoint. For where there is less intellect and less constancy, there there is less sin; and Eve (lacked sense and constancy] and therefore sinned less. Knowing (her weakness] that crafty serpent began by tempting the woman, thinking the man perhaps invulnerable because of his constancy. (For it says in] Sentences 2 o Standing in the woman's presence. the ancient foe did not boldly persuade, but approached her with a question. "Why did God bid you not to eat of the tree of paradise?" She responded: "Lest perhaps we die." But seeing that she doubted the words of the Lord, the devil said "You shall not die," but "you will be like God, knowing good and evil "

(Adam must also be judged more guilty than Eve, secondly] because of his greater contempt for the command. For in Genesis 2 it appears that the Lord commanded Adam, not Eve, where it says "The Lord God took the man and

Continued in Document 16

(17)Document 15	Ludovico Foscarini to Isotta Nogarola, Her Immaculate Hand ed. Margaret L. King and Albert Rabil Jr. (Asheville, North Caroline: Pegasus Press, University of North Carolina, 1997)
	Isotta Nogorola was one of the most learned female humanists. Because of her education and eloquence her chastity was attacked and she was forced to live in seclusion in Verona. She wrote to Ludovico Foscarini a Venetian nobleman and humanist between 1451-53. In this letter they debate whether Adam or Eve was more sinful.
	LUDOVICO BEGINS: If it is in any way possible to measure the gravity of human sinfulness, then we should see Eve's sin as more to be condemned than Adam's (for three reasons). [First), she was assigned by a lust judge to a harsher punishment than was Adam. (Second], she believed that she was made more like God, and that is in the category of unforgiveable sins against the Holy Spirit. [Third], she suggested and was the cause of Adam's sin - not he of hers; and although it is a poor excuse to sin because of a friend, nevertheless none was more tolerable than the one by which Adam was enticed.
	ISOTTA: But I see things-since you move me to reply-from quite another and contrary viewpoint. For where there is less intellect and less constancy, there there is less sin; and Eve (lacked sense and constancy] and therefore sinned less. Knowing (her weakness] that crafty serpent began by tempting the woman, thinking the man perhaps invulnerable because of his constancy. (For it says in] Sentences 2 o Standing in the woman's presence. the ancient foe did not boldly persuade, but approached her with a question. "Why did God bid you not to eat of the tree of paradise?" She responded: "Lest perhaps we die." But seeing that she doubted the words of the Lord, the devil said "You shall not die," but "you will be like God, knowing good and evil "
	(Adam must also be judged more guilty than Eve, secondly] because of his greater contempt for the command. For in Genesis 2 it appears that the Lord commanded Adam, not Eve, where it says "The Lord God took the man and
	Continued in Document 16