Famous Women

The first collection of biographies in Western literature devoted exclusively to women, Famous Women affords a fascinating glimpse of a moment in history when medieval attitudes toward women were beginning to give way to more modern views of their potential. Virginia Brown’s acclaimed translation of Giovanni Boccaccio’s classic work, commissioned for the I Tatti Renaissance Library, is the first English edition based on the autograph manuscript of the Latin.

Boccaccio’s original Latin text of Famous Women with Brown’s translation is also available in a hardcover facing-page edition.