"Women, as well as men, retained a grateful remembrance of the intellectual training, which they had received from Guarino and Vittorino. Vittorino's pupil, Cecilia Gonzaga, a daughter of the ruling house of Mantua, whose fresh and simple grace may be admired in the medallion of Pisanello, was already learning Greek at the age of seven; while, among the pupils of Guarino, Isotta Nogarola was skilled in Latin verse and prose, and quoted Greek and Latin authors in the course of those learned letters to her tutor, which were not entirely approved by the public opinion of Verona. In cases such as these, the studious temper was often associated with retiring habits and with strong religious feeling; and, like Baptista dei Malatesti, the former correspondent of Leonardo Bruni, both of these learned ladies ultimately took the veil." While so much attention was paid to the classics, the great Italian authors were not neglected and the Italian girls of the Renaissance were brought up to know the classic literature of the vernacular. It was the custom to have Dante and Petrarch and Ariosto read to them while they were doing embroidery, and these charming young women of the Renaissance in every country in Europe had the reputation for doing most wonderful embroidery. They also learned to play on {317} various musical instruments, and their voices were cultivated to the best possible advantage. It is often a source of wonder where they got the time to do all these things. Some of the letters from the French and Spanish ambassadors at these various Italian courts tell of the marvellous ability of these charming young women. As a rule the ambassador's idea in writing such descriptions was to suggest the possibility of marriages being arranged between the scions of the noble houses of their own countries with these women. It was rather important, therefore, that there should not be much exaggeration or the ambassador might well be discredited. It is easy to think that with all this of intellectual life the young women of the time must have had very little exercise, especially in the outer air, and above all must not have indulged in what we think of as sport. The story of Vittorino da Feltre's school is a contradiction of this, and besides the traditions that have come to us show that every young woman of the nobility learned to ride horseback at this time. All of them could ride boldly. They hunted and many of them went hawking. Riding was of course an absolutely necessary accomplishment at that time, for carriages were very rare, and such as there were were almost impossibly uncomfortable for long journeys. Good roads had not as yet been made outside of the towns, and the only way to go visiting friends at any distance was on horseback. Many of these young women had to travel long distances, especially at the time of their marriage, and later on they sometimes accompanied their husbands on rather long journeys.