Among the latter her answer to Doctor Tomaso dal Moro, who had endeavoured to win her to the doctrines of Luther, then being secretly diffused through Liguria, is singularly charming. Bandello mentions with praise an Antonia Scarampi,[30] and we may add Peretta Scarpa-Negrone, whom her contemporaries commend for her skill in poetry, calling her a new Corinna. Livia Spinola has left us good rhymes; Maddalena Pallavicini, wife of the marquis of Ceva, wrote verses which are not without merit, and Placida Pallavicini won the encomiums of Paolo Foglietta. The first rank in the Pallavicini sisterhood is due to Argentina, who became the wife of Guido Rangone, and whose literary accomplishments were the theme of the wisest men of that period. Gerolamo Ruscelli da Viterbo, a literary man of high repute among his contemporaries, tells us that the greater part of the Genoese gentlewomen cultivated belles-lettres; and in an epistle which he published in 1552, he enumerates among the most rare women of Italy twenty-three of Genoa and six of Savona. He mentions among the first of Genoese ladies, Pellegrina, Lercari, “a virgin not less virtuous than beautiful,” and Nicoletta Centurione-Grimaldi, on whom he lavishes every sort of praise. Among those of Savona he speaks of Leonora Falletti, countess of Melazzo, as one whose happy compositions had stimulated the ambition of many learned men. Among the poetesses of Liguria, are also to be numbered Benedetta Spinola, daughter of Alfonso marquis of Garessio, and wife of Giovanni Battista, prince of the blood of Savoy and lord of Racconigi; Claudia della Rovere, countess of Vinovo in Piedmont; and Caterina Gastodenghi, who enjoyed the praises of Dolce, Parabasco, and many others. The gentle consort of Count Fieschi held the central place in this circle of cultivated gentlewomen; but unfortunately the rhymes of Eleonora, which gave her so much credit with her contemporaries, are no longer in existence. The few specimens of her talent which remain to us give ample proof of her genius. They were published in Turin in 1573, with the verses of Faustino Tasso, a Venitian, and of three other poetesses, of whom one belonged to her husband’s house, that is, Ortensia Lomellina de’ Fieschi. The others were Nicoletta Celsa and Laura Gabrielli degli Alciati, Eleonora was not inferior to her aunt Caterina, duchess of Camerino, who knew Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, and who found comfort when Paul III. deprived her husband of his possessions, in the friendship of wise men and in philosophical studies.