also so throughly expert in the Holy Scriptures that they were able to compare with the best writers as well in enditeing and penning of Godly and fruitful treatises to the instruction and edifying of realmes in the knowledge of God, as also in translating good books out of Latin or Greek into English.... It was now no news in England to see young damsels in noble houses and in the courts of princes, instead of cards and other instruments of idle trifling, to have continually in their hands either psalms, homilies, or other devout meditations ... and as familiarly both to read or reason thereof in Greek, Latin, French or Italian, as in English. It was now a common thing to see young virgins so trained in the study of good letters, that they willingly set all other vain pastimes at naught for learning sake. It was now no news at all, to see Queens and ladies of most high estate and progeny, instead of courtly dalliance, to embrace virtuous exercises of reading and writing, and with most earnest study both early and late, to apply themselves to the acquiring of knowledge.[45] Puttenham, in his _Arte of English Poesie_ (1589), indicates the prevalence of women poets in the sixteenth century when he says: Darke word or doubtfull speach are not so narrowly to be looked vpon in a large poeme, nor specially in the pretie Poesies and deuises of Ladies and Gentlewomen-makers, whom we would not haue too precise Poets least with their shrewd wits, when they were maried they might become a little too fantasticall wiues.[46] One of the influential foreign books of the first half of the sixteenth century was Baldasar Castiglione's _Il Cortegiano_, written in 1514, published in 1528, and translated into English in 1561 by Thomas Hoby. The book is a conversation supposed to take place in the drawing-room of the Duchess of Urbino, with the Duchess, her friend Emilia Pia, Pietro Bembo, Bernardo Bibbiena, Giuliano de Medici, and others, among the speakers. In the chapter on the attributes of the perfect Court Lady, Count Gaspar Pallavicino says, "Since you have given women letters and continence and magnanimity and temperance I only marvel that you would not have them govern cities, make laws, and lead armies, and let the men stay at home to cook or spin."[47] Giuliano de Medici replies, laughing, "Perhaps even that would not be amiss." There follows a discussion of woman as essentially imperfect, an accident or mistake of nature, and consequently of less dignity than men and not capable of those virtues to which men attain. But the Magnifico held the doctrine that physical weakness does not constitute inferiority, and that mentally women are equal to men: "All the things that men can understand the same can women understand too; and where the intellect of the one penetrates there also can that of the other penetrate."