There was a curious book written early in the sixteenth century by a savant of Cologne, on “The Superiority of Women over Men.” It was one out of many that were devoted to the glorification of the long-secluded sex, but its title serves to indicate the nature of the epidemic of eulogies that raged more or less for nearly two hundred years after Boccaccio set the fashion. This he did by singing the praises of the great heroines he brought out from the shadows of the past to adorn the pages of his “Illustrious Women.” It seemed as if men had been struck with a sudden remorse for the unkind things they had been saying about women since the dawn of the world, and were trying to make amends by putting them, theoretically at least, on a pinnacle of glory. Some celebrated their beauty, others their virtues, and still others their talents, while a few did not stop short of awarding them all the graces and perfections. Paul de Ribera published “The Immortal Triumphs and Heroic Enterprises of Eight Hundred and Forty-five Women,” which was comprehensive if not convincing. Hilarion of Coste devoted two large volumes to eulogies of women of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, finding nearly two hundred to put into his Temple of Fame. What their special claims to glory may have been I do not know beyond the fact that they were pious and devout Catholics. One man who had contended for the equality of the sexes tried afterward to refute himself; but his recantation was half-hearted, as he confessed his private conviction that logic was against him. Cardinal Pompeo Colonna takes it upon himself to demolish the old creed that a woman is an inferior creature, convenient in the house, but unfit for any large responsibility. He proves her capacity for public life by many examples, treats lightly the plea of the moral dangers that would beset her, and shows what men become when left to their own devices. After giving exalted praise to the masterful, accomplished women of his time, he cites his beautiful cousin, the “divine Vittoria,” as a living model of talent and strength, as well as of virtue, magnanimity, and devotion. More pointed and concise, though less definite, was Monti, a famous Roman prelate, who said: “If men complain of seeing themselves equaled or surpassed by women, so much the worse for them. It is because they are not worthy of their wives.” The climax of praise was reached in a work written to prove that women are “nobler, braver, more tactful, more learned, more virtuous, and more economical than men.” Such a pitch of adulation could hardly be maintained without a protest, and there were a few men ungallant enough to say that the best proof of their own sovereignty was the effort needed to combat it.