But it is mainly the women of Italy, where this movement had its birth, that we are considering here, and their talents were not confined to the acquisition of knowledge. There were many poets among them. To be sure, we find no Dante, or Petrarch, or Ariosto, or Tasso. Of creative genius there was very little; of taste and skill and poetic feeling there was a great deal. Domenichi made a collection of fifty women poets who compared well with the average men of their time and far surpassed them in refinement and moral purity. In their new enthusiasm for things of the intellect, they never lost their simplicity of faith, and were infected little, if at all, with the cynical skepticism of the age. Some of these numerous poets were connected with the universities, others belonged to the great world, and still others were women of moderate station, who were honored at the various courts for their gifts of mind. No doubt much of this poetry was mediocre. Indeed, men, aside from the greatest, wrote very little that one now cares to read. It is a truism that “poets are born, not made,” and they are not born very often. But the work of women which was not even of the best received high consideration. Tarquinia Molza, a maid of honor at Ferrara,--who held public discussions with Tasso, wrote sonnets and epigrams, and translated the dialogues of Plato,--was so celebrated for her learning and poetic gifts that the Senate of Rome conferred upon her the title of Roman Citizen. Laura Battiferri, one of the ornaments of the court of Urbino, was spoken of as a rival of Sappho in genius and her superior in modesty and decorum. She was an honored member of the Academy of the Intronati at Siena. There were no women’s clubs in those days. They were not needed when women were admitted to many of the academies on equal terms with men. The number may have been small, but evidently the way was clear. They were barred, if at all, by incapacity, not by sex.