It was agreed that a lady must be gracious, affable, discreet, of character above reproach, free from pride or envy, and neither vain, contentious, nor arrogant. To speak of the failings of others, or listen to reflections upon them, was taken as an indication that one’s own follies needed a vindication or a veil. This model lady must dress with taste, but not think too much about it, and she was forbidden to dye her hair, or use cosmetics and other artificial aids to beauty. Her personal distinction lay in an elegant simplicity, without luxury or pretension. She must know how to manage her children and her fortune, as well as her household; but she was expected to be versed in letters, music, and the arts, also to be able to converse on any topic of the day without childish affectation of knowledge which she did not possess. Modesty, tact, decorum, and purity of thought were cardinal virtues, and religion was a matter of course. Noisy manners, egotism, and familiarity were unpardonable. Dignity, self-possession, and a gentle urbanity were marks of good breeding. No license in language was permitted, but we cannot help wondering what they called license. Men, it must be added, could be about as wicked as they liked, and, if history is to be trusted, many in high places were very wicked indeed. The latitude of the best of them in speech would be rather embarrassing to the sensitive woman of our time; but the days of the précieuses had not dawned, and no one hesitated to call a spade a spade, even if it were a very black one. Women might blush and be silent, but further protest was set down as disagreeable prudery. Perhaps the frank naturalism of the Latin races must be taken into account, as it often quite unconsciously shocks our own more delicate tastes even to-day. But it was conceded that no man was so bad as not to esteem a woman of pure character and refined sensibilities. These men and women who lived on the confines of two great centuries and tried to introduce a finer code of manners and morals, touched also on the equality of the sexes, a question which agitated that world as it does our own. Some one asks, one evening, why women should not be permitted to govern cities, make laws, and command armies. Giuliano de’ Medici, who was an ardent champion of the dependent sex, replies that it might not be amiss. Many of them he declares to be as capable of doing these things as men, and he cites history to show that they have led armies and governed with equal prudence. To a friend who mildly suggests that women are inferior, he says that “the difference is accidental, not essential,” adding that the qualities of strength, activity, and endurance are not always most esteemed, even in men. As to mind, “whatever men can know and understand, women can also; where one intellect penetrates, so does the other.... Many have been learned in philosophy, written poetry, practised law, and spoken with eloquence.”