Puellae Doctae en las cortes peninsulares

A significant group of talented and brilliant women emerged at the end of the 15th century, identified as Puellae Doctae. Many of them lived at the court and participated in the general Renaissance project.
This essay attempts to describe this phenomenon that extended not only through European courts, but also those of the peninsular realm. Several reasons contributed to the rise and multiplication of these groups of women. First, the Renaissance interest for knowledge and the spreading of classic languages that allowed a women´s education revival. Second, the Spanish queens, virreinas and infantas´s sponsorship and thirdly, also very important, the efforts of all of these valiant women. As one of them wrote, her achievement was due to her «sweat and constant vigils» and, as another also noted, to «my labour, studies and hard work.»