Includes bibliographical references (pages 303-320) and index.

The story of the Renaissance has usually been told through the elite male perspective. Here, the lives of women and girls from a wide range of classes, religions, and countries in Europe take center stage. Women had a significant impact on the economy, social structures, and the culture of the Renaissance, despite the constraints on their exercise of power, lack of opportunities, and enforced dependence. This book examines the attitudes and practices that shaped the varied roles of women then, but also the important ways women shaped the world in which they lived. The focus is on both the ideas that circulated about women and on the difference between representations of them and their everyday life experiences. The narrative draws from a wide variety of sources on every aspect of women's lives: education, the law, work, politics, religion, literature, the arts, and pleasures. Numerous women are profiled, and many period illustrations are included.--From publisher description.

SACFinal081324