Declamation on the Nobility and Preeminence of the Female Sex.

Henricus Cornelius Agrippa. Ed. and trans. Albert Rabil. (The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe.) Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1996. xxxii+109 pp. $29.95 (cl), $13.95 (pap). ISBN 0-226-01059-7 (d).

This text is part of the series "The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe," co-edited by Margaret King and Albert Rabil. The series is designed to give English readers access to early texts by and about women that counterbalance negative stereotypes. In the introduction the editors give a brief outline of the misogynist tradition from Greek philosophy to Boccaccio's Corbaccio, the antifeminist manifesto of the Renaissance. Agrippa's declamation is part of the literary debate of the querelle des femmes initiated by Christine de Pizan's spirited challenge to misogynists. In a prefatory essay Rabil provides an excellent biographical introduction as well as an incisive discussion of the text which poses considerable difficulties to interpreters. The declamation was delivered as an inaugural lecture at the University of Dole in 1509 and published twenty years later in the form translated here. In the declamation Agrippa formally set out to prove that women were superior to men, citing scriptural and classical sources to rebut commonplace medical, legal, theological, and philosophical arguments to the contrary. Although Agrippa's arguments were obviously taken at face value by translators and imitators in the sixteenth century, his intent is far from clear. Scholars in the twentieth century have pointed to Agrippa's pronounced scepticism and his claim that every argument admits of a counter argument. Rabil traces modern interpretations from Emile Telle, who believed that Agrippa was displaying his ingenuity by presenting a paradox, to Constance Jordan, who is inclined to regard Agrippa as sincere. Rabil himself is hedging his bet. He admits that the paradoxical element is there and that Agrippa did not intend to change social structures ("but no one did . . . before the eighteenth century"), (32). Rabil also admits that some Renaissance readers may have been amused by the arguments which were, by the estimate of their time, quite fantastic. On the whole, however, he believes that Agrippa presented a reversal of values and that "its consequences were serious and seriously intended" (32). Rabil's introductory essay further contains an interesting discussion of Agrippa's sources and the extent of his originality. Rabil points out that there are strong parallels, both in the contents and the arrangement, between Agrippa's arguments and those found in Rodriguez del Padron's Triunfo de las donas, of which a French translation appeared at the turn of the century. Even more compelling are the parallels between a passage in Maria Equicola's De mulieribus (1501) and Agrippa's peroration, which suggest a direct dependence on Equicola.

Rabil has based this eminently readable translation on the critical text and commentary of Antonioli and Bene (Geneva, 1990). He has augmented Antonioli's notes and supplied a good list of recent English literature to meet the requirements of undergraduate students. Providing a dear and fluent translation, generous annotation, and prefatory material supplying the necessary historical context, Rabil has succeeded in the difficult task of providing an edition that satisfies scholarly standards and addresses the needs of the general reader. The text itself relates to contemporary social questions, and Rabil is no doubt right in claiming that it "can still generate a lively debate in a college classroom" (33).

ERIKA RUMMEL Wilfrid Laurier University