The Ship of Virtuous Ladies

Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index Translation of the Month, December 2017

First published in 1503 in Lyons, Symphorien Champier’s The Ship of Virtuous Ladies helped launch the French Renaissance version of the querelle des femmes, the debate over the nature and status of women. The three books included in this edition offer arguments for gender equality, and a catalogue of virtuous women modeled on Boccaccio’s Famous Women and Jacobus de Voragine’s Golden Legend. “The Book of True Love” is especially important in gender history, importing and transforming the male-centered Neoplatonic philosophy of Marsilio Ficino for pro-woman ends.

"Symphorien Champier’s La nef des dames vertueuses (The Ship of Virtuous Ladies), a central text in the debates about women in early modern France, has at last been translated into English by Todd Reeser (following the first complete modern French edition by Judy Kem in 2007). Champier’s Ship explicitly sets out to defend women, although this professed aim is complicated in ways that the editor explains. Preceded by a first-rate introduction situating the work both historically and rhetorically, the volume demonstrates a version of Neoplatonism in which women can participate, offers advice to new wives, praises countless legendary and historical women, and proffers medical counsel. Students of early modern culture, women’s studies, and medical history will doubtless applaud Reeser’s meticulously researched and elegantly presented edition."

-Cathy Yandell, W. I. and Hulda F. Daniell Professor of French Literature, Language, and Culture, Carleton College

TODD W. REESER is Director of the Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies Program and Professor of French at the University of Pittsburgh. His numerous publications include Moderating Masculinity in Early Modern Culture (2006); Masculinities in Theory (2010); and Setting Plato Straight: Translating Ancient Sexuality in the Renaissance (2016).

REVIEWS
Early Modern Women 14.1 (2019): 202–205. Reviewed by Kathleen M. Llewellyn.
Parergon 36.1 (2019): 218–220. Reviewed by Zita Eva Rohr.
Renaissance & Reformation 41.4 (2018): 223–226. Reviewed by Amanda G. Madden.
Renaissance Quarterly 72.3 (2019): 1137–1138. Reviewed by Carrie F. Klaus.
The Sixteenth Century Journal 50.2 (2019): 613–615. Reviewed by Kristi DiClemente.