oth men and women were often lacking in what are
now considered to be the most elementary notions of propriety. As the
men were by far the more active and the more important members of each
community, it cannot be said that women were looked upon with equal
consideration. The Oriental idea of women in general, as domestic
animals whose duty it was to minister to the wants and pleasures of
their master and superior, lordly man, was but slowly vanishing, and
many centuries of suffering, experience, and education were to intervene
before saner and truer notions could prevail. Lorenzo de' Medici, in
writing of a beautiful and talented woman, makes the following
statement: "Her understanding was superior to her sex, but without the
appearance of arrogance or presumption; and she avoided an error too
common among women, who, when they think themselves sensible, become for
the most part insupportable." It is evident that if women were generally
held in as high esteem as men, it is altogether unlikely that the
expression "superior to her sex" would have been employed, and the
latter part of the sentence leads to the further inference that
pretentious and pedantic women of the kind referred to were not
altogether uncommon at this time.

No better illustration of the relative position of women in society can
be found than in one of the letters received by Lorenzo from his wife,
who was a member of the old and proud Orsini family, which was much more
aristocratic than his own. She addresses him by the term _Magnifice
Conjux_, which certainly does not betoken a very great degree of
intimacy between husband and wife; and the letter concerns the
unbearable conduct of the poet Poliziano, who was then an inmate of
their house and the private teacher of their children. It seems that he
had persecuted her with his attentions, and she is led to protest
against his continued employment. In spite of her protest, however, she
meekly adds: "Know, I should say to you, that if you desire him to
remain, I shall be very content, although I have endured his uttering to
me a thousand villainies. If this is with your permission, I am patient,
but I cannot believe such a thing." Lorenzo's behavior upon the receipt
of this letter will be of interest and will throw much light upon the
question involved. Did he burn with indignation at this story of
Poliziano's disgraceful conduct and did he dismiss him from his service
forthwith as one unworthy of his