Olympia Fulvia Morata was a woman whose erudition and religious fervor earned her the admiration of her Italian and German friends in a male-dominated world torn apart by ideological strife and war. Though she spent only the last five years of her life in Germany, she played an important role in promoting humanist interests in Schweinfurt and corresponded extensively with German humanists.

Born in Ferrara in 1526, Morata was the eldest child of Fulvio Pellegrino Morato and Lucrezia Morata. Her father, who came from Mantua, had been appointed tutor to the younger sons of Alfonso I, duke of Ferrara, in 1522. In 1532 he was banished from court because of his Reformist inclinations. In 1539, under Duke Ercole II, he was permitted to return to Ferrara. Ercole was probably influenced in this matter by his wife, Renée; the daughter of King Louis XII of France, she had strong Calvinist sympathies...