A letter from Florentine humanist Leonardo Bruni to Italian noblewomen Lady Baptista Malatesta in 1405, advising her on the proper subjects for women to study.

Thus there are certain subjects in which, whilst a modest proficiency is on all counts to be desired, a "minute knowledge and, excessive devotion seem to vain display. For instance, subtleties of Arithmetic and Geometry are not worthy to absorb a cultivated mind, and the same must be said of Astrology. You will be surprised to find me suggesting (though with much more hesitation) that the great and complex art of Rhetoric should be placed in the same category. My chief reason is the obvious one, that I have in view the cultivation most fitting to a woman. To her neither the intricacies of debate nor the oratorical artifices of action and delivery are of the...