A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country/Cornaro, (Helena Lucretia)
CORNARO, (HELENA LUCRETIA); born at Venice, 1646; died 1684;
Was the daughter of George Baptista Cornaro, and educated in a very singular manner: for she was taught languages ancient and modern, and sciences, as boys are, and went through the philosophy of the schools, thorny as it then was. After many years spent in study, she took her degrees at Padua, and was perhaps the first lady that ever was made a doctor. She was not excelled by any of the rabbies in her knowledge of Hebrew, and wrote Greek with great elegance, as her letters in those two languages preserved in the Venetian public library can evince. She was admitted of the university of Rome, where she had the title of Humble given her, as she had at Padua that of Unalterable. She deserved, they say, both, since all her learning had not inspired her with the least vanity, nor was any thing capable of disturbing that calmness of spirit, which she always employed in the deepest thinking. She made a vow of perpetual virginity; and though all means were used to persuade her to marry, and even a dispensation from her vow obtained of the pope, she yet remained inflexible. She fasted often, and spent her whole time in study and devotion, excepting those hours in which she was obliged to receive visits; often saying, when, in obedience to her father, she saw company, "this will be the death of me."
All persons of quality and distinction, who passed through Venice, were more solicitous to see her than the other curiosities of that superb city. The cardinals de Bouillon and d'Etrees, were ordered by the French king to call, in their way to Italy, upon Lucretia Cornaro, at Venice, to examine whether the report of her was true; and they found that her parts and learning were answerable to the high reputation she had acquired all over Europe. At length, her indefatigable application to her books, to those especially which were in Greek and Hebrew, impaired her constitution so much, that she fell into the illness of which she died.
As soon as the news of her death reached Rome, the academicians, called Infecondi, who had formerly admitted her of their society, made odes in memory of her, and epitaphs without number. They celebrated likewise a funeral solemnity in her honour, in the college of the Barnabite fathers, where the academy usually assembled. This solemnity was conducted with the highest pomp and magnificence; and a description of it published at Paris in the year 1686, dedicated to the most serene republic of Venice. The whole city flocked together to see it; and one of the academicians made a funeral oration, in which, with all the pomp of Italian eloquence, he expatiated on the great and valuable qualities of the deceased; saying, that Helena Lucretia Cornaro had triumphed over three monsters, who were at perpetual war with her sex, viz. luxury, pride, and ignorance.
It does not appear that this lady was the author of any literary productions.