La discussione di tesi filosofiche di Maria Lucrezia Giastefia Conti (Napoli, 1644)

In 1644 (or perhaps 1645), the young Maria Lucrezia Giastefia Conti (ca. 1629-1657) publicly defended her philosophical theses before the viceroyal court of Naples. On the occasion of this event, which was quite rare for the time, a pamphlet was published containing both the text of the prefatory speech that the student delivered before the discussion—a rhetorical exercise related to the querelle des femmes—and the Aristotelian-based philosophical theses defended. This chapter analyzes the content of the printed work, highlighting, among other things, the distance between the purely scholastic approach of the theses and the Platonic inspiration that emerges from some passages of the preface. Additionally, it provides some information about the life of the protagonist of the event, which took place within the orbit of the Colonna family.