Reformation Italy » Archive » Olympia Morata: Champion of the Reformation

One evening, be-fore retiring, the renowned German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe picked up from his large library a rather obscure collection of letters and poems from a young protagonist of the Italian Reformation and read with interest her tales of dreams and disappointments, hopes and frustrations, difficult decisions and every-day struggles in one of the most travailed periods of European history. As he put down the book, he commented in his diary, “I have read the Letters by Olympia Fulvia Morata, which have shed a whole new light on the actual condition of Protestants in those days.”

Her Times

For 16th century-Protestants and humanists, Olympia Morata was much more than a simple portrayer of her times. In De poetis nostrorum temporum (On the Poets of Our Times, 1551) Italian humanist Lilio Gregorio Giraldi wrote: “Among them is Olympia Morata, a girl gifted beyond her sex. Not content with her original language, she has perfected her knowledge of Latin and Greek letters, so much that she appears to be a wonder to almost everyone who hears her.” Her epitaph called her “a woman whose genius and singular knowledge of both languages [Latin and Greek], whose probity in morals and highest zeal for piety were always held above the common level.”

Those words would have been the joy of her father, Fulvio Pellegrino Morato, who had raised her from the youngest age in the love and knowledge of both classical literature and the Protestant faith. We don’t know much about his life. A native of Mantua, a northern Italian city, he was for some time exiled from Ferrara, Olympia’s birth-place, maybe for religious reasons. We know that, as he taught Latin and Italian literature, he introduced his students to the writings of John Calvin and other Reformers.

Fairly well-known in humanistic circles, particularly after the publication of his essay on the rhymes used by Dante and Petrarca, Fulvio had found immediate popularity, especially with women, with his book, On the Meaning of Colors and Flowers, published in Venice in 1535. Today, he is remembered mostly for his most cherished and laborious work—the careful upbringing and education of his daughter Olympia.

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Reformation Italy » Archive » Olympia Morata: Champion of the Reformation