Sarrocchi Margherita. Scanderbeide. The Heroic Deeds of George Scanderbeg, King of Epirus

Chicago: The University of Chicago Press,.2006.—492 p.—ISBN: 0-226-73508-7Margherita Sarrocchi (c.1560-1617) was born to a well-off family in Naples; after her father’s death, care of her education was undertaken by Cardinal Guglielmo Sirleto, who placed her in the convent of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere in Rome. There she received a humanist education in classical languages, as well as the sciences, for which her teacher was mathematician Luca Valerio (1552-1618). Sarrocchi became renowned for her polymath abilities, praised by many leading intellects of the day for her abilities in Greek and Latin, rhetoric, logic, geometry, astrology, natural philosophy, and theology. By the age of fifteen she was known as a prodigy in Roman society and asked to contribute one of her poems to a literary anthology.