Christine de Pisan or Christine de Pizan (Venice, 1364 - monastery of Poissy, v.  1430) was a philosophical and French poetess of birth Italy.

Christine de Pisan is regarded as the first French woman of letters having lived of her feather. Its scholarship distinguishes it from the writers from his time, men or women. It then spends several years in lawsuit to recover its heritage. It is what that it had to earn its living while writing.

It composed of the treaties of policy and philosophy, and of the collections of poetries. Very prolific author, it withdraws himself in a Couvent at the end of his life, where it writes a Ditié of Jeanne d' Arc . One owes him, inter alia, Hundred ballades of lover and lady and the City of the ladies . Its major work was accomplished between 1400 and 1418.

Life

Born with Venice towards 1364, it follows his/her father Thomas de Pisan (Tommaso di Benvenuto da Pizzano), famous doctor and lecturer of Astrologie to the Université of Bologna, destined for Paris by Charles V in 1368. Previously, his/her father, born in Bologna, had been destined for Venice, in Hungary; he had been made a great reputation by his predictions (as for much of his " confrères" , medicine was used to him especially as " couverture" with respect to the Church which prohibited any form of Voyance).

Christine receives at the court an education of noble young person and starts to compose of the lyric parts which are worth admiration to him and even many proposals - though of its own consent those are also justified by the position of his/her father at Charles V. the personality of the wise king, moreover, will deeply mark the young Christine, who daily attends it at the court. In 1379, it marries Etienne de Castel, noble not very fortunate who acquires at the time of this union the loads of secretary and notary of the king. But Charles dies shortly after in 1380 and Etienne is without load nor returned. Tommaso da Pizzano dies between 1385 and 1390 like Etienne, ruined in 1390.

Old then 26 years, it is found with three dependant childrens, without support nor family at the court. Reduced to poverty and having to wipe several lawsuits for debts, it is solved to work to nourish her children and chooses the trade of man of letters (" of female soothsayers masle"). It takes refuge then in the study and composes a series of lyric parts compiled in the Book of the hundred ballades which still obtain a big hit. These parts in the taste then with the mode cry her late husband and deal with his insulation, of its condition of woman in the middle of the hostile court. It then obtains orders and protection the powerful ones like Jean de Berry and the duke Louis I {{er}} of Orleans. It takes insurance then and is harnessed with the drafting of writings philosophical, political, moral scholars and even soldiers. It engages then in parallel in a combat in favor of the women and in particular of their representation in the literature. She is opposed in particular to Jean de Meung and her Romance of the Rose, then the most known literary work, copied, read and with accompanying notes in Western Europe. She forces by her obstinacy and her courage the admiration of some of the largest philosophers of her time such Jean de Gerson and Eustace Deschamps which will bring their support in this combat to him.

Work

Its poems are organized in collections according to a narrative screen, much of those are drawn directly from its personal experience such Seulette suy and seulette vueil estr .

It was implied in the first French literary quarrel that some regard as a proclamation, in a primitive form, feminist movement. Indeed, Epistre with God of Loves 1399 and its Known as of the pink 1402, critical of the second part of the Romance of the Rose written by Jean de Meung, caused considerable movements in the intelligentsia of the time. This type of matter was considered to be rather scandalous at the time:

“And swear extremely and promise and mentent
Estre loiaulx, will secrez, and then praise themselves some. ”

She also did not hesitate to be expressed over the policy ( Épître with the queen Isabeau ) and over the military right ( Livre of the knighthood and feats of arms).

Denouncing lowering and délitement kingdom lasting the civil war between the Burgundian Armagnacs and the, it wrote a masterly and invaluable work for the current historians, Faits and acts of wise Roy Charles Quint , biography rich in details on the reign of sound " mentor" , Charles V of France.

The majority of its works are preserved in manuscripts autographs; what is very rare for this time.

According to Jacques Roubaud, Christine de Pisan “has without any doubt reached one of the tops of the art of the Ballade; she is of a remarkable formal originality”.

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