The Book of the City of Ladies, or Le Livre de la Cité des Dames, is a book written by Christine de Pizan believed to have been finished by 1405. Perhaps Pizan's most famous literary work, it is her second work of lengthy prose. Pizan uses the vernacular French language to compose the book, but she often uses Latin-style syntax and conventions within her French prose. The book serves as her formal response to Jean de Meun's popular Roman de la Rose. Pizan combats Meun's statements about women by creating an allegorical city of ladies. She defends women by collecting a wide array of famous women throughout history. These women are "housed" in the City of Ladies, which is actually the book. As Pizan builds her city, she uses each famous woman as a building block for not only the walls and houses of the city, but also as building blocks for her thesis. Each woman introduced to the city adds to Pizan's argument towards women as valued participants in society. She also advocates in favour of education for women.

Christine de Pizan also finished by 1405 The Treasure of the City of Ladies (Le tresor de la cité des dames de degré en degré, also known as The Book of the Three Virtues), a manual of education, dedicated to Princess Margaret of Burgundy. This aims to educate women of all estates, the latter telling women who have husbands: "If she wants to act prudently and have the praise of both the world and her husband, she will be cheerful to him all the time". Her Book and Treasure are her two best-known works, along with the poem Ditie de Jehanne D'Arc.

Summary

Part I

Part I opens with Christine reading from Matheolus's Lamentations, a work from the thirteenth century that addresses marriage and argues that women make men's lives miserable. Upon reading these words, Christine becomes upset and feels ashamed to be a woman: "This thought inspired such a great sense of disgust and sadness in me that I began to despise myself and the whole of my sex as an aberration in nature". The three Virtues then appear to Christine, and each lady tells Christine what her role will be in helping her build the City of Ladies. Lady Reason, a virtue developed by Christine for the purpose of her book, is the first to join Christine and helps her build the external walls of the city. She answers Christine's questions about why some men slander women, helping Christine to prepare the ground on which the city will be built. She tells Christine to "take the spade of [her] intelligence and dig deep to make a trench all around [the city] … [and Reason will] help to carry away the hods of earth on [her] shoulders." These "hods of earth" are the past beliefs Christine has held. Christine, in the beginning of the text, believed that women must truly be bad because she "could scarcely find a moral work by any author which didn't devote some chapter or paragraph to attacking the female sex. [Therefore she] had to accept [these authors] unfavourable opinion[s] of women since it was unlikely that so many learned men, who seemed to be endowed with such great intelligence and insight into all things, could possibly have lied on so many different occasions." Christine is not using reason to discover the merits of women. She believes all that she reads instead of putting her mind to listing all the great deeds women have accomplished. To help Christine see reason, Lady Reason comes and teaches Christine. She helps Christine dispel her own self-consciousness and the negative thoughts of past writers. By creating Lady Reason, Christine not only teaches her own allegorical self, but also her readers. She gives not only herself reason, but also gives readers, and women, reason to believe that women are not evil or useless creatures but instead have a significant place within society.

Women discussed

The following 36 women are discussed in Part I of the Book of the City of Ladies.

  • Mary Magdalene
  • Queen of Sheba
  • Fredegund
  • Blanche of Castile
  • Jeanne d'Évreux
  • Blanche of France
  • Marie of Blois, Duchess of Anjou
  • Semiramis
  • Amazons: Thamiris, Menalippe, Hippolyta, Penthesilea, Synoppe, Lampheto, Marpesia, Orithyia
  • Zenobia
  • Artemisia II of Caria
  • Lilia, mother of Theodoric
  • Camilla
  • Laodice of Cappadocia
  • Cloelia
  • Cornificia
  • Faltonia Betitia Proba
  • Sappho
  • Manto
  • Medea
  • Circe
  • Carmenta
  • Minerva
  • Ceres
  • Isis
  • Arachne
  • Pamphile
  • Thamaris
  • Irene
  • Iaia
  • Sempronia
  • Woman of Valor
  • Gaia Cirilla (also known as Tanaquil)
  • Dido
  • Ops
  • Lavinia

Part II

In Part II, Lady Rectitude says she will help Christine "construct the houses and buildings inside the walls of the City of Ladies" and fill it with inhabitants who are "valiant ladies of great renown". Boccaccio states that girls should be "well brought up from childhood in their father's home and taught honesty and virtuous behavior. Then when they are grown and know full well what they are doing"

Boccaccio's text is mainly used for Parts I and II of the book, while Part III is more reliant upon Jean de Vignay's Miroir historical (1333). This text is the French translation of the historical portions of Speculum Maius, an encyclopedia by Vincent of Beauvais that was begun after 1240.