The daughter of a physician who authored works on the medical and cosmetic concerns of women, Lucrezia Marinella was immersed in the scientific culture of Seicento Venice. Admired for her erudtion in both the scientific and literary disciplines (one contemporary describes her as “exceptional” in prose, poetry, and spiritual compositions and a “supreme expert in moral and natural philosophy”), Marinella employed scientific discourse in many of her works, linking it to the cultural controversy over the status of women in early modern society through a variety of rhetorical and narrative approaches. Marinella’s most well-known work is the Nobility of Women, a polemical pro-woman treatise which – like Moderata Fonte’s The Worth of Women – introduces scientific learning to Renaissance querelle des femmes. Scientific discourse pervades other works by Marinella as well, particularly her pastoral romance Arcadia and her epic poem L’Enrico: overo, Bisantio acqusitato.