If you were a woman and you could roll back time until 1500 in which Italian city would you like to live?
We can suggest a place that at that time was known as “ Women’s paradise”. Although it was more commonly called… Genoa! If you don’t believe us, maybe you will trust one of the most eminent nobles of Seville: Fadrique Enriquez de Ribera.
The nobleman took a journey in 1519 and decided to note in a diary of any interesting fact on his way and he wrote about the “Superba”! “Ciudad muy hermosa por de fuera” (charming city from the outside), where all the houses are nice, but the streets are narrow. “Its buildings are so high that the sun never reaches the street level!” Fadrique was amazed by Genova, a place where he intended to do business and to choose famous local sculptors for the realization of his family tomb.
However what striked him most was the character of the women, who Fadrique described as “the most independent in Italy”. Why? According to the Sevillian, Genoese women “ are always in the street talking to whoever they want to, without worrying about their husband’s opinion. They stay out until one or two in the morning. When they ride, they do it alone or together with an old woman who follows them on a chair placed on the back of a mule”. “They also spend a lot of money on clothes and their husbands fulfil all their desires”.
Don’t you think it sounds like a very modern “women’s paradise”?
