Laura Cereta (1469–1499) was the eldest of six children born to Silvestero Cereto and Veronica di Leno in Brescia, Italy. At the age of seven, she went to a monastery to be educated. There she learned how to read and write in both Greek and Latin. Upon returning home at the age of nine, her father encouraged her to continue her classical studies. After an 18-month marriage to a Venetian merchant, the widowed Cereta experienced a spiritual reawakening, documented across her Epistolae familiares. This collection of letters contains her public philosophies regarding a variety of subjects, including education, marriage, sumptuary laws, friendship, family, and literature. They are decidedly feminist in nature and include the first anti-marriage treatise knowingly authored by a woman.