Christine de Pizan wrote “The Book of the City of Ladies” in 1405 as an allegory of a city of women

Christine de Pizan's (1364-1430) book "The City of Ladies" (1405) opens with the writer's account of how she was ashamed to be a woman, since women make men's lives so unbearable. Christine confesses that she fell into despair and felt herself standing at the edge of an abyss, between the experience of her own womanhood and the contemptuous texts of the male authors whom she regarded as authorities; she even began to believe herself that women were guilty of all the horrors of which so many people speak.

But at that moment three allegorical figures appear before her: the ladies Reason, Rectitude and Justice, crowned and majestic in aspect, who tell her the truth and teach her to accept her womanhood and its history, while she, the very image of humility and meekness, falls prostrate before them, kissing the ground on which they stand. Each of the three ladies offers her help in building the City of Ladies.

Reason, with the mirror of knowledge in her hands, explains why men slander women, and helps her dig out a great foundation pit with the spade of understanding, carrying away baskets of earth and of the black, crooked stones of prejudice, the belief that women really are as bad as other authors write. The city begins with deep foundations and the firm mortar of Reason. Handsome, even blocks of stone stand for the celebrated women of the past, from Semiramis and Tomyris to Fredegund, Berenice and Zenobia; the roll, alongside honourable wives, virgins and saints, includes women rulers, artists, scholars, warriors, inventors and prophetesses.

Rectitude, ruler in hand, helps to raise within the strong, high walls the buildings that symbolise the virtues; with her ruler she measures justice and injustice, good and evil, punishing the one and pointing the good to the right path.

Justice, from her cup, renders to each her due and helps to complete the buildings and then to cover them with gold.

In the end worthy women will be invited in to form a virtuous community, and the populated city will throw open its gates to the Virgin Mary, attended by saints, righteous women and martyrs, who will receive the keys to the city. The resulting city recalls the City of God described by Saint Augustine.

Together with the building of this city, the medieval intellectual learns herself and shares her lessons with her readers: that it is far more sensible and truer to regard women not as senseless and wicked creatures but as an important part of society. She asks whether women should receive an education equal to men's, and why men so dislike the idea; she touches on the lawlessness of violence, on women's capacity to learn and to govern society, and speaks of women as a group possessing the same merits and failings as men.

The book became a veritable revelation and did indeed answer many of the authors who had written about women before, but it was also the fulfilment of a desperate need to create a safe space for women in the intellectual field, in a culture that is unjust towards them. "The Book of the City of Ladies" is not only about the creation of an imaginary City of Women, but about the boundaries of safety and justice beyond literary allusion.

The text is undoubtedly relevant and comprehensible in our own day, and is, of course, essential reading. May there be as many people as possible who share the ideas of the "City of Ladies" and who would help to build a society of justice and goodness.