Is the VMS a work of female authors ?

[bi3mw]

this thesis is incredibly thin and reads like the pitch for a work of fiction rather than anything seriously researched.

You are right, the blog post is really thinly researched. Already the uncommented marginal note about Dorotea Bucca shows this clearly. It is not even certain that Bucca really existed or gave lectures. Nowhere is there written evidence for it. She is actually mentioned only once, in the edition of Giovanni Boccaccio's "Delle Donne Illustri". - The remark about Christine di Pizan ( quote: "Christine di Pizan challenged the idea that women were inferior to men by publishing the City of Ladies in 1404.") is probably meant to suggest that Pizan's attitude was widespread in late medieval Italy. This was not the case, of course; rather, there was a basic patriarchal social order. Pizan took a special position within this society as a financially independent (i.e. financed by writing) widow.