Summer 2003 volume 99 issue 3 : letters

Lady Cornaro

There’s a whole generation of students who don’t know that Vassar was the world leader 25 years ago in an international movement honoring a major first figure in women’s education, the Venetian laureate Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia who was awarded a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Padua on June 25, 1678. It remains an astonishing achievement for this maidenly celebrity, considered by many to be the most learned woman of her century in Europe. The Lady Cornaro was introduced to the New World as the central character in the 22-foot-high stained-glass window in Frederick Ferris Thompson Memorial Library, where she was portrayed defending her thesis on Aristotle. It was 1905 when she traveled from England by Cunard steamer in the form of hundreds of glass pieces in three huge crates, transported into New York harbor and on by train to Poughkeepsie to be installed in the new Gothic campus building. A Vassar alumna, Ruth Crawford Mitchell, class of 1912, studied beneath this main window, puzzled over its splendid subject and spent over 50 years pursuing the long-lost heroine featured there.

Ruth ignited a modern revival and made the tercentenary an international event. In a brilliant 10-year endeavor beginning in 1969, Ruth established large United States and Italian committees, persuaded foreign governments, recruited ambassadors, cardinals, and presidents and energized teams of volunteers to launch a 300th anniversary year in 1978. With spring concerts, seminars, and symposia, opulent banquets, church services, and extensive library exhibitions, colleges and universities, heads of cultural organizations, civic and religious groups joined the movement. There were 138 commemorations across America and Europe, and thousands participated throughout the year.

One of the earliest was a public, three-day Baroque weekend at Vassar April 28 – 30 with events all over campus honoring the Lady Cornaro. At the time, Secretary of the College Lynn Bartlett described it as “the most important gathering of outstanding scholars in Vassar’s history.” Professor Benjamin G. Kohl succeeded him as Vassar’s Chairman of the Cornaro Committee and assembled major guest speakers in the fields of 17th century social history, education, philosophy, music, art, and architecture for the festivities a quarter of a century ago. Illustrious lecturers and their topics included: Natalie Zemon Davis, professor of history, Princeton University, “Family and Politics. Why Did Women Write History?”; Patricia H. Labalme, assistant to the director at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton and a Vassar mother, “Women’s Roles in Early Modern Venice”; Paul Oskar Kristeller, Frederick J. E. Woodbridge professor emeritus of philosophy, Columbia University, “Learned Women of Early Modern Italy”; and Ann Sutherland Harris, chairman for academic affairs, Metropolitan Museum of Art, “Women artists of the Italian Renaissance.” Opening address was given by Vassar President Virginia B. Smith and Remarks of the Delegates: E. Maxine Bruhns, chairman, U.S. Tercentenary Committee; Giorgio Fedalto, professor of the history of Christianity, University of Padua, and Ruth Mitchell for the class of 1912. Dr. Kohl chaired the morning session and Christine M. Havelock, professor of art, the afternoon series. On Sunday High Mass was celebrated in honor of Lady Cornaro with early music by the Vassar College Chorus. Under the chairmanship of Joan Murphy, reference librarian, a large exhibit of early books and manuscripts: “The Scholarly World of Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia 1646 – 1684 Commemorating the International Tercentenary of the First Doctorate Awarded to a Woman, Elena Cornaro, June 25, 1678,” Vassar College Libraries, March 31 – May 21, 1978.

In Washington, DC, the Italian Cultural Society, the American Italian Bicentennial Commission and Georgetown University, the nation’s first Catholic university, opened Tercentenary Year with a reception for 200 at the Italian ambassador’s residence. Gabrielle Forbush, classmate of Ruth Mitchell, was given a Cornaro medal for her tercentenary work. The April 15 academic program included lectures by the Archbishop of Washington and professors from the universities of Pennsylvania, Virginia, Pittsburgh, and the Goddard Space Center.

In the fall of 1978 the University of Pittsburgh, headquarters of the U.S. Cornaro Tercentenary Committee under the chairmanship of Mrs. Bruhns, combined with Carnegie-Mellon University, Carlow College and Duquesne University for a series of events in its Cornaro Festival. A gala Venetian dinner began two days of lectures by noted scholars and Baroque music in the Henry Clay Frick Fine Arts Cloister. A Cornaro Day was declared by Pittsburgh’s mayor in October.

Numerous other celebrations were held at Columbia University, Kent State, Cornell, Wells College, Oberlin, and Indiana universities and the University of California, which had an overseas program with the University of Padua. Mt. Holyoke College merged a Cornaro Day with its Founder’s Day, honoring Mary Lyons. Swarthmore College’s commemoration heralded Elena Cornaro and Swarthmore alumna Helen Magill, America’s first woman doctorate who received a Ph.D. from Boston University in 1877. Helen Magill was featured on the front of souvenir shirts on the Swarthmore campus that day and Lady Cornaro was perched on the back!

From London, England, Hazel Hunkins-Hallinan, class of 1913, addressed one of many audiences in the laureate’s twin cities, Venice and Padua. They were the settings for receptions and palace and basilica tours, round table discussions, organ recitals and two evening city performances of the “Sacred Cantata” dedicated at the time to Lady Cornaro by Carlo Grossi in this honor-filled week. Representatives from 50 Benedictine Priories in the United States attended. Under the direction of Dr. Maria Tonzig, head of the Italian Cornaro Committee, historians at the University of Padua officially established Elena Cornaro’s primacy in a three-year investigation of all universities of the world in existence in 1678.

On June 25, 1978, in Padua a Mass was celebrated in St. Luke’s Chapel where Lady Elena is buried, dedicating the renovated 14th century building as “Cappella Cornaro.” The gravesite also was restored for the Tercentenary with proceeds from a rare book profile of her. It was the gift from American women.

Ongoing tributes to the Venetian scholar are annual scholarships and Cornaro medals for students and teachers by organizations including the Order Sons of Italy and Kappa Gamma Pi, the national Catholic College Graduate Honor Society.

A recently published biography, The Lady Cornaro, Pride and Prodigy in Venice by Vassar alumna Jane Howard Guernsey ’49, chronicles the life story of the lady in the window and her modern American revival. Jane was promotion chair of the United States Cornaro Tercentenary Committee. Her daughter, Anne, 1978, was the committee’s Vassar student representative.

Jane Howard Guernsey '49
Wilmington, Delaware