My favourite Non royal women( in no particular order)
She ruled most of central and northern Italy in her time; under feudal law, she owed allegiance to the German king -- Holy Roman Emperor -- but she took the side of the Pope in the wars between the imperial forces and the papacy. When Henry IV had to beg pardon of the Pope, he did so at Matilda's castle, and Matilda was seated at the Pope's side during the event.
Christine de Pizan, the author of the Book of the City of the Ladies, a fifteenth-century writer in France, was an early feminist who challenged her culture's stereotypes of women.
Catherine of Siena is credited (with St. Bridget of Sweden) with persuading Pope Gregory to return the Papal seat from Avignon to Rome. When Gregory died, Catherine got involved in the Great Schism. Her visions were well-known in the medieval world, and she was an advisor, through her correspondence, with powerful secular and religious leaders.
July 8, 1593 – c. 1656) was an Italian Baroquepainter, today considered one of the most accomplished painters in the generation following that of Caravaggio. In an era when female painters were not easily accepted by the artistic community or patrons, she was the first woman to become a member of the Accademia di Arte del Disegno in Florence and had international clientele.
Simonetta Cattaneo Vespucci. She was a noblewoman from Genoa Simonetta arrived in Florence together with her young husband (– a distant cousin of Amerigo Vespucci )The young woman was a presence as much stunning as short-lived in Florence. She died just a year after the tournament of which she had been the queen, probably because of tuberculosis. Even if she was dead, Botticelli kept on realizing his artworks inspired by her. Botticelli’s Venus and Spring – his masterpieces at the Uffizi Gallery – were painted about ten years after the girl’s death, but her beauty was well-fixed in the artist’s mind, who painted her by memory.
Hypatia(born c. 350–370; died 415 AD) wasa Hellenistic Neoplatonist philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician, who lived in Alexandria, Egypt, then part of the Eastern Roman Empire. She was a prominent thinker of the Neoplatonic school in Alexandria, where she taught philosophy and astronomy. In March 415 AD, she was murdered by a mob of Christians led by a lector named Peter.They tore her body into pieces and dragged her mangled limbs through the town to a place called Cinarion, where they set them on fire.
