Vendela Skytte

Vendela Skytte (or Wendela Skytte) (8 December 1608 – 18 August 1629) was a Swedish noblewoman, salonist and writer, poet and Lady of Letters. During her lifetime, she became an ideal and role model for a learned female scholar. Biography Vendela Skytte was born to statesman and noble Johan Skytte and Maria Näf and became the aunt of Gustav Skytte, Maria Skytte and Christina Anna Skytte. Growing up in an environment where humanists such as Thomas More, Erasmus of Rotterdam and Juan Luis Vives were popular, she was given the same education as her brothers by her father – her sister Anna Skytte also became respected for her learning. She studied theology, ethics, history, philology and geology, and mastered Latin, French, German and Greek. This was unusual, as the educational level was not normally this high for females of the nobility. She corresponded in Latin, and became known for her poetry. Vendela Skytte was famed in her lifetime for her learning and academic abilities, qualities which were then regarded as rare for her sex, and came to be regarded as the ideal of a female academic. She was praised for keeping her femininity despite her learning, two things regarded as contradictory by her contemporaries. She has been called the most learned female of her country before Christina of Sweden. She held a salon and participated in the contemporary intellectual debate. She surrounded herself with scientists and artists and corresponded with the learned Catharina Burea. Aside from her learning, she was admired for her beauty and wit. Georg Stiernhielm called her "Sexus et sæculi miraculum" ("The wonder of her time and her sex") for her intellect and beauty.