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Christine de Pisan wrote and illuminated this manuscript around 1410. Christine is a rare example both of a medieval female author and desk-top publisher. She was left widowed with three children at only twenty-five years old, and started making manuscripts to earn her living, rather than remarry or enter a convent. Her initial love poems, expressing her grief, gave way to allegorical works on how to survive at court and on the rights of women. She attracted the patronage of the Queen of France and was able to employ scribes and artists to help her copy her own writings (most other authors would dictate rather than writing themselves). This image shows Christine presenting her manuscript to King Charles VI of France.
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