Volpi's Argumentative Analysis

The eighteenth-century was a new age for women and women’s rights. The Enlightenment had brought forth new ideas and customs that had been unheard of before. One of these new ideas centered around women’s education, and it led to a whirlwind debate: The Ricovrati Debate. The debate, as per tradition, was between two academic men: Giovanni Antonio Volpi and Guglielmo Camposanpiero. Camposanpiero was for and Volpi was against. However, this debate went far beyond the Academy in Padua. Indeed, it was widely published and many noble women across the country became infuriated by Volpi’s arguments. In order to smooth his image, Volpi requested that Aretafila Savini de’ Rossi, a Florentine noblewoman and a member of the Arcadia Academy, write a formal rebuttal to his debate. Therefore, in a poignantly sarcastic tone, the noblewoman essentially tore apart

Undeniably, this organization made her rebuttal easy to follow. More than that, though, it showed that she could take apart every single one of Volpi’s arguments; not a single point could withstand her rebuttal. For example, take some of Volpi’s main points: tradition, women’s beauty, and educated women not wishing to marry. In the same order, Savini de’ Rossi proves that these points are false, arguing against tradition, women’s reliance on beauty, and educated women choosing to remain virgins. By repeating the main ideas of the original debate in order, she recalls the reader to Volpi’s points and then tears them down, making his argument even weaker. However, the most powerful rhetorical tool that Savini de’ Rossi employed was that of personal experience. Based on her own experience as a woman, she was able to speak from her own point of view, and from those of her near acquaintances, in a way that a man could not. use of personal experiences on the value of equal education for all