LADY REASON AND
THE WRITING OF HISTORY
Monika Leisch-Kiesl
Le livre de la cité des dames (The Book of the City of
Ladies) by the French writer and philosopher Christine de
Pizan (1364 – ca. 1430) is among the most widely-read
texts of the early 15th century and is considered to be one
of the first feminist works in European literature. As the
fruit of a highly-educated author’s broad range of reading,
it reflects the intellectual and socio-political debates of
its time, and the aesthetics of the book also demonstrate
how Christine de Pizan took care to publish her verbal and
visual compositions in a complex and self-assured form.
Multidisciplinary engagement with the many aspects of
“Christine de Pizan” as a research topic continues today in
an unbroken tradition. The art historian and philosopher
Monika Leisch-Kiesl, an expert in both historical gender
studies and book illumination, now convincingly succeeds
in bringing observers and readers into the often-surprising
intellectual world of a young female writer at the French
court in the early Renaissance. She emphasises not least the
still-powerful utopian potential of this poet who worked
in early 15th-century Paris. Furthermore, Sibylle Ryser’s
exceptional and perfectly-matched design for this bilingual
edition brings a gem of medieval book art into an enlight-
ening dialogue with its scholarly analysis.
Born in Venice in 1364, Christine de Pizan arrived in Paris at the age
of four, at the court of King Charles V, where her father, Tommaso
di Benvenuto da Pizzano, was an astronomer and physicist. She
benefited from the intellectual and cultural climate of the Valois
court and received an extensive education, not least from her
father, who introduced her to the artes liberales. She had access
to the royal library and participated in the vibrant political debates
during this period of transition between the Middle Ages and the
Renaissance.
She gained her first professional experience in the chancery of
her husband, Étienne du Castel, who held a position as secretary
and notary at the court. Widowed at the age of twenty-five and
responsible for three children, Christine de Pizan decided to pursue
a career as a writer. She employed scribes, supervised the illumi-
nation of her manuscripts and engaged some of the leading artists
working in Paris. The exquisite pieces were to be found in the most
prestigious libraries in Burgundy and beyond. Thanks to digitiza-
tion, they are now accessible to a wide range of readers.
An art historian and philosopher, Monika Leisch-Kiesl has held
a professorship for art history and aesthetics at the KU Private
University in Linz since 1996 and laid the foundation for a Faculty
of Philosophy and Art History there in 2005, which she chaired for
ten years. Her research has taken her to the Ludwig Maximilian
University and the State Library in Munich, the University of Basel
and the Schaulager of the Laurenz Foundation, the Jagiellonian
University and the Cricoteca in Krakow.
Monika Leisch-Kiesl creatively combines questions of gender
studies with impulses of text-image research, approaches to con-
temporary artistic positions with a broad knowledge of art theory
and aesthetics, insights in the field of drawing with problems of
global art history. One focus of her recent publishing endeavors is
to emphasize the intensity of intellectual debate by virtue of the
quality of formal design. → http://www.leisch-kiesl.com
After an initial professional stint in editing at Diogenes in Zurich,
Sibylle Ryser completed her graphic design training at the re-
nowned Basel School of Design (now the FHNW Academy of Art and
Design). She then worked in a design studio in Amsterdam and sub-
sequently founded a communications agency in Basel with two col-
leagues in 1992. In 2005, she graduated with a master’s degree in
art history and popular cultures from the University of Zurich.
Since 2001, Sibylle Ryser has been running her own office for book
design in Basel. She works for museums, publishers and institu-
tions in the fields of art and science. She understands her design
concepts as visual organization of content. She loves footnotes,
tolerant typographic grids, functional aesthetics and well-edited
typefaces. → http://www.sibylleryser.ch
Monika Leisch-Kiesl:
Lady Reason and the Writing of History.
Christine de Pizan’s “Livre de la Cité des dames”
Olms, 2021, 140 pp., bilingual ger/engl, numerous illustrations,
hard cover, half-linen binding
ISBN 978-3-487-16021-4. 48,00 EUR

An art historian and philosopher, Monika Leisch-Kiesl has held
a professorship for art history and aesthetics at the KU Private
University in Linz since 1996 and laid the foundation for a Faculty
of Philosophy and Art History there in 2005, which she chaired for
ten years. Her research has taken her to the Ludwig Maximilian
University and the State Library in Munich, the University of Basel
and the Schaulager of the Laurenz Foundation, the Jagiellonian
University and the Cricoteca in Krakow.
Monika Leisch-Kiesl creatively combines questions of gender
studies with impulses of text-image research, approaches to con-
temporary artistic positions with a broad knowledge of art theory
and aesthetics, insights in the field of drawing with problems of
global art history. One focus of her recent publishing endeavors is
to emphasize the intensity of intellectual debate by virtue of the
quality of formal design. → http://www.leisch-kiesl.com