The Allegory of Female AuthorityThe first professional female writer, Christine de Pizan (1363 1431) was widowed at age twenty five and supported herself and her family by enlisting powerful patrons for her poetry. Her Livre de la Cit des Dames (1405) is the earliest European work on women's history by a woman. An allegorical poem that revises masculine traditions, it asserts and defends the authority of women in general and of its author in particular. In this generously