Anna Maria van Schurman (November 5, 1607 – May 4, 1678) was a Dutch painter, engraver, poet, classical scholar, philosopher, and feminist[1] writer who is best known for her exceptional learning and her defence of female education.

From about 11 years old, Schurman was taught Latin and other subjects by her father along with his sons, an unusual decision at a time when girls in noble families were not generally tutored in the classics.

She noted the potential for the university to help the city cope with the economic impacts of the floods and the shifting course of the river Rhine.

Women at that time were not permitted to study at a university in Protestant Netherlands, and when she attended lectures she sat behind a screen or in a curtained booth so that the male students could not see her.

By the 1640s she was fluent in 14 languages and wrote in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, French, Arabic, Persian, Ethiopian, German and Dutch.

When she chose the phrase Amor Meus Crucifixus Est (My Love Has Been Crucified) as her motto, her intellectual friends were convinced that her choice not to marry was rooted in her piety, rather than her scholarship.

[14] Schurman produced delicate engravings by using a diamond on glass, sculpture, wax modelling, and the carving of ivory and wood.

Schurman in the correspondence expressed her admiration for educated women like Lady Jane Gray and Queen Elizabeth I.

[16] An unauthorised version of Schurman's writings on women's education was published in 1638 in Paris under the title Dissertatio De Ingenii Muliebris ad Doctrinam, & meliores Litteras aptitudine.

[20] In 1661 Schurman's brother studied theology with the Hebrew scholar Johannes Buxtorf in Basel and learned about the defrocked French priest Jean de Labadie.

When in late 1669 Labadie settled in Amsterdam to establish a separatist church, Schurman sold her house and part of her library.

She denounced the church men for trampling on "celestial wisdom", arguing that the people of God should be separated from the "mondains" through "hatred of the world" and "divine love".

When the Labadists had to leave Amsterdam, Schurman secured an invitation from her friend Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia, who in 1667 had become abbess at the Lutheran Damenstift of Herford Abbey.

[22] In it she derided Gisbertus Voetius's opposition to her admiration for Saint Paula, a disciple of St Jerome, who had helped to translate the Bible into Latin.

[20] Eukleria was well received by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and prominent pietists, including Johann Jacob Schütz, Philipp Jakob Spener and Eleonore van Merlau [de].

[23] When Labadie died in 1674, Schurman investigated the possibility of moving to England, corresponding with the Latin scholar Lucy Hutchinson and the theologian John Owen on the matter.

But the Labadists moved to the village Wieuwerd in Friesland and attracted numerous new members, including Maria Sibylla Merian.

Schurman and René Descartes corresponded, and while they disagreed on the interpretation of the Bible they both thought that reason was central in the human identity.

In her correspondence with Rivet, Schurman explained that women such as Marie de Gournay had already proven that man and woman are equal, so she would not "bore her readers with repetition".

Like Rivet, Schurman argued in The Learned Maid for education on the basis of moral grounds, because "ignorance and idleness cause vice".

Schurman made the point that women could make a valuable contribution to society, and argued that it was also necessary for their happiness to study theology, philosophy and the sciences.

[29] In reference to The Learned Maid, Rivet cautioned her in a letter that "although you have shown us this with grace, your persuasions are futile... You may have many admirers, but none of them agree with you.

[13] In another self-portrait engraving she created in 1640, she included the Latin inscription "Cernitis hic picta nostros in imagine vultus: si negat ars formā[m], gratia vestra dabit."