Antonio Barzizza

He was raised by his uncle, Gasparino Barzizza, who was a professor at the University of Bologna, where Antonio studied between 1420 and 1425.

A young woman, Scintilla, is unhappily married to an old man, Brachus.

According to Jean-Frédéric Chevalier, Cauteriaria "is perhaps a denunciation of the hypocrisy of some members of the clergy, but above all it is a hymn to love and denunciation of everything that hinders it", in which Barzizza "denounces the female condition which is subjected to the tyrannical rule of men.

[5] The play Fraudiphila of Antonio Cornazzano was partially inspired by Cauteriaria.

[6] Peter Luder brought a copy of the play to the University of Heidelberg between 1456 and 1460, where it probably inspired Johannes Reuchlin's Scaenica progymnasmata.

First page of the Cauteriaria in a 15th-century manuscript