[8] At the age of nine she was returned to her grandmother's family where she learned Latin and composition from her grandfather, Prospero Saraceni, a man of letters, as well as from her brother, Leonardo.

[12] On 15 February 1582, at twenty-seven years old, Moderata wed lawyer and government official Filippo de’ Zorzi with whom she would later have four children.

[11] Their marriage seemed to reflect equality and mutual respect as evidenced by de’ Zorzi returning her dowry a year and a half after their wedding.

[14] An official document dated October 1583 states that de’ Zorzi returns the dowry "thanks to his pure kindness and to the great love and good will that he has felt and feels for" her.

A group of women are talking in a venetian garden when Pasquale arrives and breaks the relaxed atmosphere by referring the last argument she has had with her husband.

It leads to an inspiring conversation about "masculine behaviour" in which they complain about the unfair situations they have to face every day; they imagine twelve punishments (one per month) in order to raise awareness among men.

The book is divided in 14 chapters: the first one works as an introduction or frame, the next twelve cover punishments and attacks to the masculine figure and in the last one they return to real life after their imaginary trip wiser and filled with hope.

[22] The garden setting displays the potential feminized society as all of Fonte's characters express the moral capacity of women and their deserving of material means to be autonomous, though from different arguments.

[24] Some authors have suggested that Moderata Fonte's last work, along with other contemporaries like Lucrezia Marinella, were meant to be a critic against Giuseppe Passi's, I donneschi difetti [Women's Defects].

[21] Before the publications of Moderata Fonte's and Lucrezia Marinella's works, men were the only authors of writings in defense of women, with the exception of Laura Cereta's letters, which circulated as a manuscript from 1488 to 1492 among humanists in Brescia, Verona, and Venice.

[23] The rediscovery of her work in the 20th century is due to scholar women from Italy and America such as Eleonora Carinci,[26] Adriana Chemello,[27] Marina Zancan and Virginia Cox.