Influencing many of the most famous philosophers, Tullia's work elevated women's status in literature to equal that of men.

It is unknown if Tullia's maternal grandfather was a member, natural or legitimate, of a noble Ferrarese family with the same name.

Tullia spent the first part of her childhood in Rome, but around the time of the Cardinal's departure for his well-known journey through northern Europe, she and her mother moved to Siena.

Available evidence suggests that she was highly mobile and stayed in Bologna in 1529, where Pope Clement VII and Holy Roman Emperor Charles V were engaged in negotiations after the Sack of Rome in 1527.

In 1531, she became involved with Filippo Strozzi, a Florentine banking magnate who had been famous for a short-lived affair with Italy's most beautiful courtesan, Camilla Pisana.

Tullia appears, together with Bernardo Tasso in Sperone Speroni's Dialogo d'amore, which takes place in Venice.

Nonetheless, she was back in Rome, which was recorded in a letter Tullia wrote to Francesco de' Pazzi, a friend and companion of Piero Strozzi, Filippo's eldest son.

She apparently came to Ferrara to see Filippo Strozzi, and while there, heard the preaching's of the reformist Bernardo Ochino, who she later referenced a sonnet on the importance of free will.

The only evidence of their relationship is a malicious comment that was made by Agnolo Firenzuola who claimed that Tullia let her husband die of hunger.

For Tullia, this marriage acted as a way for her to "exempt herself from living in the neighborhood designated for prostitutes," and allowed her to wear clothing that distinguished her as a noble woman.

In late 1545 or early 1546 due to political uprisings, d'Aragona fled Siena to seek refuge in Florence in the court of Cosimo I.

Initially published in Venice, Italy in 1547 (in Italian), the novel has been translated in recent years in English for the first time by Rinaldina Russell and Bruce Merry in 1997.

The only way for love to be honorable, according to this piece, is if both males and females accept and acknowledge their sexual and spiritual desires (of their body and soul).

During the preceding century, the Medici court had sponsored considerable revival of Neo-Platonist scholarship, particularly Marsilio Ficino, who had also written on the nature of sexual desire and love from this perspective.

At the same time, she wrote a series of sonnets that praised the attributes of prominent Florentine noblemen of her era, or celebrated contemporary literary figures.

Her last known work, Il Meschino, is an epic poem, which related the experiences of a captive youth, Giarrino, who was enslaved and journeyed across Europe, Africa and Asia, as well as Purgatory and Hell, trying to find his lost parents.