Tarabotti was self taught. Her published works and unpublished letters nevertheless betray a keen and informed mind. In the course of her short life, Tarabotti wrote several treatises highly critical of her father, family, and the reigning social, cultural, and judicial practices that sanctioned tyrannical behavior. In defense of her views, it is claimed that she received initial support from Cardinal Cornaro, Patriarch of Venice. Although she wrote on aspects of spiritual life, for example, "La luce monacale"; "Via per andare al cielo"; "Paradiso monacale"; "Purgatorio delle mal maritate"; "Contemplazioni dell' anima amante", Tarabotti's passion was defending the position of women and attacking socially acceptable forms of confinement. The issue was not simply the 'marriage market' but questions ranging from inheritance laws and finance to free will and humanity itself. Tarabotti's works include: "Antisatira d'A[rcangela] T[arabotti] in risposta alla satira Menippea contro il lusso donnesco di Francesco Buoninsegni", Venice, 1644; "Lettere familiari e di complemento", Venice, 1650; "Difesa delle donne contro Orazio Plata", Venice, 1651; "La semplicita ingannata", Leyden, 1654. Several of these writings were published under the pseudonym Galerana Barcitotti.

Confined to the convent and denied an education, Tarabotti devoted herself to study and sought contact with other intellectuals. During the 1630s she began communication with various members of the Accademia degli Incogniti, an informal society, newly formed, consisting of intellectuals and free-thinkers. Among the members was Gian Francesco Loredan, founder of the society, who later assisted her in publishing several of works. Tarabotti would later become known to Prince Leopold of Tuscany, founder of the Accademia del Cimento. Members of Leopold's circle, among them Martherel, N-B de Gremonville, the French Ambassador to Venice, and the astronomer Ismaël Boulliau, would also be in contact. Boulliau and Tarabotti corresponded for several years, and he informed the learned and celebrated Claude Saumaise of her work. An early Copernican, classical scholar, and diplomat, Boulliau may have met Tarabotti in Venice in 1645-1646.

In her first work, La tirannia paterna (Paternal Tyranny), Tarabotti argued that fathers committed their daughters to convents, not for spiritual reasons but to avoid the cost of providing them an education and a marriage dowry. As a recent scholar wrote:

She exposed the hypocrisy of the fierce contemporary criticism of female vanity, pointing out that men were just as vain and suggesting that their concern was not so much for the virtue of their wives and daughters as for their money, which they would more readily spend on themselves and on the prostitutes with they liberally associated. She argued for the merit of women and their right to attend to their beauty and adornment, one of the few areas of their lives in their control. Tarabotti wrote forcefully and convincingly, despite her lack of adequate formal training, and she unnerved her critics to the point that they mercilessly attacked her for the least evidence of literary shortcomings, indeed criticized her for typographical errors in a published work. She always responded promptly and fearlessly and seems to have had support and sympathy from many noble women and not a few erudite men. [Elissa B. Weaver]

Written during her early years at the convent, Tarabotti's La tirannia paterna was not published until 1654, in a variant form, under the title La simplicita ingannata (Simplicity Deceived). Tarabotti's second work, which remains unpublished in a single manuscript copy, was her L'Inferno monocale (Convent Hell). This work has proven controversial as to its motive, though the overall point of view is unmistakable. Here Tarabotti focuses on the grim circumstances of victims forced into convent life, often without vocation. A later variant version of this text was published, however, as Il paradiso monocale (Convent Paradise). Here the inversion has caused even more controversy, as interpretations vary across the continuum, from a statement of her resignation if not acceptance of her condition, on the one hand, to a statement of her inability to accept her fate or embrace cloistered life.

If there is ambiguity in interpreting her position, it should vanish in light of other works that followed, notably her Antisatira (Antisatire). This work was written in response to Contro il lusso donnesco (Against the Luxuries of Women), written by F. Buoninsegni, who had offered up a satire that aimed to mock the vanity of women. Tarabotti responded, arguing that there is no reason women cannot adorn themselves as they wish. This apparently reasonable response received heated retorts from male authors, some insisting a nun should know better and not defend vanity in any form. Tarabotti sent a copy of her work to Cardinal Mazarin.

Thereafter, Tarabotti did not publish again until 1650, when a selection of her letters appeared, this time under her own name. The last published work in her lifetime was Che le donne siano della spezie degli uomani (1651; That women are of the same species as men), which was a written reply to an Italian translation of a worked published anonymously by Orazio Plata, a work originally published in Latin by Acidalius Valens as Disputatio perjucunda qua anonimus probare nititur mulieres homines non esse (A Most Delightful Disputation in Which an Anonymous [Author] Strives to Prove That Women Are Not Men). If the original work was intended as humor (playing off 'man' and 'human') Tarabotti was in the habit of expressing her wit. She demonstrated that the worked was tainted not only by human indignities (however ironic) but theological heresy. The title was soon placed on the Index of Prohibited Books.

Elana Cassandra Tarabotti died in 1652 at Venice, age 48.

Tarabotti Written Works

Tarabotti, Elana Cassandra. L'Inferno monocale (Convent Hell). Only one manuscript copy of this unpublished manuscript is known to exist in the private collection of Count Giustiani.

-----. Lettres familiarie de complimento (1650)

-----. Il paradiso monocale (Convent Paradise) (1663 [1643]).

-----. Antisatira (Antisatire). Tarabotti's reply to F. Buoninsegni; it was published anonymously by DAT [donna Arcangela Tarabotti] in F. Buoninsegni, Contro il lusso donnesco, satira menippea (1644) (Against the Luxuries of Women)

-----. Che le donne siano della spetie degli uomini. Difesa delle donne de Galerana Barcitotti [pseudonym] contro Horatio Plata (1651) (That Women Are of the Same Species as Men)