The catholic world of the Sixteenth century, especially after the Council of Trent, exalted the condition of monastic life as the most perfect and noblest of the conditions of life traditionally reserved for women. The monastic state became the model to which the educational path of every woman had to conform to, even if she was destined to live in the world (as mother, virgin, widow, or married woman). The strong paradigmatic value exerted by the monastic condition of life is clear from the analysis of the pedagogical literature devoted to women published in this period.The present article focuses on two relevant examples of this literature: the Costituzioni per le monache (Constitutions for Nuns, 1539) by Gian Matteo Giberti and the Ricor...