Principally known for her revolutionary conception of the equality of women set forth in "Le Livre de la Cite des Dames" (1405) - the first defence of women by a woman - Christine de Pizan is only now beginning to receive the critical attention she deserves. Born in Venice but reared at the court of French King Charles V, she helped transmit the works of Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio to France - thereby becoming a bridge between the two most important late medieval vernacular cultures. Christine was also in the forefront of the humanistic attack on medieval literature and thought, a stance that made her a pivotal figure in the transition from the late Middle Ages to the Renaissance in France. "Reinterpreting Christine de Pizan" assembles 17 essays from specialists in the United States and Europe that shed new light on three central issues in the work of this major French medieval writer: de Pizan and the beginnings of feminist thought, her place in medieval French literature, and her relationship to the Church Fathers and to the humanists. These essays, written from a variety of traditional and modern critical perspectives, present a new synthesis on the meaning and significance of the life and work of this remarkable writer.