*Olympia Fulvia*, an Italian lady, distinguished for her learning, was born at Ferrara, in 1526. Her father, after teaching the belles lettres in several cities of Italy, was made preceptor to the two young princes of Ferrara, the sons of Alphonso I. The uncommon abilities he discovered in his daughter determined him to give her all the advantages of education. Meanwhile the princes of Ferrara studying polite literature, it was judged expedient that she should have a companion in the same pursuit; and Morata being called, she was heard by the astonished courtiers to declaim in Latin, to speak Greek, and to explain the paradoxes of Cicero. Her father dying, she was obliged to return home to take upon her the management of family affairs, and the education of her brother and three sisters; both which she executed with the greatest diligence and success. In the meantime Andrew Grunthler, a young German physician, had married her, and with him she went to Germany, taking her brother along with her, whom she instructed in the Latin and Greek tongues; and after staying a short time at Augsburg, went to Schweinfurt in Franconia, where her husband was born: but they had not been there long before that town was unhappily besieged and burnt; however, escaping the flames, they fled in the utmost distress to Hammelburg. This place they were also obliged to quit, and were reduced to the last extremities, when the elector Palatine invited Grunthler to be professor of physic at Heidelberg. He entered on his new office in 1554; but they no sooner began to taste the sweets of repose, than a disease, occasioned by the distresses and hardships they had suffered, seized upon Morata, who died in 1555, in the 29th year of her age; and her husband and brother did not long survive her. She composed several works, great part of which were burnt with the town of Schweinfurt; the remainder, which consist of orations, dialogues, letters, and translations, were collected and published under the title of *Olympiae Fulviae Moratae, faminae doctissime, et plane divinæ, opera omnia quæ hactenus inveneri potuerint; quibus Caëli secundi curiosis epistolæ ac orationes accerrent*.