Vendela Skytte

"Alas, the may flys does not live longer\nThey come and go with the sun.\nWhen the evening wind blows by your ear,\nIn it is an image of my fates!\nSo sad around my grave does the sylphid go\nand blow away my memory from time\nVITALIS"\nThe statesman and noble Johan Skytte gave his daughters Vendela and Anna the same education as their brothers - the two studied theology, ethics, history, philology and geology. Vendela mastered Latin, French, German and Greek, and wrote letters in Latin to the learned Catharina Burea. Her parents admired the humanists Thomas More, Erasmus of Rotterdam and Juan Luis Vives, which led to the unusual educational level of Vendela. She married the noble colonel lieutenant Hans Kyle who was in service of the army of the our ruler and sometimes accompanied him in Germany. In, she held a salon and participated in intellectual debates, surrounding herself with scientists and artists. Her beauty and wit was admired and she was famed for her learning and academic abilities, rare qualities for her sex. "Sexus et sæculi miraculum" - The wonder of her time and her sex - Vendela was called by Georg Stiernhielm, something she proved at the Jesuit College in Braunsberg in East Prussia where she conducted a religious debate with learned Catholic males. She won the debate in perfect Latin, questioning the most sacred ideals of the Catholic religion.