Moderata is the Latin word for "moderate, modest." **Moderata Fonte (pen name of Modesta Pozzo, 1555-1592)** was the **Venetian Renaissance writer whose dialogue *The Worth of Women* (*Il merito delle donne*, 1600, posthumously published) is one of the earliest sustained feminist philosophical works**. **Seven women gathered in a Venetian garden debate the worth of women versus men** — Moderata herself died at 37 in childbirth before its publication. Her chivalric romance *Tredici canti del Floridoro* also broke ground by giving female knights heroic roles.
Featured in modern feminist anthologies of Italian Renaissance literature.
Moderata reduces to eight — the number of Venetian Renaissance feminist.