This major study looks at the heritage and literary transformation of Giovanni Boccaccio's De mulieribus claris in late fifteenth and early sixteenth century Italy. The monograph is the first full-length study of the new elaborations of women's role and potential that were being developed in the north Italian courts in this period. The Ghost of Boccaccio presents a sustained textual analysis of a selection of male-authored texts. It treats these texts as highly specific events in the development of the querelle des femmes, or 'the woman question', providing an important and often neglected Italian context for this question. By analysing these texts together in one volume, this study places them firmly on the scholarly map. The book will be of interest to scholars and students of Renaissance history and culture, Italian studies, neo-Latin studies, and gender studies.