The introduction of this book articulates its central thesis: that Maddalena Casulana’s achievements are best understood as the product of a synergy between her exceptional talent and character and the intellectual context of the Querelle des femmes, which created an environment eager to support women’s creativity and value against the prevailing misogynistic ideology of the early modern period. It first traces Casulana’s presence in 18th- and 19th-century encyclopedias and then illustrates how she faded from musicological knowledge in the early twentieth century, only to be rediscovered in the late 1970s. It then lays out the analytical framework underpinning the study, which is grounded in a historicized feminist criticism informed by early modern pro-feminine discourses. Finally, the introduction delineates the three fundamental key concepts that inform the approach adopted in this study: philogyny, exemplarity, and imitation.