Anne Margrethe Qvitzow

Anne Margrethe Qvitzow (1652 -1700) was a Danish poet, translator and memoir writer, known for her learning.

Qvitzow was the daughter of the noble officer Erik Qvitzow (1616–78) and Susanne Juel (d. 1685) and married in 1676 to the noble Christian von Pappenheim (d. 1705). She was given an unusually high education: at this time, female members of the Danish nobility were normally barely taught to read and write. However, as showed herself to be very gifted early on, her parents hired private teachers to educate her in Danish, German, Latin, Greek, French, grammar, logic, rhetoric, geometry, astronomy, arithmetic, musical science, and also begun studies in Hebrew. She translated De officiis by Cicero and De bello gallico by Julius Caesar.

In 1676, Qvitzow married. Reportedly, her spouse wasted their fortune, and after 1685, when she wrote a poem dedicated the memory of Ove Rosenkrantz Axelsen, she is no longer heard of, and her late life is not much known. During the 1670s and 1680s, however, she was a celebrity. Erik Pontoppidan called her “Heroina longe eruditissima” and compared her to Anna Maria van Schurman. In 1673, Qvitzow rejected the idea that her learning should be considered in any way remarkable because of her sex, and stated that if women were given the same education as men, they would prove themselves to be just as capable.

Qvitzow was included in contemporary dictionaries and work of female scholars and learned women, gynæcéer, by Matthias Schacht, Albert Thura and Fr. Chr. Schønau.

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