Luisa Sigea de Velasco

Luisa Sigea de Velasco (Tarancón, 1522 — Burgos, October 13, 1560), also known as Luísa Sigeia, Luísa Sigea Toledana and in the Latinized form Aloysia Sygaea Toletana, was a poetess and intellectual of the 16th century, one of the major figures of Spanish humanism, who spent a good part of her life in the Portuguese court in the service of Maria de Portugal (1521-1577), as her Latin teacher. André de Resende wrote the following epitaph for her: Hic sita SIGAEA est: satis hoc: qui cetera nescit Rusticus est: artes nec colit ille bonas, (Loosely: Here lies Sigea; no more need be said; anyone who does not know the rest is an uneducated fool.)

In 1680 was published an erotic work entitled "Aloysiæ Sigeæ Toletanæ satyra sotadica de arcanis amoris et veneris: Aloysia hispanice scripsit: latinitate donauit J. Meursius", attributed to the Frenchman Nicolas Chorier. (The title means "Luisa Sigea Toledana's Sotadic (Sotades) satire, on the secrets of love and sex; Luisa wrote it in Spanish; it has here been translated into Latin by J. Meursius.)

This is widely considered the first-ever fully pornographic work written in Latin, and it contains among other things a defense of tribadism (i.e. lesbianism). The attribution to Sigea (as well as the attribution to Meursius) was a hoax, as was first demonstrated by Bruno Lavignini in his edition of the poem (Italy, 1905). The work was later translated into many other languages, including English, under the title "Dialogues of Luisa Sigea".