In the context of contemporary writings by and about women, this dissertation examines the representation of the emblematic heroines of seventeenth century Venetian opera--Dido, Octavia, Veremonda, Semiramide and Messalina--as realized by Venice's most popular opera composers: Cavalli, Monteverdi, Pietro Ziani, and Carlo Pallavicino. The first section focuses on the writings about gender and sexuality that provide the essential background for the development of opera in Venice: philosophical and religious tracts, novelle, plays, catalogs of heroines, and behavior manuals, in which the authors invoked female exempla to argue about the nature of femininity. Chapter 1 examines the" exceptional woman" of legend and history, contemporary ideals concerning male and female virtue, biological sex and gender, and the special circumstances in Venice that allowed this polemic to flourish. The second chapter focuses on the writings of the Venetian Accademia degli Incogniti, a group of intellectual patricians deeply involved in the production of opera, who infused the developing genre with ambivalent attitudes towards women and sexuality. Opera, an ideal means for the dissemination of cultural messages, thus became a vital voice in the contemporary polemics about women.