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I liked this entry! I also really like that edition ...

I've become a cynic, probably because I study Lydgate: I have a (probably somewhat flippant, but anyhow) notion that exemplarity takes precedence over biography in this kind of 'proto-encyclopedia,' starting with Boccaccio himself. That is, women are always shown to have exemplary womanly traits, whether they're more idle/sensual (Dido) or industrious/virtuous (Lucretia, Virginia). Even if they're virtuous, they're still types, if you take my drift, and types are--well, I think that their depiction is a more misogynistic move than depiction of real women. (Even as I take your point about Christine scholarship. And why do even some critics think that this literature could be simply misogynistic? These are such complex cultures we're talking about.)

Cornificia in particular might partially have been interesting (though admittedly more to Lydgate than to Boccaccio) because she shows 'manliness'--poeticizing being a manly trait. The female 'princes' in De Casibus and tradition in particular tend to be 'like' men or 'parodic' men (these would be the bad female princes). This is another (IMO) very hard question of this encyclopedic genre: I think that people who engage with the whole Boccaccian 'proto-enyclopedic' output critically are very brave :-/

The "snarky sentences" on womanly idleness may relate to the portrayal of women as iconographically idle, btw. I'm finding an idlenesse/bisynesse [=industry] polarity to be very important to interpreting Lydgate's reformulation of De casibus. Lucretia is an important figure for this because she's industrious (she spins) and is somewhat masculine in presentation. I couldn't swear to it in this connection, but I think it's interesting.

Btw--I always wonder too if the Latin content of DMC is affected by its being ostensibly written for a woman. The Latin's not (I'd argue) very hard if you compared it to the other two Boccaccian encyclopedias. Not that I have a copy in front of me to prove matters ... somebody recalled it ... thank you for making me quasi-think for ten seconds. I have to go back now to my customary idle pursuits ;) ...