Isabel de Villena was the illegitimate child of Enrique de Villena an unknown noblewoman who rose to become the abbess of the Real Monasterio de la Trinidad of Valencia. As the first major female writer of a work done in the Valencian language, she composed a number of religious treaties. Her most famous work was her Vita Christi. She was also a proto-feminist who tried to change the negative image of women at the time through her writing.