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Historians have hardly explored the part played by women of the aristocracy in the fifteenth-century business world. This lack of interest can be ascribed to the difficulty, lacking significant documentation, in investigating their role outside the family and more specifically in the business world, traditionally seen as an exclusively male domain. According to the traditional definition of their function within the marriage, women would be completely excluded from this world, or would only play a very minor, or insignificant, role. However, the two examples presented here, that of Alessandra Macinghi Strozzi, "CEO" of a trading company, and that of Caterina Sforza, Countess of Imola and Forli, highlight the important part played by aristocratic women in the business world in Tuscany and Romagna in the fifteenth century.