In 1488, Cereta assembled 82 of her letters into a volume. The volume was based on the Petrarchan model called “Epistolae Familiares” and written with a burlesque dialogue on the "death of an ass". She dedicated it to her patron, Cardinal Ascanio Sforza. Her works circulated widely in Italy during the early modern era. However, this volume remained unpublished until the seventeenth century. The manuscript circulated from 1488 to 1492 among humanists in Brescia, Verona, and Venice. It is suspected that she did this to seek legitimization as a writer. Six months after her letters were published, her father died. After his death, she no longer felt inspired to write.