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MITTEILUNGEN
DES KUNSTHISTORISCHEN
INSTITUTES
IN FLORENZ
LX. BAND 2018
HEFT 3
MITTEILUNGEN
DES KUNSTHISTORISCHEN
INSTITUTES
IN FLORENZ
_ Aufstze _ Saggi
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Amor Bild und Poesie in Italien um 1300
_ 381 _ Mary Vaccaro
Correggio, Francesco Maria Rondani, and the Nave Frieze
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_ 405 _ Sheila Barker
The First Biography of Artemisia Gentileschi: Self-Fashioning and Proto-
Feminist Art History in Cristofano Bronzinis Notes on Women Artists
_ 437 _ Avinoam Shalem
Objects in Captivity: Preliminary Remarks on the Exhibiting and Making
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_ Miszellen _ Appunti
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Inhalt | Contenuto
____
1 Simon Vouet, Portrait of Artemisia Gentileschi,
about 1625. Private collection
| 405
Haveva Orazio una figlia chiamata Artemisia, che nella
pittura si rese gloriosa, e sarebbe stata degna dogni sti-
ma se fusse stata di qualit pi onesta e onorata.1
(Giovanni Battista Passeri, Vite de pittori, scultori ed architetti
che hanno lavorato in Roma, e che son morti dal 1641 al 1673)
Born in Ancona around 1580, Cristofano di Otta-
viano Bronzini (Fig.2) moved to Rome sometime before
1591 in order to pursue his career at the papal court.2
While in Rome, Bronzini composed sonnets for Duch-
ess Flavia Peretti Orsini and researched women worthies
in the library of Angelo Rocca and the Vatican. In 1615,
he assumed the position of train-bearer to Cardinal Car-
lo de Medici and followed his patron to Florence, where
he died in 1633.3 Bronzinis most noteworthy literary
accomplishment is his dialogue Della dignit et della nobilt
delle donne, a thirty-two-tome manuscript at the Bibliote-
ca Nazionale di Firenze that he composed in Florence
largely between 1615 and 1622 and to which he added
corrections and marginal notations in subsequent years.4
Portions of this mammoth tribute to female vir-
tue were published during his lifetime in the form of
1 Die Knstlerbiographien von Giovanni Battista Passeri, ed. by Jacob Hess,
Leipzig/Vienna 1934 (Rome 11772), p.122.
2 On Bronzinis career, see Martino Capucci, s.v. Bronzini, Cristoforo,
in: Dizionario biografico degli italiani, XIV, Rome 1972, pp.463f.; Xenia von
Tippelskirch, Die Indexkongregation und die Wrde der Frauen: Cristo-
fano Bronzini, Della dignit e nobilt delle donne , in: Frauen in der Frhen
Neuzeit: Lebensentwrfe in Kunst und Literatur, ed. by Anne-Marie Bonnet/Bar-
bara Schellewald, Cologne/Weimar/Vienna 2004, pp.235262: 239f.;
eadem, Letture e conversazioni a corte durante la reggenza di Maria Mad-
dalena dAustria e di Cristina di Lorena, in: Le donne Medici nel sistema europeo
delle corti, XVIXVIII secolo, ed. by Giulia Calvi/Riccardo Spinelli, Florence
2008, I, pp.131143: 140; Suzanne G. Cusick, Francesca Caccini at the Medici
Court: Music and the Circulation of Power, Chicago/London 2009, pp.xx and
340, note10; Xenia von Tippelskirch, Sotto controllo: letture femminili in Italia
nella prima et moderna, Rome 2011, pp.139f. and notes.
3 Bronzinis unpublished death date of 13 December 1633 is docu-
mented in a register of Florentine burials; see ASF, Ufficiali poi Magistra-
to della Grascia, 195 (16261669), fol.90r.
4 Cristofano Bronzini, Della dignit et della nobilt delle donne, BNCF, mss.
Magl. Cl. VIII, 15131538 (comprising twenty-two volumes bound in
THE FIRST BIOGRAPHY
OF ARTEMISIA GENTILESCHI
SELF-FASHIONING AND
PROTO-FEMINIST ART HISTORY
IN CRISTOFANO BRONZINIS
NOTES ON WOMEN ARTISTS
Sheila Barker
406 | SHEILA BARKER |
four books dedicated to the most powerful women of
the Medici grand ducal court. The first book, pub-
lished in 1622 (but reissued in an expurgated edition
in 1624), as well as the second one, published in 1625
(Fig. 3), were both dedicated to Archduchess Maria
Magdalena of Austria (15891631), the widow of
Grand Duke Cosimo II de Medici and the mother of
Ferdinando II de Medici, the heir to the grand ducal
throne for whom she served as co-regent between 1621
and 1628.5 The third book, published in 1628, was
dedicated to the archduchess along with her daugh-
ter Margherita de Medici, who was wedded that same
year to Odoardo Farnese, duke of Parma.6 The fourth
and final book, published in 1632, was dedicated to
Christine of Lorraine, dowager grand duchess of Tus-
cany and former co-regent for her grandson Ferdinan-
do II.7 Despite the authors dying wish for the rest of
his manuscript to go to press, the majority of his text
remains unpublished even today.8
Among the many unpublished reams of Bron-
zinis manuscript are some fifty pages that furnish
biographical profiles for dozens of female painters,
sculptors, and embroiderers. Most of the women
artists described here are Italian. The exceptions in-
clude three Spanish artists (Mara de Jess Torres,
Isabel Snchez Coello [15641612], and Francisca de
Jess),9 one French artist (described only as the wife
of monsieur Bonelli and so far untraceable), and col-
lectively the women artists of China. Since several of
thirty-two tomes and supplemented by four additional tomes of indices).
See Maura Scarlino Rolih, Code magliabechiane: un gruppo di manoscritti della
Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze fuori inventario, Scandicci 1985, p. 35.
It appears that Bronzini began the manuscript in Rome around 1614
and continued at least through 1625, returning at even later moments to
amend some of his earlier passages; for other attempts to date the manu-
script, see Tippelskirch 2011 (note2), p.142, and Capucci (note2).
5 Cristofano Bronzini, Della dignit, et nobilt delle donne: Dialogo [] diviso in
Quattro Settimane; E ciascheduna di esse in Sei Giornate []. Settimana Prima, e Gior-
nata Prima, Florence 1622; idem, Della dignit, et nobilt delle donne: Dialogo[].
Settimana Prima, e Giornata Prima. Di nuovo Ristampata, e corretta dallAutore, Flo-
rence 1624; and idem, Della dignit, et nobilt delle donne: Dialogo []. Settimana
Prima, e Giornata Quarta, Florence 1625.
6 Idem, Della dignit, e nobilt delle donne: Dialogo []. Settimana Seconda, e Gior-
nata Ottava. Alle SS. spose novelle, Florence 1628 .
7 Idem, Della virt, e valore delle donne illustri. Dialogo []. Settimana Seconda,
Giornata Settima, Florence 1632.
8 According to Bronzinis will, Baccio Bandolini was entrusted with
the posthumous publication of the remainder of the manuscript, but this
never occurred; see ASF, Notarile moderno, Protocolli, 14115 (notary
Virgilio Boncristiani), fols. 63v64r.
9 On Spanish women painters in the Renaissance, see Mindy Nancar-
row, The Artistic Activity of Spanish Nuns During the Golden Age,
in: Essays on Women Artists: The Most Excellent, ed. by Liana De Girolami
Cheney, Lewiston 2003, pp.4151. On Mara de Jess and Isabel Snchez
(also known as Isabel Collo), see Julia K. Dabbs, Life Stories of Women
____
2 Anonymous, Portrait of Cristofano Bronzini,
in: Cristofano Bronzini, Della dignit et nobilt
delle donne: Dialogo []. Settimana Prima,
e Giornata Quarta, Florence 1625,
frontispiece. Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale
Centrale, Magl. 3.2.288
| THE FIRST BIOGRAPHY OF ARTEMISIA GENTILESCHI | 407
Giornata Quarta, pp. 82, 89, 94, 112, Giornata Sesta, pp. 4f.; idem
(note6), Giornata Ottava, p.196. Bronzini corresponded with Marinella
in the 1620s and strongly promoted her writings at the Medici court; see
Tippelskirch 2008 (note2), pp.140f.; Sarah Gwyneth Ross, The Birth of
Feminism: Woman as Intellect in Renaissance Italy and England, Cambridge/Lon-
don 2009, pp.292294; Christina Strunck, Christiane von Lothringen am Hof
der Medici: Geschlechterdiskurs und Kulturtransfer zwischen Florenz, Frankreich und Lo-
thringen (15891636), Petersberg 2017, pp.118123.
14 Bronzini named over fifty male authors who defended women in their
writings, including Cardinal Pompeo Colonna (whose apology was then
kept in the Vatican Librarys armaro segreto 3370) and Cardinal Giro-
lamo della Rovere (whose treatise was kept in armaro segreto 1586); see
Bronzini (note4), 1520, II, fols. 48r49r. On proto-feminist writings in
Artists, 15501800, Farnham 2009, pp.460, 464, as well as her source:
Damia de Froes Perym, Theatro heroino, abcedario historico, e catalogo das mulheres
illustres em armas, letras, acoens heroicas, e artes liberaes, Lisbon 17361740, I,
pp.549f., II, pp.269f.
10 Bronzini (note 4), 1520, II, fol. 49r. According to Bronzini, pro-
woman writings were also carried out by women from the following Flo-
rentine families: the Soderini, Malespini, Acciaioli, Strozzi, Cavalcanti,
Martelli, Bandini, Zanchini, Capponi, Minerbetti, Niccolini, Compagni,
Adimari, and the Selvaggi Ridolfi; see ibidem.
11 Idem 1624 (note5), Giornata Prima, p.30, Giornata Seconda, p.37;
and idem 1625 (note5), Giornata Quarta, p.115.
12 Ibidem, p.119.
13 Bronzini 1624 (note5), Giornata Prima, p.30; idem 1625 (note5),
these notices on early modern women artists deserve
scholarly attention due to their historiographic signif-
icance, all of them are published here in the Appendix.
This article, however, will focus on just one of these:
Bronzinis fascinating yet problematic profile of Arte-
misia Gentileschi (Rome 1593Naples 1654?), which
should now be regarded as her earliest biography.
Bronzinis Treatise: Background
As a whole, the treatise Della dignit et della nobilt
delle donne is firmly inscribed within the genre known
as the querelle des femmes. Bronzini evinced his profound
knowledge of this literary tradition with the histo-
riographic overview that he inserted into the tenth
giornata, or division, of his treatise. Here he identified
Christine de Pizan (13641430) as the forerunner of
the women writers of his own age who had come to
the defense of their gender.10 Several of the latter fig-
ure prominently in Bronzinis text: Moderata Fonte
(the penname of Modesta da Pozzo, 15551592),11
Maddalena Salvetti Acciaioli (a Florentine poet-
ess who enjoyed Christine of Lorraines patronage,
ca. 15531610),12 and Lucrezia Marinella (1571
1653), to whom Bronzini had lent his professional
support on several occasions.13
In the course of his historiographic overview,
Bronzini also unfurled a long list of the male writ-
ers who, throughout history, had taken up the cause
of women.14 Among the treatises that he cited most
____
3 Cristofano Bronzini, Della dignit
et nobilt delle donne: Dialogo [].
Settimana Prima, e Giornata Quarta,
Florence 1625, titlepage with hand-
colored engraving. Florence, Biblioteca
Nazionale Centrale, Magl. 3.2.288
408 | SHEILA BARKER |
frequently are Boccaccios De mulieribus claris (written in
13551359), Giuseppe Betussis translation of the for-
mer as Delle donne illustri (first published in 1545 with
further editions in 1547, 1558, and 1596), Lodovico
Dolces Dialogo della institution delle donne (also published in
1545, with further editions in 1547, 1553, 1559, and
1560), and Cornelio Lancis Esempi della virt delle donne
(published in Florence in 1590), mostly focused on
ancient women but also featuring modern ones such as
Maddalena Acciaioli and Isabella Andreini. Bronzini
also drew upon two writers with special connections
to the women of the House of Medici, namely Don
Silvano Razzi, who had dedicated the first volume of
his six-volume treatise Vite delle donne illustri per santit to
Virginia de Medici in 1595 and the second one to
Christine of Lorraine in 1597, and Fra Niccol Lori-
ni,O.P., Cosimo II de Medicis confessor and the au-
thor of Elogii delle pi principali sante donne del sagro calendario
e del martirologio romano, which was dedicated to Maria
Magdalena of Austria in 1617.
Bronzini designed his treatise to appeal above all
to Maria Magdalena of Austria and Christine of Lor-
raine, the two women who had reigned over Tusca-
ny first as consorts of Medici grand dukes and then
as co-regents.15 In addition to praising his powerful
female patrons throughout the text, Bronzini sought
to serve their interests by proclaiming that women
have a natural aptitude for rulership and that they are
morally superior to men. These controversial claims
provoked a backlash. Immediately after the first divi-
sion of the treatise was published in 1622, the Con-
gregation of the Index determined that several of the
arguments for the superiority of women had departed
from orthodox belief. Bronzini was thus compelled to
correct his text and, after approval by the Congrega-
tion, republish it in the revised edition of 1624.16
Women Artists in Della dignit et della nobilt
delle donne
Within the twenty-four giornate into which Bronzi-
nis Della dignit et della nobilt delle donne is divided, Arte-
misias biography is located in the fifteenth giornata, well
ensconced in the unpublished latter half of the manu-
script. In contrast to the published sections of Bronzi-
nis manuscript, the fifteenth giornata for the most part
takes the form of a minimally structured selva.17 The
collective aim of this medley of erudite quotations and
anecdotes is to lionize both ancient and modern wom-
en who had demonstrated exceptional bravery, musical
talent, or artistic skills. The pages brim with the names
Italy, see Giovanni Battista Marchesi, Le polemiche sul sesso femminile ne
secoli XVI e XVII, in: Giornale Storico della Letteratura Italiana, XXV (1895),
pp.362369; Beatrice Collina, Lesemplarit delle donne illustri fra Uma-
nesimo e Controriforma, in: Donna, disciplina, creanza cristiana dal XV al XVII
secolo: studi e testi a stampa, ed. by Gabriella Zarri, Rome 1996, pp.103119;
Paola Malpezzi Price/Christine Ristaino, Lucrezia Marinella and the Querelle des
Femmes in Seventeenth-Century Italy, Madison 2008; Androniki Dialeti, De-
fending Women, Negotiating Masculinity in Early Modern Italy, in: The
Historical Journal, LIV (2011), 1, pp.123; Christina Strunck, Die femme fa-
tale im Kirchenstaat: Positionen der Querelle des Femmes in Rom (16221678),
in: Frauen und Ppste: Zur Konstruktion von Weiblichkeit in Kunst und Urbanistik des
rmischen Seicento, ed. by Eckhard Leuschner/Iris Wenderholm, Berlin 2016,
pp.320: 58; eadem (note13), pp.6066. For a broader examination of the
theme, see Julie D. Campbell, The Querelle des femmes, in: The Ashgate Research
Companion to Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe, ed. by Allyson M. Poska/
Jane Couchman/Katherine A. McIver, Abingdon 2013, pp.361379.
15 See Kelley Harness, La Flora and the End of Female Rule in Tusca-
ny, in: Journal of the American Musicological Society, V (1998), pp.437476:
449f.; Cusick (note2), pp.105, 194f.; Strunck (note13), pp.118123.
On Maria Magdalenas pro-woman visual propaganda, see Kelley Har-
ness, Echoes of Womens Voices: Music, Art, and Female Patronage in Early Modern
Florence, Chicago 2006, pp.4255, 125f., 137140, and Riccardo Spinel-
li, Simbologia dinastica e legittimazione del potere: Maria Maddalena
dAustria e gli affreschi del Poggio Imperiale, in: Le donne Medici (note2),
II, pp.645679. CosimoII was still alive when Bronzini was composing
his work, but his health was so delicate that the court was already plan-
ning for the future regency (Cusick [note2], pp.194f.).
16 Tippelskirch 2011 (note2), pp.145147, argues that the censure was
mainly due to Bronzinis interpretations of sacred scripture regarding the
superiority of women, which became highly seditious when directed to
women with power. See also eadem 2004 (note2), pp.235262, and Cu-
sick (note2), pp.194f.
17 This was the same genre employed by a detractor of womanhood,
Giuseppe Passi, for his I donneschi difetti of 1599, as noted by Suzanne
Magnanini/David Lamari, Giuseppe Passis Attacks on Women in The
Defects of Women, in: In Dialogue with the Other Voice in Sixteenth-Century Italy:
Literary and Social Contexts for Womens Writing, ed. by Julie D. Campbell/Ma-
ria Galli Stampino, Toronto 2011, pp.143194: 146.
| THE FIRST BIOGRAPHY OF ARTEMISIA GENTILESCHI | 409
18 See Cusick (note2), p.xix.
19 By comparison, in the 1568 Giunti edition of Vasaris Lives there are a
total of four women artists mentioned together in the life of Properzia de
Rossi. Passing references to additional women artists in Vasaris text are
scattered pell-mell throughout the work. The references to women artists
in the treatises of Lodovico Guicciardini, Raffaello Borghini, and Francis-
co de Holanda are few in number and brief. On Vasaris attitudes towards
womens practice of art, see e.g. Fredrika H. Jacobs, Defining the Renaissance
Virtuosa: Women Artists and the Language of Art History and Criticism, Cambridge
1997; and Katherine McIver, Vasaris Women, in: Reading Vasari, ed. by
Anne B. Barriault et al., London 2005, pp.179188. The present article
does not take into consideration Bronzinis profiles of ancient women art-
ists, since this material is entirely derivative from such sources as Antonio
Billi, Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo, and Lucio Faberio, not to mention Boc-
caccio, Pliny, and many others as well. For the Renaissance historiography
on ancient female artists, see Jacobs (note19), pp.24f.
20 See Tippelskirch 2004 (note2), p.238 and notes; and eadem 2008
(note2), p.139. For some of Bronzinis more prominent sources, see eadem
2004 (note2), pp.236238.
21 For these profiles, see Appendix, nos.1, 2, 11, and 12. Cf. Giorgio
Vasari, Le vite de pi eccellenti pittori, scultori e architettori nelle redazioni del 1550 e
1568, ed. by Rosanna Bettarini/Paola Barocchi, Florence 19661997, IV,
pp.399405, V, pp.427428, 588. With regard to Sofonisba, Bronzini
made some original observations in the section (found in the same tome)
of some sixty-four early modern female musicians.18
They also muster thirty-three names of early modern
female artists, qualifying Bronzinis manuscript as the
first work of European literature to have ever taken up
the topic of women artists in extenso.19
Bronzini stated openly that very little in his work
is original.20 Indeed, following a medieval composition
technique known as compilatio, it is the case that he made
liberal use of Vasaris 1568 edition of the Lives of the
Artists for his profiles of Properzia de Rossi, Plautilla
Nelli, Lucrezia Quistelli, and Sofonisba Anguissola,
copying large passages almost unaltered into his own
text.21 Bronzini also mined several additional sources
for this purpose. He reused verbatim the information
on Marietta Robusti, known as la Tintoretta, that
had been published in Raffaello Borghinis Il Riposo of
1584,22 the same book that provided Bronzini with the
epitaph composed by Vincenzo di Bonaccorso Pitti for
Properzia de Rossi; for the latter, Bronzini found an-
other epitaph in Giulio Cesare Croces La gloria delle donne
of 1590.23 For his account of Irene di Spilimbergos
early death, Bronzini indicated his source as the vol-
ume of eulogistic poetry edited by Dionisio Atanagi in
1561.24 Muzio Manfredis Madrigali [] sopra molti soggetti
stravaganti composti of 1606 was his source for the poems
about Fede Galizia and Barbara Longhi, whereas Paolo
Minis Discorso della nobilt di Firenze e de fiorentini of 1593
supplied information about Alessandra del Milanese.25
Bronzinis enterprising search for material even led him
to Italian translations of Juan Gonzlez de Mendozas
Historia de las cosas ms notables, ritos y costumbres del gran reyno
de la China from 1585, which furnished the basis for his
remarks on Chinese women artists:
[] we know that in China there are the women of great
genius and expertise in painting and sculpture, and they
demonstrate excellence in drawing as well as in painting;
in relief and in intaglio; and especially in making paint-
ings of plants, birds, and every sort of wilderness, as is
well demonstrated by the paintings that are sent from
there to our lands; one of these, reports Father Giovanni
Gonzalez di Mendozza in his Storia della China, book one,
that is dedicated to female musicians (see Appendix, no.12). On the use
of compilatio in writings about women, see Campbell (note14), p.362.
22 See Appendix, no.24; cf. Raffaello Borghini, Il Riposo, Florence 1584,
pp.558f.
23 See Appendix, no. 1 with notes 97 and 98. Croces book was also
Bronzinis source for a poem about Lavinia Fontana; see Appendix, no.22
and note102. On Borghinis description of Robusti see Catherine King,
Looking a Sight: Sixteenth-Century Portraits of Woman Artists, in:
Zeitschrift fr Kunstgeschichte, LVIII (1995), pp. 381406: 393. Notably,
Bronzini calls the sculptor by the name Properzia de Rossi Felicini;
I have not been able to determine his source for the surname Felicini, a
noble family of Bologna; see Pompeo Scipione Dolfi, Cronologia delle famiglie
nobili di Bologna, Bologna 1670.
24 See Appendix, no.20. Cf. Dionisio Atanagi, Rime di diversi nobilissimi
et eccellentissimi autori in morte della signora Irene delle signore di Spilimbergo, Ven-
ice 1561, on which see Anne Jacobson Schutte, Irene di Spilimbergo:
The Image of a Creative Woman in Late Renaissance Italy, in: Renaissance
Quarterly, XLIV (1991), pp.4261, and Julia K. Dabbs, Sex, Lies and
Anecdotes: Gender Relations in the Life Stories of Italian Women Artists,
15001800, in: Aurora, VI (2005), pp.1737: 2426.
25 See Appendix, nos.68 and notes 100, 101. For Manfredis poems
on Longhi and Galizia, see Jacobs (note19), pp.128132, 143f., 172
175. For another poem in honor of Fede Galizia by Cesare Rinaldi of
Bologna, published in 1609, see Paola Tinagli/Mary Rogers, Women and
410 | SHEILA BARKER |
27 On Ma Shouzhen, see Views from the Jade Terrace: Chinese Women Art-
ists, 13001912, exh. cat. Indianapolis et al. 1988/ 89, ed. by Marsh Smith
Weidner, Indianapolis 1988, pp. 7281, cat. nos. 49; Ellen Johnston
Laing, Wives, Daughters, and Lovers: Three Ming Dynasty Women
Painters, ibidem, pp.3139: 37; Monica Merlin, The Late Ming Courtesan Ma
Shouzhen (15481604): Visual Culture, Gender and Self-Fashioning in the Nanjing
Pleasure Quarter, Ph.D. Diss., The Queens College, The University of Ox-
ford 2013. On Xue Susu (Wu), see Views from the Jade Terrace, pp.8287, cat.
page 16, was seen by him, having been carried to Lisbon
in the year 1582 by Captain Ribera, [and it was] of such
excellence and beauty that not only did it astound all
those who saw it, but also what is very rare indeed, that
is, it was regarded as a wonderful work by His Majesty
the King [of Spain] himself, and even by the most famous
and excellent men in that profession [of painting].26
The description of the types of subject matter pre-
ferred by the women artists of China accords remark-
ably with the examples of art that have come down to
us, as in the case of works by Ma Shouzhen (1548
1604) (Fig.4) and Xue Susu (15641637) (Fig.5).27
Bronzinis text makes it clear that Chinese women art-
ists were known and appreciated at the court of Ma-
drid already in the sixteenth century and at the court
of Florence by the early seventeenth century. No doubt,
this knowledge much like the awareness that there
had been celebrated women artists in ancient Greece
and Rome led some of Bronzinis contemporaries to
see women artists less as anomalies and more as em-
blems of a civilization at the peak of its glory.
____
4 Ma Shouzhen (attributed),
Orchid and rock, 1572. New York,
Metropolitan Museum of Art,
inv. 1982.1.7
____
5 Xue Susu, Flowers,
detail, 1615. Asian Art
Museum of San Francisco,
inv. B66D22
the Visual Arts in Italy, c. 14001650: Luxury and Leisure, Duty and Devotion. A
Sourcebook, Manchester 2012, pp.283f., no.4.
26 Appendix, no.21. It is not clear which edition of the work Bronzini
would have consulted. In the first Italian edition of Gonzlez de Mendo-
zas book, Dellhistoria della China, Rome 1586, the passage referred to is on
p.22. In the two later Italian editions, published in Venice in 1588 and
1590, it is on pp.26f. Perhaps he looked at one of these later editions and
accidentally wrote 16 instead of 26.
| THE FIRST BIOGRAPHY OF ARTEMISIA GENTILESCHI | 411
29 See Appendix, no.22. By comparison, only five lines are dedicated to
Fontana in Borghini (note22), p.568.
30 See Appendix, no.14. Scultori made at least three engravings of an-
cient architectural decorations, which are now very rare. It is very likely
that Bronzini owned no.29 in Paolo Bellini, Lopera incisa di Adamo e Diana
Scultori, Vicenza 1991, p.214, dated 1576, since he repeats the references in
its inscription to numidici lapidis and Saint Peters Basilica. As for his
second engraving, he perhaps may have owned no.33, ibidem, p.219, which
is dated 1577 and bears the name of Battista di Pietrasanta. In his notes on
Scultori, Bronzini erroneously claimed that Battista di Pietrasanta was her
husband, but in fact Battista was a carpenter who frequently collaborated
with Scultoris first husband, Francesco da Volterra, an architect.
31 See Appendix, nos.2 and 26. For his knowledge of Nellis paintings
nos.1013, and Daria Berg, Cultural Discourse on Xue Susu, a Courte-
san in Late Ming China, in: International Journal of Asian Studies, VI (2009),
pp.171200.
28 For Varotari, see Appendix, no.17. Bronzinis is the earliest literary
record of Chiara Varotari, written two decades before Carlo Ridolfis Le
Maraviglie dellarte [], Venice 1648, II, p.83. On Ridolfis description of
Varotari, see Maria H. Loh, Titian Remade: Repetition and the Transformation of
Early Modern Italian Art, Los Angeles 2007, pp.166f. The only other blatant
errors that I have detected are Bronzinis passing mention of a female
artist named Antonia Grandina of Brescia (see the beginning of the life of
Lavinia Fontana, Appendix, no.22), apparently the result of his confusion
about the male artist Antonio Gandino (15651630), and his misidenti-
fication of Diana Scultoris husband, explained below in note30.
In his eagerness to include contemporary women
artists, Bronzini sometimes relied on hearsay, a prac-
tice that led to occasional errors such when he referred
to Chiara Varotari as Santa Varotari.28 By contrast,
whenever the manuscript furnishes descriptions of
the women artists that Bronzini knew personally or
the artworks that he had examined with his own eyes,
it is an invaluable historiographic resource. The most
striking instance of this regards Lavinia Fontana,
whom Bronzini knew in Rome and whose altarpiece
in Saint Pauls Outside the Walls he visited in compa-
ny of the painter. His admiration for Fontana is made
clear not only by his encomiastic excesses (directed as
much to her character as to her artistic talent) but also
by the sheer length of this profile: covering six pages,
it is the longest of all the artists biographies.29
The list of women whose artistic production Bron-
zini had some direct knowledge of is impressive. In his
profile of Diana Scultori (called Diana Mantovana),
Bronzini stated that he had purchased two engravings
she had made of a paleo-Christian-era capital, perhaps
identifiable with existing prints by the artist.30 In Flor-
ence, Bronzini spoke of having seen Plautilla Nellis
paintings on display in private Florentine homes, and
when the adolescent Giovanna Garzoni visited the
Medici court there, he took account of her musical
skills as well as the talent she displayed in both her
painted miniature for Maria Magdalena of Austria
and her calligraphy samples (Fig.6).31 Of particular
____
6 Giovanna Garzoni, Galleon at sail, about 16171621,
in: eadem, Libro de caratteri, Rome, Biblioteca
Accademica di San Luca, Ms. inv. 1117, fol. 42r
historiographic value is Bronzinis account of Arcange-
la Paladini. Not only is it the earliest biography of Pa-
ladini, but it also adds many important details to what
is currently known about this scantily documented
artist, such as the trills that marked her vocal perfor-
412 | SHEILA BARKER |
mances; her specialization in embroidering portraits,
flowers, foliage, birds, mammals, and fish; Maria Mag-
dalenas dispersal of Paladinis art throughout Europe;
and descriptions of Paladinis portraits of Cosimo II
that are confirmed by Medici inventories.32
One striking fact that emerges from Bronzinis
survey of the women artists in his midst is that the
majority of Florences active women artists were nuns.
Bearing witness to the artistic ferment in Florentine
convents are his accounts of individual nuns such as
Alessandra Martelli, Angela Cherubina Angelelli, and
Ortensia Fedeli,33 as well as his precious testimony
about the workshop at the Florentine monastery of
Santa Caterina da Siena, where he saw wonderful pic-
tures and [sculpted] figures of angels, virgin saints, and
martyr saints, some painted and others done in minia-
ture with such excellence and with such skill and sweet-
ness, that they truly seem to be heavenly creatures.34
Several of the artists Bronzini described as being cur-
rently active at Santa Caterina are not included in the
preceding account of that workshop, written in 1596
by Fra Serafino Razzi (15311613).35 One of the artists
that Bronzini was the first to have associated with this
workshop is Felice Lupicini (Fig.7), the niece of Cri-
stofano Allori. According to Bronzini, she was active in
her convent both as a painter and as an illuminator.36
Other female artists that Bronzini was the first to have
associated with this Dominican convent include Lucre-
zia Capponi, Lucrezia Torrigiani, Giovanna Monsalvi,
Maria Vincenza Brandolini, Suor Caterina Eletta Ros-
selli (baptized as Fiametta), and Reparata del Bono.
All of them received Bronzinis praises not only for
their skills as painters and sculptors but also for their
commanding knowledge of Biblical scripture.37
within the convent of Santa Caterina da Siena, Bronzini relied on the ac-
count given to him by the archbishop of Florence in addition to Vasaris
text. Nevertheless, Bronzini seems to have seen for himself the convents
workshop, as discussed below. For Bronzinis remarks on Garzoni, see Shei-
la Barker, Marvellously Gifted: Giovanna Garzonis First Visit to the
Medici Court, in: The Burlington Magazine, CLX (2018), pp.654659: 659.
32 See Appendix, no.18. The pen-and-ink and embroidered portraits
of CosimoII by Paladini that Bronzini describes have been located in the
Medici inventories; see Lisa Goldenberg Stoppato, Arcangela Paladini
and the Medici, in: Women Artists in Early Modern Italy: Careers, Fame, and
Collectors, ed. by Sheila Barker, Lon
