107-438 Women in 16th & 17th Century Italian Art

Formerly available as 107-064. Students who have completed 107-064 are not eligible to enrol in this subject. A knowledge of Italian language and history would be helpful.

Admission to the postgraduate diploma or fourth-year honours in art history.

This subject will introduce students to a pioneering area in Italian art history. Four major subjects will be considered: treatises on women and the women who commissioned them; women who were artists; women in the subject matter of Italian Renaissance art, such as the biblical heroine Judith; and finally, but most significantly, female patronage; an area where women are much more than a marginal phenomenon. In this last area well- known patrons such as the 'superwomen' Isabella d'Este and the abbess Gioanna of Piacenza, will be studied in relation to works of art that they commissioned, such as Correggio's frescoes in San Paolo, Parma. The patronage of lesser known women, amounting to 10 per cent of Renaissance patrons, will also be explored.