Lavinia Fontana Zappi

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of I Heart Radio. Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy Vie Wilson. We recently, not too far back, ran our Georgiova Sarry podcast as a Saturday classic, and today's topic sort of tangentially touches him on the timeline, not entirely tangential. Prospero Fontana was a painter in Bologna, Italy in the sixteenth century, and he was relatively successful because he was skilled and he worked quickly. He stayed busy with commissions because he just had a track record for dependability, particularly in fresco work and portraiture, and he worked for Giorgiova Sarry on a number of projects. Prospero va Sary is Germane to today's topic because he was today's topics father. We were talking about another painter, Prospero's daughter, Lavinia Fontana, so let's get into it. Lavinia Fontana was born in Bologna, Italy in fifteen fifty two. We don't know the exact date she was born, As we just mentioned, her father was a painter. Her mother, Antonia Bartolomeo de Bonardes was from a family that made its fortune in publishing. The Fontana's were not nobles, but they did live comfortably, and Lavinia's baptismal sponsors were men from the Bolognese nobility. Lavinia was one of three children in the family. She had a sister and a brother named Amelia and Faminio. Both of them died, though not in their childhood, but when they were young adults. One had been a teenager and when I think within their early twenties. Lavinia studied under her father, who was a leading member of the painters guild in Bologna, and he worked in the Mannerist style, which is what he taught Lavinia. He had also taught his other children, Amelia and Meno, but Lavinia was the one that was just most naturally gifted at painting. She was educated beyond art. She was very well educated in mathematics, Latin and music, as well as her painting classes with her father. Mannerism, just as a quick refresher, was very popular in sixteenth century Italy. It originated in Florence, but it wasn't referred to as mannerism until much later in the eighteenth century. This period follows right on the heels of work that was done by da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael and it shows a move away from the Classicism and naturalistic beauty that those artists sought to create in their work. Mannerism is slightly more stylized. Sometimes it can even be bizarre. It slightly exaggerates otherwise realistic compositions, so that say, Assiter's limbs might be a little too long or their head a little too small. Incredible detail in the four ground is often combined with a really sparse or unrealistically simple background. As she reached her twenties, Lavinia transitioned into a painting career, which was an unusual step for a woman in Bologna in the fifteen seventies. She is often referred to as the first woman painter in Western Europe to have a successful career. It's a little more nuanced than that. There were other women in Italy making a living in the arts, most famously sofonisba Ala, who was about twenty years older than Lavinia. These two women are often discussed in tandem when considering art of the period, and they were also compared to one another at the time by their contemporaries. So Fanisba, who could and probably will be her own episode at some point, was born into the nobility, although at a low level that did not come with wealth, and she became a court painter other women artists who managed to make a living at it before Fontana worked exclusively at convents creating devotional art. So what sins Lavinia apart is that she was not noble by birth, and as she advanced her art career, she made her living through commissions from a variety of clients. Like her father had, the groundwork for this career had been laid very carefully by Prospero. He encouraged clients to commission Lavinia's first professional works. He had also given away small pieces she painted to help establish her reputation. So while she was unique as a professional, she benefited from her father serving as her supporter, both technically as a painter and as sort of an early public relations manager. Yeah, he made some other very significant moves in her life. We'll talk about um. The first signed work that we know of by Lavinia is a portrait of a boy from fifty There isn't a record of who this child was. He is dressed in rather fancy clothes, so he was likely the son of a wealthy family. Although it is a very early work, many of the hallmarks of Lavinia's painting style are already present. For example, the fabrics of the boy's clothing are rendered in just incredible detail. The pose is quite formal, the boy does not look relaxed in his body posture, and he makes direct eye contact with the viewer. In a painting estimated to have been created in fifteen seventy five titled Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine. St. Catherine of Alexandria is shown having a vision of Christ. There are numerous works by many artists that have this title or a similar one that depicts the same basic idea, although sometimes that St. Catherine of Alexandria and others St. Catherine of Sienna both show the moment when one or in some cases rarely both of these women pledged their lives to Christ, using the framework of marriage that is frequently invoked as part of describing a woman becoming a nun. In Fontana's version of this moment, Catherine is shown in a soft golden yellow gown with a red cape that straped around her shoulders. She is kneeling with her hands posed as in prayer before the infant Jesus, who is being held by his mother Mary and appears to be blessing her. Above the main scene is an entire secondary group of angels in the clouds. They are all rendered in very dreamy pastel's. In February seventies seven, when she was twenty five, Lavinia married a man named Giovanni Paolo Zappi, often also named as Jean Paulo. He had been a student under her father. This marriage was unusual and that although Zappy was a painter, his work didn't become the priority. It was quite the opposite. Jean Paulo supported Lavinia's career and even became her agent. That arrangement is often pointed at for its progressive and unusual nature, and it was that, but it was also arranged to be that way by Lavinia's father, Prospero. Giovanni was the son of a noble. He was not first in line to inherit, but his status was going to elevate Lavinia's social rank, so you might think that the marriage agreement would favor him considerably, But in fact it laid out some pretty unusual terms. First, there would be no dowry that was in light of Lavinia's earnings potential. That was a condition that may have been stipulated by Prospero because he would have had difficulty coming up with a sum that would set this new couple up in a household of their own. He was in many ways successful, but he still struggled when it came to managing his money. Second, the couple had to live with Prospero, who would support them in exchange for Lavinia continuing to work with him. Basically, Prospero, who saw his daughter's earning potential, promised the Zoppie family that she could be the breadwinner. There was also language in the contract that gian Paolo would also paint, and money that he brought in would be kind of part of this family collective. But it appears he was just not really at the same level of Lavinia, and he stopped trying to have an art career pretty early on. While this arrangement undoubtedly benefited Prospero Fontana by keeping his daughter as his assistant in the long term, it also meant that she was supported in her artistic career by her spouse Giovanni handled all our business deals, something that would have been difficult or impossible for her to do herself as a woman. He was also a stay at home father to their children, and they had a lot over the course of their marriage. They had eleven kids, although sadly only three of them survived past childhood. We're going to talk more about Lavinia's painting after we take a quick break to hear from the sponsors to keep stuff you missed in history class going. Even before her marriage, Lavinia's skills as a portraitist were why recognized her father in law, Severozapi noted her work in a letter that he wrote her before she and Giovanni were married. Lavinia had sent him to portraits and he was quite pleased with them. And in addition to portraits of other people, Lavinia painted self portraits, so not very many, and those self portraits offer an interesting window into how she saw herself and how she presented herself to the world. And as noted in a piece of writing by Catherine A. Mcgiver, Professor Emerita of Art History at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, what's really really interesting is that Lavinia did not paint herself as an artist in her fifteen seventies seven painting self portrait at the Virginal, which was one of the portraits she sent to her future father in law. She seated at a small harpsichord. An attendant is standing behind her holding a music book. Her painting easel is in the image, but it's sitting empty in the background, and she's dressed in layered jeweled clothes that would have been popular with the nobility of the day and Latin. At the top left of the image is the note Lavinia, the unmarried daughter of Prospero Fontana, took this her image from the mirror seventy seven. Art historians have interpreted this painting as being Lavinia's assurance to her future relatives that she's a lady of refinement with a career that can support her family. As an aside, this was a time when Bologna was kind of ahead of a lot of other places in terms of women's education. Women were allowed to enroll with the university, although they couldn't study all of the same subjects as men. Law, medicine, and theology courses were only permitted for male students. But in showing herself In this portrait with the harpsichord as musically accomplished and including a Latin inscription, Lavinia was very carefully and clearly showing her own level of intellect and knowledge, in line with the culturally held values of education at the time. In fifteen seventy nine, she painted the Tiny Self Portrait in the Studiolo, which is a circular portrait six inches in diameter, showing her in her study. This is a commissioned piece. Collector Alfonso Calcionio already had a self portrait of sophonisba Angui Sola, and he wanted one of Lavinia to go with it. In the portrait, she's wearing fine court dress with a stiff ruffled collar, and she's seated at a desk with books and sculptures, holding a pen. She also wears a large gold cross, and her gaze is fixed on the viewer, although her head is in a quarter profile so that she's not actually facing the viewer directly. In the fifteen eighties, Lavinia became very popular with women clients in particular. Carlos ces Armaza was a historian in the seventeenth century who wrote a book on Bologna's famous artists, and this is often referenced as an import source when it comes to studying Fontana, although he wrote it in six seventy eight, which was more than sixty five years after Lavinia's death, so keep in mind he does not always have firsthand accounts in it. He writes, quote, for some time, all the ladies of the city would compete in wishing to have her close to them, treating her and embracing her with extraordinary demonstrations of love and respect. Considering themselves fortunate to have seen her on the street, or to have meetings in the company of the curious young woman. The greatest thing they desired would be to have her paint their portraits, prizing them in such a way that, in our day no greater prices could be charged by a van Dyke or justice Susterman's his point was that this popularity among the ladies of Bologna's upper class had actually pretty steeply driven up the prices of Fontana's work. There have been scholars over the years who have made the case that the fact that Lavinia was a woman was part of her success with Bologna's women, because they felt more comfortable sitting for a woman artist, she clearly became friends with some of them. Several became godmothers to her children. Before the fifteen eighties, Fontana also had a lot of clients who were members of the intelligentsia. Academics of the day often turned to her to capture their likenesses. But as this increase in demand for fashion portraits from the society ladies increase, the prices rose too high for scholars, she painted fewer and fewer portraits of Italy's great thinkers. There's one woman in particular who's often seen as the true turning point in Fontana's career, and that is Laudomia Gozzadina. In four Laudomia commissioned Fontana to paint her family, and after that the artist popularity rose very rapidly. That portrait, which is simply called Portrait of the Gotzdini Family, features Laudomia and her sister Geneva, as well as their spins. The women are in their wedding gowns. In the center of the portrait is the sister's father, Senator Ulisa Gottadina, who died twenty three years before this painting was created. Laudomia's sister Geneva was also dead when the painting was commissioned, although she had passed just a few years before in as Ulsa. Gotzadini had arranged both of the marriages pictured in the portrait when the girls were still small children. This sort of appears to be a representation of the family that he created through those marriage arrangements. There are additional interpretations of this painting, some of which are kind of fun that we can talk about on Friday. This painting is really interesting, both in composition and in the ways people have interpreted it over the centuries. There are some obvious elements and tended to convey meaning each person and it is reaching out to touch one of the others. Listen. The patriarch has a hand wrapped around the forearm of the deceased daughter Generva, indicating their shared status. Additionally, both of the dead members of the family and the image face to the viewers right, those who were alive when it was painted face to the viewers left. The Doomia is stroking a tiny dog which sits on the table at the center of the image, and that served as a symbol of devotion. Such dogs were also very popular among the wealthy of the time, and Laudomia Gozzadini was one of the women who became a godmother to one of Lavinia's children. That was a son named Several. Lavinia's next daughter that was born after Several, was named Laudomia, presumably after this friend. The Gozzini family also became very closely intertwined with the finances of Lavinia and her husband Jampaolo. It appears that they made a lot more commissions for portraits, as records indicate multiple sums of money transferring from the Gotzdini family to Lavinia's. There were many other women with which Lavinia had clothed and ongoing relationships, both as patrons and as friends, but in the case of Vadomio Gozzadini we have a lot more detailed records and most of the others. There are many portraits painted by Fontana in which the sitter remains unidentified, but in the case of Gotzedini, there are notations on the back, particularly of that famous family portrait, as to each person in the painting, as well as those records of the financial ties that the two families had. In addition to the portraits, Fontana was commissioned by many households to paint religious subjects. She had started doing this early in her career. There are instances where she signed some of them with her maiden name, so they we know that they predate her marriage. One thing of note in the progression of both subject and tone of her religious paintings that's been noted by historians is that as Lavinia matured into life as a mother, her paintings of Mary and the infant Jesus reflect a sweetness that was unique among depictions by other artists. In the fifteen eighties, Lavinia achieved another milestone for women artists. She was the first woman commissioned to create an altarpiece. She did several of these, and one such commission came from the Commune of Imola, which is where her husband was from. The resulting work, which is titled Assumption of the Virgin, features Sat. Cassian and St. Peter chrystals. Those are both patron saints of Imola. The significance of being commissioned for alterpieces is really clear when you consider time and place. While Bologna wasn't an epicenter of art patronage in the early part of the sixteenth century, it was heavily invested in devotional art. One of Bologna's points of pride was another altarpiece in the city that had been painted by Raphael in the early fifteen hundreds, so for Fontana to be commissioned to make one was a really big deal. We should also note that there are some altarpieces that remain a little bit unclear that she has in her her body of work, that are unclear in terms of their attribution. Because that was an area where her father, Prospero Fontana, had specialized and one in which Lavinia often assisted. There have been a number of questions over the years about how much either of them worked on each other's commissions and who should get primary credit, and Prospero was part of the reason that Lavinia became favored by figures in the church and ended up with public commissions. Prospero had painted quite a few works for churches and had long term friendships and patronages with some of them. In turn, those relationships helped build similar opportunities for Lavinia. The Archbishop of Bologna, Cardinal Gabrielle Pelotti, had known Lavinia as she was her father's assistant, and it was through him that she received some of her commissions for public devotional paintings. And though she was born and raised in Bologna and was very successful there, Lavinia also came celebrated in Rome, and we will talk about her first visit to that city. After a sponsor break, Lavinia visited Rome for the first time in six While she was there, she expanded her client base to include Cardinal Francisco Patchaco of Spain, which garnered her a commission for King Philip the Second of Spain, so very high profile. A subsequent visit to Rome in six led to a similarly momentous commission when Lavinia was asked to paint a chapel altarpiece in the city around though that date is uncertain, Lavinia painted the first of only a few paintings we know of covering mythological figures. This painting is Mars and Venus, and it was groundbreaking. First, this may have been the first time a woman painter, and certainly one of high stature, took on this genre. Uh, mythological paintings had always been the domain of men, and a lot of men have painted Mars and Venus. Second, the figure of Mars is covered only by a cloth which wraps around his body at the groin level, and Venus is totally naked. For a woman, even a woman painter at the time, it would have been completely scandalous to paint from referencing a live nude model. We don't actually know if Livinia ever had nude models, or if she was painting nudes by referencing the work of male artists. Yeah, there's also been uh some indication that she said it was from painting the women she had known in her life, uh, to to avoid any of that. But it doesn't explain why she does a nude man quite so perfectly. Uh. It's um, I love that painting desperately, and I'll talk a little bit about why and are behind the scenes. On Friday in she painted the Visit of the Queen of Sheba to Solomon. If you take a quick look at this work when you're considering that title, one thing is blazingly obvious. These are all very white Europeans in Renaissance dress. Though there is still hardy debate today about whether the biblical land of Sheba would be in present day Africa, specifically Ethiopia, or in the Arabian Peninsula. Specifically Yemen. Many depictions of the Queen of Sheba created by European artists do definitely whitewash her. There is a little bit of additional nuance to consider. In the case of Fontana's painting. It is widely accepted that she created this work as a sort of portrait allegory, she was casting too contemporary Italian nobles in the roles of Solomon and the visiting Queen. There is additional debate about exactly who those Italian nobles are. The most popular theory for a long time was that it is Vincenzo the first of Gonzaga and Eleonora de Medici, who were then Duchess of Mantua in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. That aligns with when the painting was created. However, recent developments have introduced an alternate theory. We're going to talk about that later in the episode. Part of the trouble in identifying the models for this piece is that it doesn't appear in any records until the seventeen hundreds, when it was noted as being in Bologna's Palazzo Zambacari. The work was presumably commissioned but there's no clear evidence as to who may have contracted Leviny It's to paint it. After that, it traveled to Paris in eighteen fifty nine and was purchased by Napoleon the third cousin. Then it was one of only a few paintings saved when the Palais Royal burned during the uprising of the Paris Commune, which means this crosses paths ever so briefly with that recent podcast on Gustave Courbet. At that point the painting moved to London before we being purchased by the National Gallery of Ireland. Because she had made connections to so many religious figures in Rome. After her father Prospero died in sixteen oh three, Lavinia was invited to move to Rome permanently by Pope Clement the eighth. She had enjoyed the favor of Pope before him, Pope Gregory the thirteenth, who had been pope from fifteen seventy two until his death in fifty five, had been a patron, and when Pope Paul the fifth became the two d thirty third Pope in May of sixteen o five, after the very brief papacy of Leo the eleventh. He not only was her patron, but he also gave her the very prestigious position of portraitist in ordinary i e. The primary portraitist at the Vatican. Lavinia's largest work was complete while she lived in Rome. That was the Martyrdom of St. Stephen or the Stoning of St. Stephen, which she completed in sixteen o four for the Basilica of sam Paolo foury le Mura in Rome. Fortunately we don't have images of this because the work was lost in a fire in eighteen twenty three, which destroyed the whole basilica. That means, the painting The Visit of the Queen of Sheba to Salomon is Fontana's largest surviving work. It's two hundred fifty six by five centimeters or eight point four by ten point seven feet. Fantana was elected to the Roman Academy of Painters Academia disson Luca. This was rare, not just for a woman, but it was an honor that wasn't given to many male artists either, and this falls in line, though with her status as the Pope's primary portraitist, as the papacy was very influential on the Academy's leadership. During Lavinia's time in Rome, she achieved just an incredible level of success that any painter, man or woman would have envied. She was so well regarded that in sixteen eleven, flee ch Antonio Cassoni, who was a well known sculptor at the time, honored Fontana with a bronze medal featuring her m On one side of the metal is a bust likeness of the artist in profile wearing a veil. The opposite side of the metal shows her in a very different way. She sets at her easel, depicted in full figure. Her hair is loose and wild, and she's painting, and paint brushes and a palette litter the area around her feet. An inscription on this side of the metal translates to through you joyous state I am maintained. In sixteen thirteen, Fontana completed another nude. This one is titled Minerva Dressing, and it features the Roman goddess of Wisdom preparing to pull on a very very expensive looking garment. She's in three quarter profile with her head turned to look at the viewer, and her armor is scattered on the floor St. Peter's Basilica is visible in the background. Like Mars and Venus, this one continues to raise the question of whether Fontana flouted social moraise to work with a nude model. If she did, or even if people thought she did, it didn't really seem to have much of an impact on her work or her social standing. Lavinia died at the age of sixty two in Rome on August eleven, six fourteen. Her three sons, Flaminio, Arazzio and Prospero, which were her only surviving children, had it noted on her memorial stone that she had become famous beyond the womanly sphere. So we have talked about a wide range of painting categories that Fontana worked in at a time when portraiture was really considered the appropriate painting style for women. In the book Women Artists, Their Patrons and their Publics in Early Modern Bologna, which came out in one author Bubbett Bone breaks down the number of surviving Fontana works into a small table by type, based on that fortent were portraits, were private devotionals, eighteen percent were public devotionals. Mythological and genre slash landscape painting, each makeup fo and ancient history makes up just one percent. If you do the mad there it adds up two one, but that's because all of the percentages were rounded up, which is notated on the table. This really speaks to Lavinia's breadth of work, although portraits were obviously her bread and butter. In eighteen the National Gallery of Ireland received a grant for a conservation and research project from the Bank of America Global Art Conservation Project Fund. That grant was given to help the museum conserve Fontana's painting the Visit of the Queen of Sheba to King Solomon, and to conduct deeper research into Lavinia's life and works. The gallery has had the painting for a long time. It was acquired in eighteen seventy two, just eight years after the National Gallery of Ireland opened. This project did not mark the first conservation efforts, not biologue shot. Now, this painting has had a lot of touching years. We mentioned the series of events that we know transpire to eventually land the painting in Ireland. When it was rescued from that fire in Paris, it had been cut from its frame because it is obviously too large to have been moved quickly otherwise, so it was reframed at some point in the late eighteen hundreds. That frame has also been recently conserved. It has received reinforcement to the frame to support the way to the painting. That frame was also carefully cleaned to reveal the really beautiful gold leaf that was original to the framing. As varnish was removed from the painting under the supervision of conservators Maria Canavan and Latitzia Marcatelli. It revealed the color and detail of the painting and new and then offered an opportunity to compare the faces long believed to be the Duke and Duchess of Mantua. To compare those with other paintings of the couple, it became apparent that the likenesses were not as close as had been thought. The conservators and researchers believe these images are a closer match to a different couple, Alfonso the second death Day and Marguerite to Gonzaga, who were the Duke and Duchess of Ferrara. In addition to the likeness. To support this theory, the Duke would have died around the same time the painting was being completed, and that may account for why it doesn't appear on any documentation, it never would have been delivered to the original commissioner. There's no way to be sure, but it does make sense this explanation. It also explains why there are some gaps in the information about its origination. The conservation work on this piece is really really fascinating, and it included several stages, each of which of course had to be completed with incredible care. First, the painting had to be stabilized, meaning that paint that was pulling away from the surface had to be adhered back to it, and the canvas had to be inspected and repaired in any areas that showed evidence of degradation. Then came that varnish removal we mentioned just a moment ago. There had also been some conservation retouching performed in the mid twentieth century that had discover and over time that had to be removed as well. The next steps really interesting. It was a layer of varnish that means that any retouching that's part of this conservation effort can be removed at a later date. This will serve as a barrier between the old and the new pigment to avoid any confusion in the future. This and all other applications to the painting are intended to be reversible. The retouching technique used to fill in areas of the painting where color has flaked away is also intended to complete the painting without creating any question of what was original versus what was new. So this retouched painting is done using tiny dots and lines. If you're standing back from the painting, it looks complete, but if you get up really close you can see that these sections aren't part of the original painting. This was all part of the research the gallery conducted through the Lavinia Fontana Conservation and Research Project, and that conservation has been completed. The painting is back on you now, which makes me want to go to Ireland soon. Lavinia Fontana's high profile as one of the first women in Europe to make a living as an artist has continued to be important to the discussion of representation equity in the art world. In February of the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia acquired one of Lavinia's paintings as part of an ongoing effort on the part of the museum to address quote historical gender imbalance. The painting added to the m GVS collection is Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine. So many paintings. Um I am. I am very very into her work. Like I said, we're going to talk about Mars and Venus behind the scenes, okay uh. In the meantime, I have a listener mail about Evangelista Toricelli, just from our listener Alyssa, right, Till and Tracy. I've been meaning to write this email for quite a while now, but hearing Evangelista Toricelli's name pop up on your episode on hypertension gave me the push I needed to finally do it. I'm a PhD candidate in chemistry, which also means I occasionally teach general chemistry courses. In a very impressive coincidence, I happened to listen to your episode about Evangelista Toricelli on the way to campus the day my students were covering the ideal gas Law. I entered the room to find a very frustrated group of students. They had read the next section of the textbook the night before, and they didn't know why pressure could have such weird units in the equations, such as millimeters of mercury or a unit called tour. I knew the reason for the millimeters of mercury, but I had completely forgotten about Toricelli being the reason why we also call a millimeter of mercury a tour. They're exactly the same unit. Telling them the history behind the naming seemed to really get them interested in the material, but just more than I can often say about general chemistry classes. Thanks for helping me be the cool ta for the day A. My now husband introduced me to the podcast at the start of the pandemic, and it has become one of my go to listening pleasures for my one point five hour commute to work. That has given me plenty of time to listen to your current episodes while also working backward to catch what I've missed over the years. It's been a blast. Thank you for making my commute much easier. I have attached photos of my pair of kiddies for your enjoyment as a good and proper chemist. Their names are Xenon and Copper year old Torby girl and Copper is my four year old black Tabby boy. I love them dearly and hope their antics give you a smile. These cats are so stink and cute. There's one where they're grooming each other in front of a window, and it's a gorgeous little picture, and I may soon want to hug and kiss their faces. Thank you, my love a little uh cats grooming each other, It's one of my favorite things. Thank you, thank you, thank you. A lista. I'm glad we could help UH make a little more sense for the day. I wish I had had fun things like that happened in my chemistry classes when I was younger. I probably would have chemistry a lot more. I would like to write to us. You can do so at History podcast at iHeart radio dot com. You can also find us on social media as Missed in History, and you can subscribe to the podcast on the I heart Radio app or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Stuff you Missed in History Class is a production of I heart Radio. 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