Today I woke up not with a pep in my step but with the energetic restraint of Campi Flegrei, Italy’s supervolcano! Of course I did. I’m an artist in Firenze. An artist in Florence, Italy, headed to the Uffizi Gallery to look for my favorite woman Renaissance Artist, Artemisia Gentileschi. The Wonder Woman of art in the 17th Century. She was certainly my superhero as a young woman.
Me, excited about my new Artemisia book!
I studied Art in Florence 22 years ago, in college. My grandmother was the daughter of hard-working Italian immigrants in New York City. She was an expressive character and also as it turned out, an expressive and gifted artist.
My grandmother, Margaret Stallone, 1940’s
Towards the end of her high school years, her art teacher paid a visit to their small duplex apartment. Her mission was to try to talk my great-grandparents into allowing my grandma to study Art at a university. That didn't go well. Her parents brushed off the teacher’s request saying, “No. She’s going to work.”
You might be surprised that Italians wouldn’t take art seriously. Especially after being in Italy, and seeing how art is so deeply entrenched in everyday life, even in the beautifully designed tortellini swimming in your tortellini in brodo (tortellini in broth). This was because they were in America now and they had to work and survive. So my grandmother worked. But if you’re an artist at heart, you know that desire to create never leaves you…really.
She always drew and painted. Eventually my grandparents moved to Houston where I grew up and I loved going to their apartment. There were always sketchbooks and charcoal pencils, and paints and brushes of all sizes. My grandma would take me to her painting class in their senior living center. She made enchanted paintings inspired by the trip she and my grandpa took to Italy. They were both children of Italian immigrants, and that trip left them as giddy as excited children.
When I was in college, an opportunity came up where I could study in Italy with my college art professors. I was immediately excited and then immediately deflated because I didn’t know how I could afford it. I was working part-time, going to school, and could barely afford to put gas in my car. To my surprise my grandma had been setting aside a little money for me for when she passed. Well, she graciously gave it to me early and made my dream, the dream she once had for herself, come true.
Me on the balcony of the apartment in Florence, view of Il Duomo
I spent a month in Florence studying art and needless to say it was a magical experience. I stayed in a tiny room just big enough for a single bed at the top of a 500 year old building. My tiny window with a dark wire mesh had a view of the Duomo. I thought of how many people lived and died, and gave birth in that room. Were there other young women like me who looked out, and felt that fiery inspiration? Who were those women?
View from the tiny mesh window in my apartment in Florence, 2000
Florence is known as the birthplace of the Renaissance or “the jewel of the Renaissance”. Firenze, la bella (Florence, the beautiful). It was the world’s art center for the 15th century and beyond. It was home to the brilliant Michelangelo, Boticelli’s venus, and Donatello’s Magdalene. Brunelleschi’s Dome (Il Duomo) still stands as the symbolic heart of this creative city. A dome that has survived storms, wars, and earthquakes because of its genius design.
And where were the women geniuses? The daughters, the sisters, the mothers, the scholars. The individuals who also had ideas. Who also had visions, passion, and imagination.
The answer is, they were there too! For more than five centuries starting with the Renaissance, women studied and created numerous works of art in Florence.
In 2009, American journalist and author, Jane Fortune, published a book called Invisible Women: Forgotten Artists of Florence. In her book she uncovers important works by women artists. Producers Todd Gould and Clayton Taylor as well as the Advancing Women Artists foundation (AWA), created a five-part documentary based on Fortune’s book. It was all in an effort to salvage the works by women artists of Florence. To bring them out of the shadows and into that warm golden light of Tuscany.
The documentary series was awarded an Emmy for best Historical/Cultural Program and by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences in 2013. You can watch the documentary on AWA’s website: Invisible Women: Forgotten Artists of Florence, the documentary. The book and film include paintings by Florentine painter Plautilla Nelli and Baroque master Artemisia Gentilieschi.
Plautilla Nelli, Lamentation, 1550
So where can you see works of art by women artists in Florence? Jane Fortune and Linda Falcone published an accompanying guidebook, Art by Women in Florence: A Guide Through Five Hundred Years, that takes you on a journey through this fantastic city to find these intriguing works of art by women. They take you from Local Churches and Monasteries, to the Palatine Gallery of the Pitti Palace, the Gallery of Modern Art, and the Medici country on the outskirts of the city.
Still Life I: Giovanna Garzoni, 1600-1670
And of course, if you are right here in Florence, walking these cobblestone streets, you can hop right over to the Uffizi Gallery to see a portraiture collection by women artists. The dates of the portraits range from the 16th century to contemporary times. Dreaming of Florence but can’t be here at the moment? You can do a virtual tour of the Female Artists at the Uffizi: Self-Portraits of Women at the Uffizi Collection.
I finished up my tea (that’s right, this sensitive ragazza can’t handle espresso, especially with this much excitement!). I made sure I had my guidebook, Art by Women in Florence, and I headed down the old concrete steps of my apartment. As I emerge onto the street, the sweet smell of biscotti caresses me just like my grandma used to do.
As I walk through the streets, I discreetly peek into artisan workshops that probably haven’t changed much in over 500 years. I imagine all the women artists from all those years ago painting in their studios, or maybe even secretly by their bedside at night. They probably knew full well they wouldn’t receive even remotely close to the same recognition their male counterparts received in their lifetimes. But they painted and sculpted anyway. I can only speak from my own heart, that it must have been out of love. Not a sweet tender love but a fiery desire that no one could extinguish.
Artemisia Gentileschi, Self-Portrait as
the Allegory of Painting, 1638–1639
