Isabella d’Este

Lorenzo Bonoldi
A Renaissance Woman

Isabella d’Este (Ferrara 1474 – Mantua 1539) was

cover image: Gian Cristoforo Romano, Bust of Isabella d’Este, terracotta, 1498 ca, Fort Worth (USA), Kimbell Art Museum
already defined in her lifetime as “The first lady
of the world”, and remains today one of the most
brilliant characters of the Italian Renaissance. The
first-born daughter of Duke Ercole of Ferrara and
Eleonora of Aragon, at only six years of age was
betrothed to Francesco II Gonzaga, heir of the Lords
of Mantua.
At sixteen, when she arrived in Mantua, she created
one of the most culturally refined courts of the Renais-
sance. Driven by her insatiable desire for all things
of antiquity, she collected in her Studiolo a precious
assortment of classical artifacts. Fully aware of her
extraordinary virtues, both physical and intellectual,

Isabella d’Este. A Renaissance Woman

she trusted the most illustrious artist of her time to rep-

i
d
resent her, and was portrayed by both Leonardo da
Vinci and Titian – a privilege not bestowed upon any
king, Pope, or Emperor. A demanding and discern-

al
ing patron, she entrusted Andrea Mantegna, Loren-
zo Costa, Pietro Perugino and Correggio to create
a cycle of paintings for her Studiolo. As a refined

r
trend-setter, she formed the fashion of her time ac-

ua
cording to her own tastes, and became a point of
reference not only for all of the Italian courts, but also
for aristocrats throughout Europe. From her astrolog-
ical chart and emblems to her portraits and the can-

G
vases created specifically for her Studiolo, this book
contains several clear and original perspectives that
highlight and better define the profile of Isabella.
Here we have a new view of a Renaissance woman.

Lorenzo Bonoldi, born in Mantua in 1978, graduated from the University Ca’ Foscari of Venice with

Lorenzo Bonoldi
Guaraldi | Engramma

Guaraldi | Engramma
his dissertation “Equalmente et in ogni parte bella”. Isabella d’Este. He is one of the founders of “La
Rivista di Engramma”, and was curator of the exhibition “Classico Manifesto” dedicated to the relation-
ships between art, the Classical Tradition and advertising (Triennale of Milan, 2008). As an art histori-
an he has published several essays in journals and books, including I dipinti dello studiolo di Isabella

Isabella d’Este
d’Este (in L’originale assente, 2005) and Giulio Romano (2009).
Clark Anthony Lawrence, born in 1969 in Manassas, Virginia, graduated from euro 14,90
College of the Atlantic, Bar Harbor, Maine. His studies in art history often took him to ISBN 978-88-6927-241-7
Greece, Turkey and Italy, where he has lived since 1996, year in which he founded
the cultural association “Reading Retreats in Rural Italy”. An avid art collector and
gardener, he now lives in Mantua, where he organizes cultural events, concerts and
art exhibitions.
A Renaissance Woman
 Engramma | 2

i
ld
ra
ua
G
 i
ld
ra
ua

Comitato scientifico:
Benno Albrecht, Aldo Aymonino, Marco Biraghi, Francesco M. Cataluccio,
Monica Centanni, Maria Grazia Ciani, Alberto Ferlenga
G

Impaginazione ed editing: Elisa Bastianello

Coordinamento redazionale: Alice Metulini
Copertina: Olivia Sara Carli

Con il contributo di Centro studi classicA | Università Iuav di Venezia

© 2015 by Guaraldi s.r.l.

Sede legale e redazione: via Novella 15, 47922 Rimini
Tel. 0541 742974/742497 - Fax 0541 742305
www.guaraldi.it - www.guaraldilab.com
info@guaraldi.it - info@guaraldilab.com

ISBN carta 978-88-6927-241-7

ISBN pdf 978-88-6927-242-4

L’Editore dichiara di avere posto in essere le dovute attività di ricerca delle titolarità dei diritti sui contenuti qui pubblicati e
di avere impiegato ogni ragionevole sforzo per tale finalità, come richiesto dalla prassi editoriale e dalla normativa di settore.
Lorenzo Bonoldi

Isabella d’Este

i
A Renaissance Woman ld
ra
Translated by Clark Anthony Lawrence
ua
G

Guaraldi | Engramma
G
ua
ra
ld
i
Contents

i
ld
ra
ua
G

Preface to the English Version 7

I. Isabella d’Este: The Queen of Arts 9
II. Leonardo and Isabella d’Este. The portrait drawing
for a painting and the copies that followed 37
III. Isabella d’Este: Muse for an Angel 47
IV. Sometimes they come back:
the leonardesque ghost of Isabella in a Swiss Vault 51
V. The medal of Isabella d’Este. Nemesis and her stars 55
Lorenzo Bonoldi and Monica Centanni
VI. The life of Isabella d’Este in History 73
VII. Bibliography 83
G
ua
ra
ld
i
Preface to the English Version

The now-lost tombstone, once signaling the grave in which Isabella d’Este was
buried in 1539, bore an inscription describing the Marchioness of Mantua as a

i
VIRILI ANIMO FOEMINA, a woman with a masculine nature.
ld
It might seem a most unusual way of characterizing a lady who, during her
lifetime, was often described as a Prima Donna. And yet, to anyone who had
to epitomize in a verse a woman like Isabella, as gifted and powerful as hardly
ra
any woman had ever been, little possibility was left other than describing her
nature in masculine terms.
In translating the title of this book – which in Italian is La Signora del Rinas-
ua

cimento (literally, ‘The Lady of the Renaissance’) – the translator has suggested
to abandon a literal interpretation in favor of ‘a Renaissance Woman’. Refer-
ence is made here to the expression ‘a Renaissance man’, which is used to de-
scribe a person with broad education and skills. This idiom, however, is found
G

exclusively in a masculine form. The most illustrious Marchioness of Mantua

deserves indeed the expression turned into this unusual, and yet undoubtedly
appropriate, feminine version. And so, presented with the translator’s sugges-
tion, the author happily agreed.
Isabella herself, we hope, would have been pleased: in describing her status,
she never forgot to celebrate and present herself as a woman of power. In a
long Latin inscription that Isabella wanted carved in stone in 1522, the Mar-
chioness is described using only female terms and styled as “Regum Arago-
num Neptis, Ducum Ferrarensium Filia et Soror, Marchionum Gonzagarum
Coniux et Mater” (“Granddaughter of the Kings of Aragon, Daughter and
Sister of the Dukes of Ferrara, Spouse and Mother of the Gonzaga Lords”). As
a woman, she could never have defined herself publicly other than in relation

| 7
Isabella d’Este. A Renaissance Woman

to the kings, dukes, and lords of her life; but the accumulation of so many
titles granted only to men results in the personal celebration of a woman fully
aware of being like no other. On the other hand, Isabella’s achievements, as
stated in this inscription, were of the kind granted to women alone, for only
as a woman she could have been mother, spouse, sister, daughter and grand-
daughter.
This long inscription runs around the walls of the secret garden of Isabella
in the Ducal Palace of Mantua: a special hortus conclusus, adjacent the rooms
where the Marchioness used to keep her private library and her collection of
paintings and antiquities.
The translation of this book was made in a place, if humbler, with a sim-
ilar spirit, home of the association “Reading Retreats in Rural Italy”: here
paintings, books, flowers and plants are all to be found, and modern-day-Re-

i
naissance men and women gather and meet from all around the world, only
ld
minutes away from the places where Isabella lived her life, in the splendor of
the Renaissance.
ra
ua
G

8 |
I | Isabella d’Este: The Queen of Arts

Isabella d’Este has been defined as “The Daughter of Humanism”, “The Lady
of the Renaissance, and “The Prima Donna of the World”, and, without a

i
doubt, she is one of the most fascinating and brilliant figures of Italy’s entire
ld
historical panorama. The first-born child of the Duke of Ferrara, Ercole I
d’Este, and Eleonora of Aragon, Isabella was born on May 17th, 1474, as is re-
corded in an illuminated page of the “Genealogy of the Este Family”, which,
ra
under the portrait of the infant Isabella, is inscribed:

“Questa Isabella è fiola legitima e naturale de questi Hercole et Eleono-

ra, e naque martì adì 17 mazo 1474 a hore una e meza de nocte.”
ua

[“This Isabella is the legitimate and natural-born daughter of Ercole and Eleo-
nora, and was born on Tuesday 17 May 1474, one and a half hours after sunset.”]

In the first years of her childhood the Este princess began to receive a classi-
G

cal-humanistic education: her tutors, Jacopo Gallino and Battista Guarino,

infused in her a love for classical languages and culture, and at only six years of
age the little Isabella already knew Greek and Latin to perfection. In 1480 the
Este princess, with her exceptional gift of intellect, was already entertaining
and charming the Italian courts, and it was precisely during that year that Is-
abella’s parents received two different marriage proposals: one from the Gon-
zagas of Mantua and another from Ludovico Sforza, also known as “il Moro”,
both of whom had their eyes on the young lady. The messenger of the Gonza-
gas arrived first, and Isabella was promised as wife to the heir of the Lords of
Mantua, their fifteen-years-old son Francesco. Ludovico il Moro then had to
settle for Isabella’s younger sister, Beatrice. Upon sealing the marriage pact, the
Mantuan ambassador to Ferrara, Beltramino Cusatro, sent a portrait of the
princess to Mantua, writing “Sending the Lady Isabella’s portrait, so that Your

| 9
Isabella d’Este. A Renaissance Woman

i
ld
ra
ua
G

10 |
 Isabella d’Este: The Queen of Arts

(on the opposite page)

Anonymous illuminator from Ferrara,
Genealogy of the Este Family,
7ms. membr. L.5.16 Ital.720, charta 3 v.,
1476 ca, Modena, Biblioteca Estense.

Anonymous Mantuan medal maker,

Wedding medal for Francesco II Gonzaga
and Isabella d’Este (obverse), 1490, private
collection.

i
ld
Lordships and Master Francesco may see her effigy: but even more enchanting
is her intellect and ingenuity”. The work, now lost, was created by Cosmè
Tura, painter of the Este Court, and is documented by a note in the ducal
ra
registers that show on May 30th, 1480, four florins were paid to the painter “for
having done a portrait of the head of Lady Isabella” (Luzio 1913, pp. 185-186).
Ten years later, in 1490, the wedding of Isabella d’Este and Francesco Gonzaga
ua

was celebrated. The new Marchioness was allocated an apartment in the Cas-
tello di San Giorgio, inside the tower of San Nicolò. In the tower there were
two rooms, one above the other, that Isabella chose as her private chambers
dedicated to study and her collections. The upper floor was furnished as the
G

Studiolo (‘the study’) of the Marchioness, an area for the learning of classical
texts and philosophical meditation. In the years that followed, the walls of the
Studiolo were adorned by the works of some of the greatest painters of the age:
Andrea Mantegna, Pietro Perugino, Lorenzo Costa. The room below, with its
low barrel-vault ceiling was called Grotta (literally ‘the cave’), and used as a
private treasure chamber to house the collection of antique objects belonging
to the Marchioness, who defined herself as afflicted by an “insatiable desire
for antiquities”.
In February 1490, when Isabella arrived in Mantua as bride of Francesco II
and the new Marchioness of the city, the official artist of the court was the
Paduan painter Andrea Mantegna, who moved to Mantua in 1456. In 1493 the
artist was commissioned to paint a portrait of Isabella that she promised as a
gift for the Countess of Acerra. The final result of the commission, however,

| 11
Isabella d’Este. A Renaissance Woman

i
ld
ra
ua
G

12 |
 Isabella d’Este: The Queen of Arts

had an unexpected result. On April 20th Isabella wrote to her friend, explain-
ing:

“We are unable at this time to send you Our portrait, as the painter has done such
a terrible job that it has no resemblance to Us whatsoever; so We have commissio-
ned a foreign painter, who is famous for his ability to copy from nature.”

The ‘foreign’ painter whom Isabella chose to do her portrait was Giovanni
Santi of Urbino, father of Raphael, but unfortunately the painting has been
lost. With regards to Mantegna, whose painting technique was bound to rep-
resenting a reality quite far from the needs and desires of Isabella, his unsuc-
cessful attempt was enough to get him banned from ever portraying her again.
And her decision remained firm. Isabella even refused to pose for the great
votive altarpiece known as the Madonna of Victory, where, according to the

i
iconographic project planned by the friar Girolamo Redini in August 1495,
ld
she was to be portrayed kneeling on one side of the Madonna, with Francesco
II Gonzaga “armed as victorious captain” kneeling on the other (Luzio 1899,
p. 360). The painter remedied this absence of the Marchioness by conjuring
ra
up a solution: beneath the Saints Andrew, Longinus, Michael and George, all
united by their ties to the city of Mantua or by their virtues as warriors, Man-
tegna painted the figure of Saint Elizabeth, the name-saint of the Marchioness
(‘Isabella’ being a Spanish form of the name ‘Elizabeth’).
ua

It’s important to understand that Isabella’s negative opinion of her portrait

and refusal to pose for the artist were not based on her view of the artist’s
G

Gian Cristoforo Romano,

Bust of Beatrice d’Este, 1490-1491 ca, marble,
Paris, Musée du Louvre.

(on the opposite page)

Andrea Mantegna, Madonna of Victory,
1495-1496, Paris, Musée du Louvre.

| 13