DIANA MANTUANA’S INSCR I PT IONS Over the centuries, Diana Scultori (1547–1612) was known by many different names. That this should be so says much about the mechanisms of art historiography and historical artistic practice: Because of an erroneous assumption by the biographer Giorgio Vasari (1511–1674) about Diana’s kinship with the engraver Giorgio Ghisi (1520– 1582), she was referred to as Diana Ghisi in the 18th century.1 She did not acquire the surname by which she is known today until more recently, in derivation from her father’s self-designation as Giovanni Battista Scultori (1503–1575), which was applied to her as a kind of patronym. Although that name correctly reflects the family connections, it is still not entirely fitting, because, unlike her father, whose output consisted not only of prints but also of three-dimensional works in stucco and papier-mâché,2 Diana Scultori was active purely as an engraver. The profession-derived surname of “Scultori” proves to be even more of a misnomer when we take a closer look at the much-discussed inscriptions of her engravings. She was the first female engraver to sign her works and add extensive dedications to the prints. The signatures range from “Diana”,3 “Diana Filia” (for “daughter”, for example, when reinterpreting her father’s works in graphic form), “Diana Mantuano” or “DianaMantovana” after her native city of Mantua, to “Diana Mantuana Civis Volaterana”, in reference to Volterra, where she was granted honorary citizenship after her marriage to Francesco Capriani (1535–1594), a native of Volterra.4 Not once did she use the name Diana Scultori, by which we know her today. In her signatures, she was obviously concerned with signalling her connections to the court of Mantua, to her father or husband, and to the hometown of the latter.5 These connections were essential for Diana as an artist. To use them to her professional advantage, to spin them into commissions and the art of self-promotion were lessons that she would have first learned from her father at an early age. In the 1520s, Giovanni Battista worked in the Palazzo Te under Giulio Romano (1492–1546), a former pupil of and assistant to Raphael (1483–1520).6 Although Giovanni Battista was thus involved in projects for the Gonzaga court in Mantua, he was not a court artist in the narrower sense of the term; he was not a member of a princely household, nor in receipt of a regular stipend.7 Instead, Diana’s father constantly had to solicit new patrons and commissions. His own prints were not so much a source of income for him as a “courtly currency” for obtaining commissions.8 Diana, who was in Rome from 1575, also employed this strategy.9 The architectural engraving of a volute of a Composite capital (fig. 1) is emblematic of such an approach. Her image of the richly ornamented volute is striking for the amount of space and level of intricacy afforded to an architectural detail, and she complements it with an inscription in italics. This inscription bears a dedication to those who study architecture and names √ Detail from cat. 11
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