64 “COSA MARAV IGL IOSA” The two children – sometimes associated with the Christ Child because of the goldfinch and the ointment jar – are often seen as conjoined twins. In a recent essay, Maria F. Maurer describes Diana’s choice of Giulio Romano’s motif, its adaptation and transformation into something uniquely her own as proof of her “procreative capacities”.19 At the same time, Maurer draws a parallel between the shape-shifting motif of the twin tondo and the status ascribed to Diana as an engraver in the 16th century as a “marvel”.20 This perceivedmarvelousness goes back to the second edition of Giorgio Vasari’s Vite, in which he mentioned Giovanni Battista Scultori and his daughter Diana in the biography of Il Garofalo (1481–1559).21 Vasari described Diana, probably the only female artist in the Vite whom he had actually met in person, as “cosa più maravigliosa” and her activity as an engraver as “cosa maravigliosa”, a thing to marvel at.22 Diana’s personality and work thus received the same qualitative judgement, in line with the general assessment of women artists as something not so much wonderful as wondrous, in that they deviated from the norm.23 Picking up on this, Maurer sees Diana’s twins (cat. 12) as a play on this characterisation and concludes: “By positioning herself and her prints as wonders and monsters, Diana turns Vasari’s backhanded praise to her advantage. She acknowledges her unusual situation, while also positioning herself as someone who endlessly reproduces cose maravigliose.”24 A medal with Diana’s portrait (fig. 3) can be seen as a counterpoint to this reading of the engraver as a “marvel”. It shows on the obverse a portrait of the artist in profile and on the reverse her hand holding the burin while engraving an image of the Madonna into a printing plate. The medal was created alongside that of her husband Francesco, which likewise shows the Fig. 3 T. R. (UNKNOWN) Medal with portrait of Diana Scultori (obverse) and her hand holding a burin, engraving a figure of the Virgin and Child (reverse), 16th c. Bronze medal, diam. 40 mm, London, British Museum, inv. no. G3,IP.688
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