65 professional tools of his calling as an architect on the reverse. In their identical representational formula, the medals create the impression of Diana’s and Francesco’s equal status in their respective professions.25This equality also finds expression in the fact that Diana’s coin is free of any reference to her father or husband, as convention would have required. The depiction of Diana wearing a “matronly veil” supports Gill Perry’s argument that “images of the matron-artist could successfully rebuff the ‘beautiful freak’ reading”.26 Nevertheless, the image of the Virgin and Christ Child on the reverse of the medal is a tried-and-tested rhetorical device to absolve Diana of even the slightest hint of unseemliness or hubris. Other women artists, among them Sofonisba Anguissola (c. 1532–1625), also resorted to this device,27 probably in the hope that the viewer would perceive them as being as humble as the Virgin Mary. As Linda Nochlin noted in her seminal essay “Why HaveThere Been No Great Women Artists?”, almost all women artists were “either daughters of artists or had […] a close personal relationship with a stronger or dominant male artistic personality.”28 While this was sometimes also true of male artists who were sons of established artists, until the 19th century it almost invariably applied to female artists – as was no less the case with Diana. She would have been denied an education in an academic setting (the academy itself then a new and unestablished institution).29 This made the interplay of multiple other factors all the more important: Mantua as a place of learning and as an early hub of the art of printmaking, which flourished under the aegis of Mantegna and Pollaiuolo and was also central to the prestige of the Gonzagas;30 her apprenticeship with her father; the symbiotic relationship with her husband and the astute intertwining of their two professions; her knowledge of Roman taste, reflected in her choice of motifs; the carefully worded dedications that attest to her understanding of her target audience; the possible support of her brother Adamo (c. 1530–1585) as a printer and publisher in Rome;31 and the availability of drawn models. THE FEAST OF THE GODS Essential to Diana’s reception as an artist were Vasari and her proximity to Giulio Romano and the court of Mantua, and indeed she used many of Giulio’s models for her engravings: The sheer size of the print with scenes from the Sala di Psiche (cat. 11) gives an idea of the striking effect of the frescoed room in the Palazzo Te inMantua.32 To view the print in its present state, we have to “open” it like a double door – its large size could only be achieved by using three sheets printed from three separate plates. Opening the print almost invariably conjures up the association of entering a room. What we see, however, is not an exact reproduction of one of the walls of the Sala di Psiche, but a fusion of fragments from the Banchetto degli Dei (south wall, fig. 4), the Banchetto rusticus (east wall, fig. 5), and The Bath of Venus and Mars from Amori e Miti degli Dei (north wall, fig. 6). On closer
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