Irene di Spilimbergo (17 October 1538 - 17 December 1559) was an Italian

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD ...

painter and poet.

Biography

She is mostly known for an effusive volume of poetic elegies published two years after her death by Dionigi Atanagi and containing 279 Italian and 102 Latin poems, some anonymous, and others either penned or attributed to contemporary cultural figures including

Lodovico Dolce Lodovico Dolce (1508/10–1568) was an Italian man of letters and theorist of painting. He was a broadly based Venetian humanist and prolific author, translator, and editor; he is now mostly remembered for his ''Dialogue on Painting'' or ''L'Areti ...

Torquato Tasso Torquato Tasso ( , also , ; 11 March 154425 April 1595) was an Italian poet of the 16th century, known for his 1591 poem ''Gerusalemme liberata'' ( Jerusalem Delivered), in which he depicts a highly imaginative version of the combats between ...

Titian Tiziano Vecelli or Vecellio (; 27 August 1576), known in English as Titian ( ), was an Italian (Venetian) painter of the Renaissance, considered the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, nea ...

Girolamo Muzio Girolamo Muzio or ''Mutio Justinopolitano'' (1496 in Padua, Republic of Venice 1576 in Barberino Val d'Elsa, Grand Duchy of Tuscany) was an Italian author in defence of the vernacular Italian language against Latin. Biography Girolamo Muzio was ...

, Luigi Tanzillo, Giuseppe Bettusi, and Benedetto Varchi. Born in

Spilimbergo Spilimbergo (german: Spengenberg; fur, Spilimberc or ) is a ''comune'' with a population of 11,961, located in the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region, in northern Italy, on the right side of the Tagliamento river. The town is notable as the home of the ...

(in the Province of Pordenone), a small town about thirty kilometers northwest of

Udine Udine ( , ; fur, Udin; la, Utinum) is a city and ''comune'' in north-eastern Italy, in the middle of the Friuli Venezia Giulia region, between the Adriatic Sea and the Alps (''Alpi Carniche''). Its population was 100,514 in 2012, 176,000 with t ...

, by report she demonstrated her artistic abilities at a young age. She is compared sometimes with another woman painter,

Sofonisba Anguissola Sofonisba Anguissola ( – 16 November 1625), also known as Sophonisba Angussola or Sophonisba Anguisciola, was an Italian Renaissance painter born in Cremona to a relatively poor noble family. She received a well-rounded education that i ...

(born in Cremona and of greater longevity (1532–1625). Irene studied under

for two years. Few if any of her works are known. Her true nature and skills are difficult to sift from the poetic legend; she was for her eulogists the equivalent of the prototypical ever-innocent feminine charm, what ''Beatrice'' was to

Dante Dante Alighieri (; – 14 September 1321), probably baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri and often referred to as Dante (, ), was an Italian people, Italian Italian poetry, poet, writer and philosopher. His ''Divine Comedy'', origin ...

and ''Laura'' to

Petrarch Francesco Petrarca (; 20 July 1304 – 18/19 July 1374), commonly anglicized as Petrarch (), was a scholar and poet of early Renaissance Italy, and one of the earliest humanists. Petrarch's rediscovery of Cicero's letters is often credited ...

, although girded with a paint-brush for the craft-oriented Renaissance. The '' National Gallery of Art'' (

Washington D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, Na ...

) houses two paintings in relation to her: a portrait of her sister ''Emilia di Spilimbergo'', with a landscape background, has been attributed to Gian Paolo Pace, a follower of Titian, and a pendant portrait of ''Irene di Spilimbergo'' is thought to be by Gian Paolo Pace and Titian. She died in

Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The isla ...

at the age of 21.

References

External links

ArtNet biography
via the Internet Archive * ''Irene di Spilimbergo: The Image of a Creative Woman in Late Renaissance Italy'', Anne Jacobson Schutte, ''Renaissance Quarterly,'' Vol. 44, No. 1 (Spring, 1991), pp. 42–61 * Jacobs, Fredrika Herman. ''Defining the Renaissance Virtuosa: Women Artists and the Language of Art History and Criticism''. Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997. * Schutte, Anne Jacobson. "Commemorators of Irene Di Spilimbergo." ''Renaissance Quarterly'' 45, no. 3 (1992): 524-36. {{DEFAULTSORT:Spilimbergo, Irene di 1540 births 1559 deaths People from the Province of Pordenone Italian Renaissance painters Italian women painters 16th-century Italian painters 16th-century Italian women artists