Leonardo da Vinci, Portrait of Isabella d’Este, c. 1499–1500. Louvre, Paris.
Over the last four years Sarah Dunant has been researching and writing a novel about one of the most formidable female characters of the Italian renaissance, Isabella d’Este. Born in 1474 into one of Italy’s most illustrious dynasties in Ferrara, she was married at fifteen into another. Her husband, Francesco Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua, was a warrior and a philanderer, but their partnership lasted for a quarter of a century and their mutual independence allowed her to become the first female patron and art collector of her time, as well as ruling the state in his absence.
Isabella collected work from Michelangelo, Mantegna, Perugino, Titian and Leonardo, as well as indulging a passion for Roman antiquities which were all the rage at the time. An icon of fashion, her court was filled with writers and poets and she had a personally designed studiolo, at a time when only men had such places.
Her clever, educated and occasionally overbearing voice sings out from some thirteen thousands letters preserved in the archive of Mantua, and this lavishly illustrated lecture looks at how Dunant drew on them, among other sources, to write The Marchesa, a mix of fiction, biography and the most wonderful art, to bring alive this most flamboyant and influential of renaissance women.
The Marchesa by Sarah Dunant will be published 5 June 2025.
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This is an online event hosted on Zoom which can be watched live, or on-demand for one month afterwards. You will receive your link to access the event in your email confirmation and the on-demand link after the event ends.