Beyond Isabella and Beyond: Secular Women Patrons of Art in Early Modern Europe 1

In 1977 Joan Kelly-Gadol famously posed the question ‘Did Women Have a Renaissance?’ answering her own question in the negative. ² This chapter, an overview of the literature on art patronage by secular women in early modern Europe, argues that the past two-and-one half decades have seen a Renaissance, or, more properly, a Golden Age, of scholarly interest in female patrons in that broadly defined period. The dramatic expansion of interest in female patrons circa 1300–1800 is part of the greater project of historians and art historians to recover evidence for women’s agency in the past. ³