ABSTRACT
As a senator of the republic of Genoa, Raffaele Soprani must have felt a particular sense of pride in his homeland, which was a flourishing center of art in the seventeenth century. The life story of Sofonisba Anguissola, a native of Cremona, is included amongst those of the foreigners, and is the only vita dedicated to a woman artist out of a total of 155 narratives. Soprani does include a rather lengthy “defense of women artists” topos in his introduction where he appends the names of local talents such as Prudenza Profondavalle, Fede Galitti and Catterina Cantona to the standard catalogue of renowned ancient and Renaissance women artists. The talented portraitist and history painter, Sofonisba Anguissola, was undoubtedly the most documented and celebrated woman artist of the early modern period. One wonders whether these writings might have been from the hand of the artist herself, who had received a well-grounded Humanistic education thanks to her progressive parents.
