Autumn/Winter 2022

There’s no place like ‘home’
Michelangelo’s house is Artemisia’s abode
The modest via Ghibellina palazzo was one
Artemisia herself frequented during her stint
as a court painter in Florence, hobnobbing
with Michelangelo the Younger – one of her most
dedicated patrons and namesake of her daughter
Agnola, born in 1614, who, unfortunately, died
before she had time to be baptised.
At Casa Buonarroti, Artemisia socialised with
and befriended renowned members of the
Accademia delle Arti del Disegno, Europe’s first
drawing academy, of which Artemisia became a
member in 1616. Her fellow members included
Galileo, with whom the artist corresponded,
even after his exile. The compass held aloft by
the Inclination’s allegorical figure is thought
to be a nod to the renowned scientist and his
controversial theories.
With her intelligence, exceptional selfpromotion
skills, and the Grand Duke’s favour
– Cosimo II had commissioned several works
by the artist prior to the Buonarroti picture –
Artemisia was at home in Florence’s cultural
scene. “The seven years she spent in Florence
marked a period of transformation for Artemisia,”
writes Letizia Treves in the catalogue of
Artemisia, the show she curated at London’s
National Gallery in 2020. “She learnt to read and
write, forged enduring friendships, met influential
figures at the Medici court and moved in cultured
intellectual circles. The artistic practices she had
learnt from her father Orazio stayed with her, but
her art took a new direction. Fully conscious of
the singularity of her position as a gifted female
painter, she frequently used her own image in her
work and, as a member of the artists’ academy,
was abreast of developments in contemporary
art.”
Artemisia had the opportunity to enter into
dialogue with up-and-coming artists of her day,
through her work on the Allegory of Inclination,
one of a series of fifteen canvases, created by
emergent Tuscan painters, to tribute the values
of Michelangelo the Great. When the younger
Buonarroti commissioned a five-month pregnant
Artemisia Gentileschi to paint her piece for
the piano nobile, or ‘first floor (fit for nobility)’,
the artist’s fee was three times that of her male
counterparts, and she is said to have been given
more ‘iconographic freedom’ than the other artists
involved, which include dall’Empoli, Passignano,
Matteo Rosselli and Francesco Furini. On the
ceiling, across from Artemisia’s canvas is a work
by Francesco Bianco Buonavita – also painted in
1616 – which depicts the attribute of Ingenio –
the genius or intelligence one needs to produce
art. This value is inclination’s inseparable twin –
the drive to produce art must be accompanied by
exceptional skill.
Autumn / Winter 2022 • Restoration Conversations 55