After a successful career in Florence, Rome, Naples and London, her work, as well as that of her father and teacher Orazio and of all Caravaggio’s followers, was neglected for three centuries, to be rediscovered in the 1940s by the great art historian Roberto Longhi. In 1947 Longhi’s wife, the feminist art historian Anna Banti published the novel Artemisia. This work, which was translated into English only in 1985 and rekindled interest in the painter’s life as much as in her oeuvre, is one of the three novels we study on this course. We also follow Artemisia’s transformation into a feminist icon during the 1970s and the controversy inspired by the 1997 film of which she is protagonist, and which gives a much disputed account of her rape by and liaison with the painter Agostino Tassi. This episode overshadowed Artemisia’s life and to this day risks influencing the evaluation of her work. It was only in 1991 that the first monographic exhibition on Artemisia Gentileschi at Casa Buonarroti, Florence, highlighted her status as a protagonist of the caravaggesque revolution. This course takes advantage of the unique opportunity offered by the exhibition opening in October 2020 at the National Gallery in London, which will show thirty-five of her paintings from private and public collections: the occasion of a lifetime to re-evaluate Artemisia’s place and significance in art history.

The course will be delivered via Zoom in five sessions (9-13 November 2020, 18.30 to 20.00). If you wish to take part, please email the tutor, Dr. Maria-Novella Mercuri (m.mercuri@ucl.ac.uk) and you'll be sent a secure link on the days.

 Session 1 

• Introduction: Artemisia in the news
• Overview of Artemisia’s art, life and career

 Session 2 

• Caravaggio and the Gentileschis 
• ‘Gentileschi padre e figlia’: the rediscovery by Roberto Longhi

 Session 3 

• Anna Banti's life and work’
• Anna Banti's novel Artemisia

Session 4 

• Alexandra Lapierre’s novel Artemisia. The Story of a Battle for Greatness
• Documents of the Tassi trial

 Session 5 

• Susan Vreeland's novel The Passion of Artemisia
• Agnes Merlet's film Artemisia
• Artemisia in her own voice: transcripts of the trial and letters

Bibliography

• Banti, Anna. 1988. Artemisia. Trans. Shirley D’Ardia Caracciolo. (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press). (Rep. Serpent’s Tail, 2004).
• Lapierre, Alexandra. 2001. Artemisia. The Story of a Battle for Greatness. Trans. Liz Heron. (London: Vintage).
• Straussman-Pflanzen, Eve. 2013. Violence and Virtue : Artemisia Gentileschi's ‘Judith Slaying Holofernes’. (Yale University Press).
• Vreeland, Shirley. 2002. The Passion of Artemisia. (London: Headline Book Publishing).

 Filmography

‘Artemisia’ (dir. Agnés Merlet; France/Germany/Italy 1997); (98 minutes)

Course Tutor: Dr Maria-Novella Mercuri

Maria-Novella is a Teaching Fellow in Italian and European Cultural Studies. She holds an MPhil in English Literature from the University of Florence, Italy, an MA in Philosophy and a PhD in German Studies from UCL, and an MA in Renaissance Studies from Birkbeck College. She's been teaching in higher education for more than two decades, mostly at UCL.