Word & Image

A Journal of Verbal/Visual Enquiry

ISSN: 0266-6286 (Print) 1943-2178 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/twim20

The construction of a life: Madonna Properzia

De'Rossi ‘Schultrice’ Bolognese

Fredrika H. Jacobs

To cite this article: Fredrika H. Jacobs (1993) The construction of a life: Madonna
Properzia De'Rossi ‘Schultrice’ Bolognese, Word & Image, 9:2, 122-132, DOI:
10.1080/02666286.1993.10435481

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/02666286.1993.10435481

Published online: 29 May 2012.

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The construction of a life: Madonna Properzia
De'Rossi 'Schultrice' Bolognese
FREDRIKA H. JACOBS
A lovely highly gifted woman, who is persecuted by
professional jealousy, is unsuccessful in love, and dies at the
height of her fame in the hey-day of her beauty - have we
not here all the elements for melodrama and romance?
(Laura M. Ragg, 1907)
On 22june 1830 Antonio Saffi
Sirani, and those
others who raised the glory of the gentle sex'. 1 But, he
continued, more notable still was Properzia De'Rossi, for,
unlike Quistelli, Anguissola, Fontana and Sirani,
De' Rossi was ascultrice (figure I). It was, Saffi argued, not
Figure 1. Properzia De'Rossi, wood-cut from Giorgio Vasari, Le Viii
de' piu eccellenti pitiJJri, sculiJJri ed architettori ( 1568).
I22
026f'Hi286/93 $10 ()()
only rare to find a woman who worked in this medium,
but nothing less than 'exceptional' to find one who both
understood and applied the theoretical principles of this
'most difficult art' with 'perfect success'. 2
Within the context of Italian Renaissance art history
the truth of Saffi's observation appears in large measure
to be correct. More than twenty-five women active in
twelve cities from Venice to Naples have been recorded as
artists during the Cinquecento. Most were painters. Two
were intagliatrici, and four - all Milanesi - were ricama-
trici.3 De'Rossi was the sole scultrice. 4 In the words of
Giorgio Vasari, she alone 'braved the roughness of
marble and the unkindly chisels' 'as if to wrest from us
[that is, male artists] the palm of supremacy'.~ For this
singular achievement Vasari bestowed upon her the
honor ofbeing the only woman artist among I42 'uomini
valenti' memorialized in the first edition of his volumi-
nous history of Renaissance art, Le vile de' piit eccellenti
pittori, scultori et architettori, I 550. 6
In theory the celebrity Vasari granted Properzia was
one of great significance. As T. S. R. Boase rightly noted,
Vasari's Vite 'fixed for some 300 years the general views
... about the art of the Renaissance ... [His] grading of
artistic achievements formed a canon that was long
unquestioned, and any artist who escaped his notice has
had a retarded progress in finding appreciation'. 7 But in
reality, the privilege of having one's life recorded by
Vasari could prove to be a dubious honor. At least in the
case of Properzia De'Rossi, Boase's statement should be
amended to read that any artist who did not escape the
influential critic's notice has had to contend with
obfuscating anecdotes and moralizing evaluations of both
her work and character, for ifVasari labelled De'Rossi a
'grandissime miracolo della natura', he also character-
ized her as a woman who could not cope with the
torments of unrequited passion. Indeed, Saffi's discorso on
the merits of De'Rossi's work delivered to Bologna's
Accademia di Belli Arti three hundred years after the
death of the sculptor may be described more rightly as a
difesa.
Two years earlier, in I828, Paolo Costa's Prope~ia
De'Rossi had been performed and published. A reppresenta-
~ione tragica in four acts, Costa's play is the piteous story of
WORD & IMAGE, VOL. 9, NO. 2, APRIL-JUNE I 993
© 1993 Ta)lur & FranCIS l.td
a rejected lover. In response to Romeo Caccianemici's
characterization of the artist as a famous and talented yet
unhappy woman, Alfonso, a courtier in the service of
Charles V, asks, 'lnfelicissima? Per qual cagione?'
Romeo's response is brief. 'Per amore.' To both illustrate
and prove the validity of his assertion, Romeo directs
Alfonso's attention to De'Rossi's relief of Joseph and
Potiphar's Wife in San Petronio8 (figure 2). The figures in
the panel, he says, have the features of the artist and those
of the young man whose love she sought but never gained.
Like the spurned Saffira, the scultrice was deserted by her
desired lover.
Costa's reppresentazione tragica, specifically the perceived
parallels between Potiphar's wife and Properzia, follows
an interpretive tradition that can be traced to Vasari's
Vite. Having ennumerated the sculptor's admirable
characteristics - 'little hands so tender and white', 'a
young woman excellent not only in household matters,
like the rest of them, but also in the sciences', a 'very
beautiful' lady who 'played and sang ... better than any
other woman of her city', and an artist with a 'capric-
cioso' intellect- Vasari focused his attention on the San
Petronio panel that was to inspire Costa to write his
tragedy.
To the vast delight of all Bologna, [De'Rossi] made an
exquisite scene, wherein - because at the time the poor
woman was madly enamoured of a handsome young man,
who seemed to care but little for her- she represented the
wife ofPharoah's Chamberlain, who, burning with love for
Figure 2. Properzia De'Rossi,Joseph and Potiphar's Wife (Bologna,
Museo di San Petronio). Photo: Alinari/Art Resource, New York.
Joseph, and almost in despair after so much persuasion,
finally strips his garment from him with a womanly grace
that defies description. This work was esteemed by all to be
most beautiful, and it was a great satisfaction to herself,
thinking that with this illustration from the Old Testament
she had partly quenched the fire of her own passion.9
Vasari's explanation of De'Rossi's relief representing
Joseph fleeing Potiphar's Wife (and failure to elucidate
the 'true' meaning of, let along mention, her panel
representing Potiphar's Wife Before Pharoah) appears in
both editions of the Vite. Although Raffaello Borghini also
discussed the panel illustrating the woes of Saffira, the
'innamorata donna', he did not go so far as to propose a
likeness between the sculptor and her subject. 10 This is
not, however, true of Gian Paolo Lomazzo. Indeed, not
only does he, like Vasari, state that the artist attempted to
purge her sorrow and alleviate her sense of loss through
the carving of this work, he proposes that parallels be
drawn between De'Rossi and Sappho, Medea and
Thisbe, parallels which, in the case ofSappho, Costa was
to exploit two and a half centuries later. 11
Having explained at the conclusion of act one the cause
of De'Rossi's infelicissima by pointing to Joseph and
Potiphar's Wife, Costa opens act two of Properzia De'Rossi
with the artist in her studio. Alone and with a harp rather
than a chisel in her hand, the despondent scultrice sings an
ode to Sappho and then bemoans her fate. 'Inutilmentc,
inutilmente io cerco di sfogare il mio dolore coi versi della
misera Saffo! La natura e l'arte non hanno piu alcun
diletto per me!' 12 As the play continues, Properzia tells
her friend Beatrice that which Romeo already has
explained to Alfonso; her carving ofJoseph's rejection of
Saffira is intended to mitigate some of her despair. But
even this act can do no more than slightly assuage her
sense of hopelessness. It cannot, as she acknowledges,
help her to overcome the debilitating obstacles of
'malinconico'. Joseph and Potiphar's Wife, as she declares,
will be 'l'ultimo de'miei lavori'. Abandoned and
depressed, Properzia is unable to work and without her
work she has nothing left of any value. Destitute in spirit,
she dies. 13 Thus, De'Rossi has gone the tragic way of
other women deprived of the men they so desperately
love: Medea, who was driven to insanity when deserted
by Jason; Thisbe, who took her own life when she
discovered Pyramus dead; and, most significantly, Sap-
pho, the great poet of Lesbos, who flung herself from the
White Rock ofLeukas after she was abandoned by Phaon.
Despite Antonio Saffi's attempt in 1830 to end
speculation as to whether or not the 'quasi disperata'
Saffira in the San Petronio relief is a self-portrait of the
sculptor- 'There are some who want to see a resemblance
between the Egyptian woman and [Properzia], seeing her
portrait in the figure of Potiphar's wife and that of her
lover in the effigy ofJoseph. But I find this demands too
123
much faith and, for my part, I see it as a fable' -the story
continued to be told. 14 Indeed, the quasi-iconic status
enjoyed by Vasari's text helped the proposed likeness
between artist and image to be cast, quite literally, in
stone. But when Vasari's portrayal of the scultrict as a
'poor love-stricken young woman [povera innamorata
giovane] [who] came to succeed most perfectly in every-
thing, except in her unhappy passion', was conjoined
with Lomazzo's suggestion that her unrequited passion
made her as tragic a figure as Medea and Sappho, the
image of the Bolognese artist suffered a critical blow. She
became a melancholic, or more accurately, a victim of
erotomania. While the analogy between Saffira and
Properzia was less than complimentary, implying an
inability to control carnal desire, the analogy between
Sappho and the sculptor was damning, suggesting that
woman's lack of capacity to restrain her ardor inevitably
results in a lack of capacity to create. The implications of
these associations effectively undermined all that her
inclusion in the canonical history of art seemed to
promise. Rather than be admitted to the ranks of the
gifted and productive artist, De'Rossi was excluded from
this elite company when she was cast into the abyss of the
irrational and inactive lovesick woman.
PROPERZJA AS SAFFIRA
Vasari, no less than those who made his biographies
objects of uncritical devotion, frequently interpreted a
specific work as a reflection of its maker, thereby making
it a form of self-portraiture. Clearly, this is the case with
Michelangelo's faun. With its damaged nose, the faun
reflects the sculptor's own disfigurement by the fist of the
envious Torrigiano. 15 Similarly, Vasari, who accepted
the story of Castagno's purported murder of Domenico
Veneziano, claimed that the 'invidioso' and 'maligno'
Castagno unwittingly 'painted himself [in one of the
decorative medallions in Santa Maria Nuova] with the
face of Judas Iscariot, whom he resembled both in
appearance and deed'. 16 The likeness Vasari perceived
between the wife of Potiphar and the woman who carved
this 'quasi disperata' woman falls into this category.
Properzia is Saffira.
Such analogies reflect Vasari's penchant for moraliza-
tion as well as his debt to the genre ofepideictic rhetoric in
its classical and Christianized forms. As Carl Goldstein
has noted, 'Vasari was concerned more with the exemp-
lary and universal than with the individual, and,
therefore, had much in common with the medieval
biographer. Both were practitioners of a type of rhetoric
tracing its origins back to the ancients, for whom it had a
serious ethical function: to provide models of virtue and
incite to moral conduct.' 17 By praising an artist's virtue
(Brunelleschi, Donatello, Michelangelo) and by aug-
menting this praise through a condemnation of vice
124 FREDRIKA H. JACOBS
(Castagno, Torrigiano, Sodoma), Vasari's Vitt presents a
composite portrait of what the (male) artist is or, at least,
what he should be - a man of outstanding personal
qualities who transfers his virtue into works of virtuosity.
But in contrast to the many lives of pittori, scultori and
architettori that coalesce to reveal Vasari's concept of the
creative male persona, his characterization of De'Rossi,
at least in the first edition, must, because of its
singularity, represent that of the female. Here the
individual cannot be subsumed into the universal. As the
lone woman among an assemblage of talented men,
Vasari's Properzia De'Rossi suggestively represents the
strengths and foibles of all woman artists. Exactly what
these strengths and weaknesses are is set forth in the
commentary on joseph and Potiphar's Wift. While she may
exhibit signs of 'nobile ed eleva to ingegno', De' Rossi's
erotic passions overrule her creative judgement. 18
If the subsequent analogies between De'Rossi and
Sappho put forth by Lomazzo and Costa at least
acknowledge a positive aspect of the female character-
initial, if not enduring, creative genius - the comparison
between Properzia and Potiphar's wife cannot be seen as
complimentary. Dante, for example, condemns the
adulterous Saffira as 'Ia falsa ch' accuso Giuseppe' and, as
other illustrations of the story indicate, her vice, which
stands in sharp contrast to Joseph's virtue, epitomized
'the dangers of a lustful woman'. 19 Certainly, sexual
invitations issued by a married woman, which according
to Vasari De'Rossi was, constituted unacceptable beha-
vior.20 Together with silence, chastity was ~ woman's
prized virtue. For De'Rossi to transgress social mores by
making such advances was an offense. To then express
them visually, if not verbally, was a double
contravention.
But Properzia's Saffira-like action was not, it seems,
her only fault. De'Rossi had a temper that ran as hot as
her passions. According to records in the Archivio
Criminale, she was brought before Bologna's tribunal on
more than one occasion to answer to charges of disorderly
conduct. In a series of court hearings that began on 25
October 1520, and extended through April of the
following year, 'Propertiam De Rubris ipsus Ser Antonio
Galeatii concubinam habitatricem in Cappella Sancti
Felicis' was accused of entering and destroying the
garden of her neighbor Francesco da Milano, a velvet
merchant. Two days after the complaint was filed,
Antonio Galeazzo appeared before the curia to request a
stay of criminal proceedings in order that he and his
accomplice might first settle all civil claims lodged
against them. Apparently, the request was granted.
Indeed, a series of similar supplications eventually
resulted in the suspension of all charges leveled against
the pair.
But this confrontation with Bologna's civil and crimi-
nal justice authorities did not dissuade De'Rossi from
further violent outbursts. On 23January and 26 February
1525, 'Propertia de Rossi' once again appeared before the
court. This time she was in the company of the painter
Domenico del Francia. Both were charged with trespas-
sing and assaulting an artist, one Vincenzo Miola.
According to documents, the scultrice specifically was
accused of throwing paint in Miola's face and with
scratching his eyes. Court records state that the com-
plainant's accusation was corroborated by Amico Asper-
tini who testified to having heard, 'in the fifth hour of the
night', a loud argument coming from Miola's home
during which invectives like 'Tu sei uno poltrone!' were
hurled among the disputing participants. 21
Is the 'Propertia De Rubris' hauled into court in 1520
the same 'Properzia de Rossi' brought before the tribunal
in 1525, and is either of these individuals the 'Madonna
Properzia De'Rossi' included in Vasari's text and subse-
quently hailed by Pompeo Vizani as agentildonna?22 If the
answer is yes, then how are we to reconcile the ill-
tempered concuhina of criminal records with the refined
gentildonna ofVasari's Vite? Or, to rephrase the question,
did Vasari, who was in Bologna the year of the sculptor's
death, know the truth and wilfully dismiss it or simply
veil it? The latter seems to be the case.
There is no hard evidence to suggest that Vasari (or
those who followed his lead) had access to judicial
records. Nonetheless, Vasari claims to 'having spent
much time in seeking out [artists] and using the greatest
diligence in discovering [their] native city, origin, and
actions, and having with great labor drawn them from the
tales of old men and from various records and writings. ' 23
Parallels between historical records and the eulogistic
characterization of De'Rossi in the Vite suggest that we
should take the author at his word.
The following facts are known. A woman by the name
ofProperzia De'Rossi, the daughter of a Bolognese citizen
who was the son of a notary, one Girolamo De'Rossi,
lived in Bologna during the first three decades of the
sixteenth century. By 1516, she had already reached the
age of maturity, twenty-five. Records of the Fabbrica di
San Petronio state that in August of 1524 four artists
received commissions from the Operai for reliefs with
scenes from the book of Genesis. Amico Aspertini was
among them. In 1525, several additional artists were
brought in to work on the project. 'Propertia De'Russi'
was among those in this second group. For the next year
and a half the name 'Madonna Propertia' and 'La
Propertia' appears in the documents of the Fabbrica. On
15 January and 5 April 1526, Tribolo and Alfonso
Lombardi were paid for 'modelli fatta a Ia Propertia'.
Several months later, on 4 August, the balance of her
account for two sibyls, at least two angels and a quadro was
settled for forty lire. Finally, Properzia De'Rossi is
documented in April of 1529 as an indigent in the
Ospedale di San Giobbe.
These few facts mesh with what is known of the 1525
legal imbroglio as well as with Vasari's life of the
scultrice. 24 First, 'La Propertia's' involvement in the San
Petronio project matches the date that 'Propertia
De'Rossi' and Domenico del Francia assaulted the
painter Vincenzo Miola. Second, the damning testimony
offered by Amico Aspertini is implicitly acknowledged by
Vasari who dutifully noted the enmity that existed
between the two. Without referring to the Miola incident,
he claims Aspertini, 'out of envy' and with 'malignity',
'spoke ill of[Properzia] to the Wardens [ofSan Petronio],
causing her to be paid a most beggarly price for her
work.' 25 Third, Vasari says De'Rossi is married. Not only
is this confirmed by a document of 1515, but in the 1520
complaint filed against Antonio Galeazzo and his 'concu-
bine', it is clear that the two were not co-habitants.
Fourth, of the two sibyls, two angels and one quadro made
by De'Rossi and paid for on 4 August 1526, Vasari lists
the Joseph relief, 'un leggiadrissimo quadro', and 'two
angels in very strong relief and good proportion' as her
contribution to the decorative program. 26 Fifth, Vasari's
statement that, following the completion of joseph and
Potiphar's Wifo, Properzia refused 'to do any more work in
connection with that building' is substantiated by the
disappearance of her name from the Fabbrica records.
Finally, Vasari places the sculptor's death in early 1530,
eight months after she is known to have been in the
Ospedale di San Giobbe. All of this suggests strongly that
the 'Propertia De'Rossi' charged with trespassing and
assault is, indeed, the same Properzia De'Rossi honored
in Vasari's Vite. The concuhina and scultrice are one and the
same person.
How, then, are we to reconcile the evidence gleaned
from these two very different kinds of sources and,
perhaps more to the point, what is the relationship
between this woman and Vasari's interpretation of the
Joseph panel? As noted, Vasari frequently interpreted a
specific work of art as a reflection of its maker. This
enabled him to express that which he judiciously felt was
better left unsaid, particularly in light of the overall intent
of his history of art, which was to celebrate the rebirth and
growth of the arts to an unprecedented state of perfection.
As recounted by Vasari, this ascent was propelled by
artists who exemplified virtu. In the Vite, virtu may be
understood as both virtue and virtuosity_27 The former
impacts on the latter, making an artist's work and/or style
a reflection of him or herself. Certainly, this is true ofthe
way Vasari discussed De'Rossi'sjoseph and Potiphar's Wifo.
The spurned sculptor is presented as the rejected Saffira.
This identity reveals much about Properzia's character,
or virtue. Moreover, when Vasari describes Joseph's
encounter with Potiphar's wife, it is difficult to discern
125
whether 'donnesca grazia' refers to the way Saffira attempts
to disrobe the youth or to the manner in which the scultrice
has carved this desperate and passionate act. 28 This
reveals something about Properzia's style, or virtuosity.
Consistent with the purpose of epideictic rhetoric,
Vasari not only contrasts De' Rossi's 'donnesca grazia' with
the unqualified grazia he has observed in works by male
artists, he also lays blame squarely on the scultrice for the
dissipation of her creative powers. Once expressed, her
passionate infatuation has robbed her of the desire to do
any more work. While this is not the sole example of the
sad repercussions of carnal cravings - Raphael, for
example, 'kept up his secret love affairs and pursued his
pleasures with no sense of moderation', which led to his
demise when, 'on one occasion, he went to excess and
returned home afterwards with a violent fever'- it is the
only example where irrational love is the focus of life and
art. 29 If, as stated earlier, Vasari's characterization of
De'Rossi, because of its singularity, must disclose the
strengths and weaknesses of women artists, then the
rhetoric or panegyric has fulfilled its ethical function.
Historical fact, tempered with moral instruction, has
been offered and the judgement of the one has become the
potential and potent criticism of the many.
Although Vasari's life of Properzia De'Rossi is unique
in its narrowly focused attention on the unification oflife
and art, its blend of fact and fiction is typically
characteristic of the Vite as a whole. As Goldstein has
rightly observed, 'Vasari has been judged guilty of a
certain amount of "mythologizing". He wrote in the
Italian novelistic tradition. But if his form drew inspi-
ration from the novelle, his content has been understood as
coming from the more historically reliable sources: oral
reports, family papers, etc. ' 30 The vita of Properzia
De'Rossi appears to substantiate this assessment of the
author. As noted, there are significant parallels between
historical records and Vasari's account of the sculptor's
life. Yet Vasari's De'Rossi, who was beautiful, talented in
the musical and visual arts, 'excellent not only in
household matters ... but also in sciences without
number', reflects not only Vasari's tendency to mythol-
ogize (and idealize) the artist, it also mirrors contempor-
aneous notions of woman that were appearing in ever
increasing numbers of tracts and treatises on the subject.
In choosing to gloss over the more sordid details of
De'Rossi's life, Vasari simply adhered to the didactic
patterns of exemplification that shape other biographical
catalogues of illustrious personages. 31
This brings us back to the previously posed question.
Did Vasari wilfully dismiss the truth about the concubina-
scultrice or simply veil it with his interpretation of Joseph
and Potiphar~ Wife? As a corollary to this query, we might
further inquire as to the exact nature of this veil.
Certainly, it cannot be said to conceal anything. Indeed,
126 FREDRIKA H. JACOBS
in contrast to the unsuccessful attempt by De'Rossi (and
Saffira) to disrobe the object of her desire, Vasari
eloquently lays bare the passions and frustrations of the
subject of his text. 32 Lomazzo and Costa were to see
through this covering and seize the opportunity to
complete that which V asari initiated. The likeness
between Properzia and Potiphar's wife would be
extended to include Sappho, the archetype of the creative
woman abandoned by her lover.
PROPERZIA AS SAPPHO
If the proposed likeness between Properzia and Poti-
phar's wife is intriguing for what it implies about
De'Rossi the woman, then Lomazzo's suggestion that the
scultrice may be compared to Sappho is still more
engrossing for what it insinuates about De'Rossi the
artist. More than in the case of Properzia De'Rossi,
credible biographical details concerning Sappho's life
have been overshadowed by a plethora of legendary
inventions. 33 As Dejean has noted, 'the few cliched poses
of classical literary figures - Socrates the teacher, for
example- that inhabit the popular imagination can in no
way be compared with either the variety or the narrative
complexity of the fictions that have circulated about
Sappho.' 34 On the one hand there is the Sappho hailed by
Plato, Plutarch, Catullus, Ausonius, and later Boccaccio
as the tenth muse, while on the other there is Tatian's
Sappho, the 'love-crazy female fornicator who even sings
about her own licentiousness.' These characterizations,
no less than those that define Properzia De'Rossi -
Pompeo Vizani's gentildonna and the concubina recorded in
the Archivio Criminale di Bologna - simply do not
match. 35 Indeed, so great was the confusion surrounding
the identity of Sappho that Aelian alleges the presence
in Lesbos of two women with the same name. 36 In the
Varia Historia he describes one Sappho as 'the V ersifyer'.
This Sappho, Aelian claims, was 'among such as were
wise, learned and skillful.' But of the other Sappho he
says, 'I hear also that there was another Sappho in
Lesbos, a strong whore, and an arrant strumpet.' Given
the proposed likeness between Properzia and Potiphar's
wife, the analogy between the sculptor and the second
Sappho, 'a strong whore', becomes all the more
intriguing.
Even if such parallels were unintended, the suggestion
that De'Rossi was like the 'learned and skillful' Sappho
was not wholly positive, particularly in the light of the
company she shared in Lomazzo's text: Medea and
This be. As Mary Wack notes, 'cultural ideals of ration-
ality and self-control were [believed to be] threatened by
erotic love, which overthrew reasonable governance of
the body and mind .... The poetry of Sappho and Ovid
describes love's physical and psychological disruptions,
while the tragic stories of Medea, Hippolytus, and
Phaedra dramatize the threat to social order. "When
desire is doubled it becomes love; when love is doubled it
turns to madness." ' 37 IfSappho's poetry paints a portrait
of the lover wracked by the trials and tribulations of
ardent passion, the poet's supposed leap from the
Leukadian cliffs, no less than Medea's ravings and
destructive actions, demonstrates her madness, her mere
womanhood.
In Ovid's Epistulae Herodium, a collection of fictive
amatory epistles addressed to men by women who have
been seduced, betrayed and abandoned, the Epistula
Sapphus is both the longest and only romance that deals
with a historical figure with a prior literary existence. 38
But under the power of Ovid's pen, Sappho's historicity is
denied as he assumes her voice and intricately blends fact
with fiction. Because he does not indicate Sappho's non-
fictive status, Ovid reduces the poet to one more example
of an icon of female abandonment whose tragic story is a
creation of classical literature and legend. 39 As scholars
have noted, Ovid not only 'chose among contradictory
interpretations of Sappho those that suited his overall
intention and threaded those fragments together with a
story line,' he grafted the essentials of this tale onto her
own writings, thereby appropriating her voice by con-
structing parallel passages, advancing identical allusions,
and using similar motifs. 40 Indeed, so successful was he in
this task that the Epistula Sapphus was accepted as 'no
more than a translation of a Sapphic original' with the
result that it became her 'authorized' biography. 41
The myth of Sappho shaped by Ovid is the story of a
woman debilitated not by homosexual love, as scurri-
lously recounted by Menander, Horace, Lucian, the
author of the Suidae Lexicon, and others, but one enervated
by heterosexual passion. 42 Whether this reflects Ovid's
appropriation of her subjectivity in order to diminish her
status as an influential female precursor as Jacobson,
Dejean and others have suggested, need not be argued
here. 43 What is of consequence is that Ovid used the
poetic language of Sappho against her just as Vasari,
Lomazzo and Costa were to turn Properzia's imagery
against her. Following the 'quasi disperata' mania that is
induced by desire and infatuation, both women pur-
portedly sank into a depression that was to have tragic
consequences. For both, life and art are inseparable, or so
the critics of their works would have us believe, and
inevitably destructive. Accordingly, at the mid-point of
the Epistula Sapphus, the poet confesses to a failing of her
poetic powers, lamenting that what you love makes you
what you are- 'sive abeunt studia in mores'. What she is-
'sola', 'deserta' and 'relicta' - is a lovesick and debilitated
woman. The same may be said of the many portrayals of
Properzia De'Rossi. Having made herself one with
Saffira, she ceases to produce works for San Petronio. Not
surprisingly, Ovid, who portrays the poet no longer in full
possession of her literary powers, but at a time when
genius and towering poetic stature have diminished, has
Sappho say, "'My former power in song will not respond
to the call; ... mute for grief is my lyre."' 44 Similarly,
Costa's Properzia De'Rossi proclaims, 'I no longer find
pleasure in nature and art . . . loosen me from this
bothersome life. ' 45 According to Costa, her wish is
granted. Like Ovid's Sappho, she falls into the unhappy
state of'love languor' that inevitably claims her life. If, on
the one hand, Sappho and De'Rossi are artists empow-
ered by creative genius, then on the other they are
divested of that power by men who deny them their love
and thereby exert a paralyzing effect on their art and have
a destructive impact on their lives. 46 It is in this guise-
victims of lovers and victims of myth-makers - that
Sappho and De'Rossi came to be exemplars (or parodies)
of the archetypal creative female.
MELANCHOLIA OR EROTOMANIA?
While mythographers recount the tale of Sappho's
ultimate demise that is the result of her rejection by
Phaon, the poet herself provided them with fodder for the
story. In Fragment 31 she describes the symptoms of her
passion.
... for the instant I look upon you, I cannot anymore
speak one word,
But in silence my tongue is broken, a fine
fire at once runs under my skin,
with my eyes I see not one thing, my ears
buzz,
Cold sweat covers me, trembling
seizes my whole body, I am more moist than grass,
I seem to be little short of dying .. Y
Not surprisingly, the Sapphic ode sung by De'Rossi in
Costa's play bears a striking resemblance to Fragment 31.
Here too, the tongue cannot speak, the ears cannot hear, a
subtle fire runs through the veins yet a chill makes the
heart tremble, and the palf' skin takes on the pallor of
death. 48
Costa's Sapphic ode and Sappho's Fragment 31, as
well as Catullus's version of it! 'llle mi par esse deo
videtur,' and Longinus's commentary on it, detail the
physical and emotional responses experienced by the
impassioned lover. 49 The afflicted loses the ability to
speak, she is alternately hot and cold, and she suffers a
general sense of confusion or an inability to concentrate
because her eyes cannot focus and a persistent buzzing in
her ears inhibits hearing. Her 'disease' manifests all of the
symptoms of melancholia, for 'like water, sometimes [the
melancholic temperament] is cold, and sometimes hot.' 50
Indeed, lovesickness, or erotomania, was associated with
mania, melancholy, phrensis and other illnesses of
the soul affecting the body and, until the fourth century
and even thereafter, was viewed as either a
127
subtype of or precursor to the first and second of these
maladies. 5 1 But despite the physiological likeness of these
maladies - insomnia, anorexia, depression - the differ-
ence between melancholy and lovesickness was as great
as that between hot and cold, exaltation and despair,
male and female, and, most importantly, creative produc-
tion and debilitating stasis.
In order to understand how such polarized 'diseases'
could be associated one must consider how erotic and
creative melancholy occur. Both begin with sight and
sensation. The form of the object of sensation passes
through the eyes to the frontal lobe of the anterior
ventricle which is occupied by the common sense (sensus
communis). The dorsal lobe of the same ventricle hosts
fantasy, or retentive imagination (phanlasia, imaginalio). 52
Only after the object of sensation has reached the dorsal
lobe of the middle ventricle, which is the locus of
imaginative power where fantasy comes in relation to the
rational soul via cognition (virtus cogitativa) causing that
object to be evaluated (virtus aeslimaliva), will the func-
tions of erotic and creative melancholic minds diverge.
For those with erotomania, the object of sensation
becomes a fixed reality. The object of desire- Sappho's
Phaon and Properzia's 'handsome young man who
seemed to care but little for her' - becomes an obsessive
idea that polarizes all the cognitive activities, drying and
chilling the brain. Reason is overpowered and amor
concupiscentiae takes over. But for those with creative
melancholia the object of sensation transcends corporeal
reality as creative heat intensifies, negating devitalizing
cold. Thus, the source of sensation does not become an
obsessive infatuation, rather it transmutes into a beauti-
ful object that mirrors aspects of the divine, refracting, as
it were, God's image. With fantasy having been success-
fully subjected to the virtus cogitaliva and judged by the
virtus aestimativa, it now progresses to the posterior
ventricle, which is occupied by memory (virtus conservativa
el memoria/is) and preserves non-sensitive impressions.
Thus, the creative melancholic is poised for the quest for
truth, an inspired quest that will lead him back to the
source from which we all descend and enable him to
become one of the privileged, elite and empowered: a
creative genius. 53
In its initial phase, that is until the visible sensation
reaches the middle ventricle, melancholy and its somatic
symptoms are not gender specific. 54 Both sexes may
experience the alternating states of hot and cold that can
result from a surplus of black bile, or atra hi/is. But the
essential coldness of women hinders their ability to
generate enough heat to counteract the ill effects of their
humoral condition, thereby making it impossible for
them to rise above the pathological aspects of the
disease. 55 This, it would appear, is the sad fate suffered by
Sappho and De'Rossi. The object of sensation - Phaon,
128 FREDRIKA H. JACOBS
De'Rossi's unnamed beloved, and all of the emotions
their presence arouses - cannot be rationally evaluated.
Because all powers are subject to the aestimativa, the
corruption of estimation brings about the derangement of
the other faculties of the soul. Thus, rather than enter into
a state of divinely inspired madness or frenzy, victims of
erotomania inevitably sink into a sluggish and despon-
dent malaise. 56 Certainly, this is the case with both the
poet and sculptor. Before their predictable deaths, both
ceased to work. The intellectual concentration and
egoistical meditation on the higher celestial self that
incites creativity in the melancholic evades them. Conse-
quently, they are left with only a chronic incapacity to do
more than remain fixated on the object of carnal desire.
In this pathological form of melancholy, madness
becomes the disease of the lovesick imagination, an
obsessive presence of the phantasma, or as Pietro Aretino
described it, 'poison at lunch, wormwood at dinner ...
your fancy is always fixed on one thing; until I am
astonished that it is possible for the mind to be in so
continuous a tempest without losing itself.' 57
Such humorally induced madness, that which plagues
'those who are desperately in love', is not to be confused
with the 'amatory madness' that 'propels the lover on his
flight to Saturnine oneness.' 58 According to Ficino, one
comes from the brain, the other is rooted in the heart. 59
While the latter takes the form of a tragic impulse that
results in a complete physiopsychological breakdown, the
former leads to a psychic matrix of inspiration and
invention. In contrast to the debilitating torpor and
despondency that overtakes the obsessed sufferer of erotic
melancholy, the human ralionalis of the Saturnine melan-
cholic remains strong. Mania is his mark of genius.
If illnesses associated with madness in general were not
gender specific - melancholy, mania, hysteria and
lycanthropy - those forms of the disease specifically
related to 'amatory madness' - creative frenzy and
lovesickness - were. 'Why is that all men who have
become outstanding in philosophy, statesmanship,
poetry or the arts are melancholic?' - men like
Empedocles, Plato, Socrates, Ficino, Robert Burton and
Michelangelo. 60 This query spawns another: what may
be said of the opposite sex? The answer is straightfor-
ward. Women fell victim to a more moderate and cooler
form of melancholy, one that impeded rather than
promoted creative productivity. Admittedly Sappho
appears on many lists of melancholies, but she does so
precisely to the extent that she represents erotomania, a
form of melancholy that has little to do with what
Michelangelo described as 'Ia mia allegrezza e Ia
maniconia.' The same may be said of 'l'aspetto grave e
malinconico' that devastated Costa's Properzia De'Rossi.
The construction of De'Rossi's life by Vasari and
Lomazzo in the sixteenth century to that by Costa in the
nineteenth century follows a predictably biased path.
Seneca's often quoted claim, 'Never has there been great
talent without some touch of madness,' excused, even
glorified as eccentric, the manic behavior of a group of
elite males. But the same behavior in females was
downgraded to madness - a madness that often was tied
to concupiscence. 5 1 Because the gendering of melancholy
went hand in hand with the gendering of genius, victims
of erotomania and hysteria were denied cultural and
literary legitimacy. Her condition was one of illness, his
was the gift of inspiration. This is not to say that male
artists did not also suffer from debilitating melancholy, or
depression. According to Vasari, Andrea Feltrini was
'tortured by a melancholic humor [uno umor malinconico].
He was often on the point of taking his life, but he was so
closely watched and so well guarded by his companion
Mariotto that he lived to be an old man.' But unlike the
erotic melancholy that overcame De'Rossi, the malaise
that gripped Feltrini was brought on by a fear of'exacting
money for his labors. ' 62 Still more interesting is the
melancholy suffered by Torrigiano, Michelangelo's
envious attacker. Accused of heresy by the Duke of Arcos
following a characteristic display of anger, Torrigiano
'was imprisoned and examined every day ... At last he
was judged worthy of a very heavy punishment. But it
was never carried out because [he] fell into such a state of
melancholy [maninconia] that he remained several days
without food, and, becoming gradually weaker, he
died.' 63 In characteristic fashion, Vasari reinforces
Michelangelo's virtue by pointing to Torrigiano's vice.
Such a juxtaposition similarly underscores the brooding
melancholic virtues of the great master - his virtus
cogitativa and virtus aestimativa- and Torrigiano's lack of
these same qualities. He can tame his irrational anger no
better than De'Rossi can quell her unreasonable pas-
sions. Putting aside the obvious differences in these case
studies - the female artist is a victim of erotomania, the
males are victims of humoral imbalances that induce fear
and anger- the fact remains that in the 1550 edition of the
Vite Properzia stands alone as a woman artist. While
Torrigiano's form of melancholia is offset by that of
Michelangelo, De'Rossi's 'malinconico' cannot be
assessed in light of an example of a woman melancholic
who recuperates loss through creative frenzy. She
remains, therefore, as Lomazzo and Costa claim, a
progeny of Sappho.
In its formal structural elements Vasari's life of
Properzia De'Rossi is not unusual. Analogy and anecdote
characteristically reveal the personality of the artist while
simultaneously conveying the moral point of view of the
author. 64 If we follow a time-honored tradition and seek
'the explanation of the work of art . . . in the man or
woman who produced it,' then Vasari's biography of
Properzia will not be a disappointment. 65 And if we
'accept ... that the early modern view of the artist which
survives in the Lives represents the response of the men of
the time and operates on the level of myth, fiction, and
history,' we are similarly satisfied. 66 The explanation for
joseph and Potiphar's Wife is found in 'Ia misera donna era
innamoratissima d'un bel giovane' and this composes the
myth and fiction ofDe'Rossi's life. Characteristically, the
story of Properzia De' Rossi's life and work demonstrates
the extent to which biography and aesthetic commentary
might be conjoined. It also demonstrates what is true of
women's biography in general. 'Subjects are viewed as
products of predetermined forces, their life situations are
usually reduced to essentialisms that relate to ... their
sexuality', thereby 'reducing them to what the patriar-
chal ideology construes to be their nature and making
them ahistorical by universalizing them based on that
essentialization. ' 67
NOTES
1 -Antonio Saffi, Discorso dell' Accademia di Belli Arti, Bologna, 22
Giungno t8p (Bologna: Volpe, 1832), pp. 6-7.
2 - Saffi, p. 15.
3- The intagliatrici are the unnamed daughter of Valerio Vincentino
- see Giorgio Vasari, Le vile deio piu eccellenti pittori, scultori ed
arclutettori, ed. Gaetano Milanese (Florence: G. C. Sansoni, 1go6), V,
p. 379 - and Diana Scultori - see Stefania Massari, Jncisori Mantovani
del '5oo Giovan Battista, Adamo, e Diana Scultori et Giorgzo Ghisi (Rome:
DeLuca, 1g8o), and Paolo Bellini, L'Opera di Adamo e Diana Scultori
(Vicenza: Neri Pozza, 1991). Veronica Sala, Margarita Barza, and
Caterina Leuca Cantona and her daughter Barbara are the
ricamatrici. See Paolo Morigia, La Nobilitii di Milano (Milan: Gio.
Battista Bidelli, 1619), libro V, capitolo iii, p. 468, and libro V,
capitolo xviii, p. 495-497 ·
4- It should be noted, however, that the wife and daughter of Guido
Mazzoni reportedly worked in the family bot/ega. 'In ltalia
laudatissimus quondam Turanius Fregellanus nostra etate Vitus
Mazon Mutiensis, quem nuper nobis Gallia cum plerisque rebus
adstulit. Uxor cius etiam finxit et filia.' Presumably this refers to
Mazzoni's second wife, Isabella, rather than the first, Pellegrina degli
Agazzi, a woman of property who figured in the entourage of the
Duchess Eleonora of Ferrara. See Pomponius Gauricus, De Sculptura
seu statuaria libellus, 1504, eds. A. Chastel and R. Klein (Geneva,
196g), p. 249; Timothy Verdon, The Art of Guido Mau;oni (New York:
Garland Publishing, 1978), p. 292.
5- Vasari, V, p. 74· When, in his life ofEiisabetta Sirani, Malvasia
quotes this statement from Vasari he makes clear that the 'us' is,
indeed, 'gl'uomini.' Carlo Cesare Malvasia, Felsina Pittrice, ed.
Marcella Brascaglia (Bologna: Edizioni ALFA, 1971), p. 6o6.
Documents from the Archivio della fabbrica di San Petronio,
Bologna, confirm De'Rossi's active presence in the profession. Two
payments dated •:;January and 5 April 1526 record payments made
to Tribolo and Alfonso Lombardi for 'modelli fatti a Ia Propertia'.
See Vera Fortunati Pietrantonio, 'Per una storia della presenza
femminile nella vita artistica del cinquecento bolognese: Properzia
De Rossi "schultrice,"' II Carrobbio, VII (1981), pp. J68-•n
6 - Giorgio V asari, Le vite de 'piU eccellnrti architetti, pittori, et scultori
italiani, da Cimabue insino a'tempi nostri, eds. Luciano Bellosi and Aldo
Rossi (Torino: Giulio Einaudi, 1g86), pp. 728-731. Proper.da is less
of an anomaly in the second edition of 1568. To her vita, V, pp. 73-
81, are appended brief discussions of the lives of Suor Plautilla Nelli,
Lucrezia Quistelli, Sofonisba Anguissola and her sisters. She
129
remained, therefore, the only woman honored with her own
biographical entry which now was embellished with her portrait.
Further comments concerning the activities of Anguissola and her
own sisters were included in the life ofGiulio Campi, VI, pp. 498-502.
7- T. S. R. Boase, Giorgio Vasari: The Man and The Book (Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press, 1979), p. 3·
8- Paolo Costa, Opere Complete (Florence: G. Formigli E. P.
Fraticdli, 1839), III, p. 30. The attempted seduction of the
'handsome and good-looking' Joseph by Potiphar's wife is in Genesis
39: 1-23.
9- Vasari, V, pp. 76-77.
10- RaffaeUo Borghini, II Riposo (Florence, 1584), libro III,
PP· 427-428.
11 - Gian Paolo Lomazzo, Libro dei Sogni, sesto regionamento, in
Scritti sulle Arti, ed. Roberto Paolo Ciardi (Florence: Marchi &
Bertolli, 1973), I, pp. 155-156. It should be noted that Sappho, like
De'Rossi, was the subject of plays. See, for example, Gaetano Gioja,
Sa.ffo; ballo mitologico, 18 10; Giovanni Pacini, Sa.ffo, tragedia lirica in Ire
part1, 1858; and Jessie Norton, Sappho, a c/assico-historical play for girls,
c. 1894.
12- Costa, Ill, P. 23.
13 - Costa's play is, in fact, a story of true love recognized too late.
Obsessed by 'un uomo di bell' aspeuo e di animo gentile,' Properzia
is unable to see and accept the love proffered by Alfonso. She only
recognizes it as she takes her dying breath.
14- Saffi, p. 20. For a discussion of the relief and its proposed
likeness to the sculptor see V. Davia, Le sculture delle porte di s. Petronia
(Bologna, 1834), p. 24; M. Minghetti, 'Ledonne italiane nelle belle
arti al secoli XV e XVI', in Nuova Antologia di scitn<.e lellere e arti, 2nd
series, vol. XXXV (Florence, 1877), part II, pp. 5-21; Laura M.
Ragg, The Women ArtiSts of Bologna (London: Methuen, 1907),
pp. 174-181, Ignio Supino, Le sculture delle porte dis. petronio in Bologna
(Florence, 1914), pp. 55-61.
15- Paul Barolsky, Michelangelo's Nose, A Myth and its Maker
(University Park and London: Pennsylvania State University Press,
1ggo), pp. 23-30. The nose incident also explains, according to
Vasari, Torrigiano's own inadequacies as an artist. Had he expended
his energies on perfecting his art he would have been a better
sculptor. Vasari, IV, pp. 256-257.
16- Vasari, II, p. 678.
17 - Carl Goldstein, 'Rhetoric and art history in the Italian
Renaissance and Baroque', The Art Bulletin, LXXIII, 4 ( 1991 ),
p. 646. Also see C. M. Soussloff, 'Lives of poets and painters in the
Renaissance', Word & Image, 6/2 (1ggo), pp. 154-162; and Barolsky.
18 - Vasari, V, pp. 77-78.
19- Dante Alighieri, Inferno (Toronto, New York, London: Bantam
Books, 1g82), 30: 97, p. 278. For other didactic representations of
this theme see H. Diane Russell, Eva/Ave. Women in RenaiSsance and
Baroque Prints (Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, •ggo),
p. 156; Denis Mahon, Guercino, Master Painter of the Baroque
(Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 1992), pp. 284-286.
Artemisia Gentileschi'sjoseph and Potiphar's W!{e, c. 1622-21, differs
radically from other versions. 'Potiphar's wife is no longer a
caricatured blowsy wench, but rather - surely a conscious inversion -
more plausibly human than Joseph, a natural, flesh-and-blood
character, whose sexuality is the more convincing for its
understatement, in the exposure of a single breast, a shoulder, and a
knee'. See Mary D. Garrard, Artemisia Gentikschi (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 198g). pp. 78-83.
20 - V asari, V, p. 76, notes that 'by means of her husband',
Properzia secured work from the Operai di San Petronio. The
sculptor's marital status is corroborated by a document of 18 March
1515. See Ottavio Mazzoni-Toselli, Racconti storici estratti dall' Archivia
Criminate d1 Bologna (Bologna: Antonio Chierici, 1868), II, p. So.
130 FRE0 RI K A H • JA C0 BS
De'Rossi's situation, a married woman in love with another man,
finds parallels with Sappho as well as Saffira. Some sources name
Sappho's husband: Cercola.
21 - Mazzoni-Toselli, II, p. 118.
22 - Pompeo Vizani, I due ultimi libri delle historia della sua patria,
(Bologna: Gio. Rossi, 16o8), p. 1.
23- Vasari, I, p. g2.
24 - It should be noted that the testimony of the 1520-21 trial has
been lost.
25- Vasari, V, p. 77· In truth, De'Rossi was paid a fee
commensurate with that given to other artists for similar works. See
M. Gualandi, Memorit originalr italiane rigardanti le Belle Arti (Bologna:
184o-45), Series V, pp. 93-95; Mazzoni-Toselli, II, pp. 10of.; and
Ragg, pp. 178-181. Not surprisingly, the character of a malicious
Aspertini also makes an appearance in Costa's play. Costa, II, p. 27.
26- Vasari, V, pp. 76-77-
27- For an example of Vasari's use of the interdependence of virtue
and virtuosity see his life of Filippo Lippi in the first edition of the
Vile. Vasari, 1g86, p. 372. 'If someone who is truly a virtuoso has some
vice that is blameworthy and ugly, then it [virtuosity) greatly
restores virtu, for in a virtuoso it seems almost not a sin, whereas in
someone who is not a virtuoso, it [vice) will he ridiculed and
punished.'
28- Va.~ri, V, pp. 76-77. 'Dove (percioche in quel tempo Ia misera
donna era innamoratissimia d'un bel giovane, il quale pareva che
poco di lei si curasse) fecr Ia moglie del maestro di casa di Farone,
chc innamoratosi di Giosep, quasi disperata del tanto pregarlo,
all' ultimo gli togli Ia veste d'auorno con una donnesca grazia e piu
che mirabile.'
29- Vasari, IV, p. 381.
30- Goldstein, p. 644. Also see Soussloff, pp. 154-162; E. Kris and
0. Kurz, Legend, Myth, and Magic in the Image of the Artist: A Historical
Experiment (New Haven .tnd London: Yale University Press, 1979).
31 -For a discussion of characterizations of the ideal lady see Ian
Maclean, The RenaiSsance Notion of Woman (Cambridge, London and
New York: Cambridge University Press, 1g8o), pp. 47-67;
Margaret L. King, Women of the Renaissance (Chicago and London:
University of Chicago Press, 1991); and Pamela Benson, The Invention
~f the Renaissance Woman (University Park and London: Pennsylvania
State University Press, 1992).
32 - I''or a discussion of veiling and unveiling in mannerist poetry see
James V. Mirollo, Mannerism and Renaissance Poetry, Concept, Mode, Inner
Design (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1g84),
pp. 99-124.
33- Jane Mcintosh Snyder, The Woman and the Lyre, Women Writers in
Classical Greece and Rome (Carbondale and Edwardsville, IL: Southern
Illinois University Press, 198g), pp. 1-37.
34- Joan Dejean, Fictions of Sappho, 1546-1937 (Chicago and London:
Univrrsity nfChic.ago Prl'ss, 1g8g), p. 1.
35 - Vizani, p. 1; Plato, Anthologia Palatina g. so6; Plutarch,
Amatorius, 18; and Tatianus, Ad Graecos, 53A, cited in Snyder, pp. 1,
g.
36 - Claudius Aelian, Varia Historia, ed. Mervin R. Dilts (Leipzig:
Teuber, 1974). Also see Edith Mora, Sappho: Histoire d'un poete et
traduction intigrale dt /'oeuvre (Paris: Flammarion, 1966), pp. 16, 129,
and Mary R. Lefkowitz, 'Critical stereotypes and the poetry of
Sappho', Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, XIV (1973), pp. 113-123.
37- Mary Frances Wack, Lovesickness in the Middle Ages. The VIATICUM
and Its Commentaries (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania
Press, tggo), p. 6.
38 - Ovid, Heroides and Amores, trans. Grant Showermann
(Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press and
William Heinemann, 1!)86), XV, pp. 18o-197.
39- Dejean, 1g8g, p. 67.
40- Dejean, 1989, p. 66.
41 - Howard Jacobson, Ovid's 'Heroules' (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1974), p. 286.
42- It is worth noting that Vasari introduces De'Rossi by listing the
names of 39 illustrious women. Sappho is among them. She was, he
says, 'a woman who surpassed the foremost writers of her day, if she
really was a woman' (La quale in vero se benfo donna, ellafo periJ tale).
Vasari, V, p. 73· For a brief overview of interpretations of Sappho's
sexual preference see Sarah B. Pomeroy, Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and
Slaves (New York, 1975), pp. 53-56; judith P. Hallet, 'Sappho and
her context: sense and sensuality', Signs, IV (1979), pp. 447-464; Eva
Stehle Stigers, 'Romantic sensuality, poetic sense: a response to
Hallet on Sappho', Szgns, IV (1979), pp. 465-471;joan E. DeJean,
'Fictions ofSappho', Cntzcal/nquiry, XIII (1987), pp. 787-805. For
Ovid on Sappho see Linda Kauffman. DIScourses of Desire; Gender,
Genre and Epistolary Fictions (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,
lg86), pp. 3o-61.
43- Jacobson, pp. 277-299; Dejean, and Mora. Also see Florence
Verducci, Ovid's Toyshop of the Heart: Epistulae Herodium (Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985), and Glenda McLeod, Vzrtue
and Venom, Catalogs of Women from Antiquzty to the Rmazssance (Ann
Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1991).
44- Dejean, 1990, p. 67.
45 - Costa, III p. 34·
46 - Ovid is explicit on this point, having Sappho, as she is poised to
leap to her death, say, 'My genius had its power from him; with him
they are swept away,' Herozdes, XV, 206, p. 195·
47- The translation is by Snyder, pp. 18-19. Beecher and Ciavolella
offer a different translation of these lines: •y ca, my tongue is broken,
and through and through me/ 'Neath the flesh, impalpable fire runs
tingling;/ Nothing see mine eyes, and a noise of roaring/ Waves in
my ears sounds;/ Sweat runs down in rivers, a tremor seizes/ All my
limbs, and a paler than grass autumn,/ Caught by pains of menacing
death, I falter,/ Lost in the love trance.' For the complete poem, as
well as Longinus's commentary on it (On the Sublime), see Jacques
Ferrand, A Treatise on Lovesickness, trans. and eds. Donald A. Beecher
and Massimo Ciavolella (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press,
1990), P· 40·
48- Costa, III, p. 34: 'Gii Dei fermo uguaglia, anzi si gode/ Gaudio
piu che divin quei che sedente/ AI tuo cospetto te rimira ed ode/
Dolce ridente./ Che se !'alta ventura unqua mi tocca/ D'esserti
appresso, o mio soave amore,/ Non io ti guardo ancor chi' su Ia
bocca/ La voce muore;/ Fassi inerte Ia lingua, il pensier tardo,/ Un
sottil fuoco va di vena in vena,/ Fischian gli orecchi, mi si appanna il
guardo, E veggo appena;/ Un gelido sudor tutta m'innonda,/ Mi
trema il cor, rabbrivida ogni membro;/ Mancami il fiato, e pallida
qual fronda/ Morta rassembro.'
49 - For the relationship between Sappho and Catullus see Richard
Jenkyns, Three Classical Poets: Sappho, Catullus, andjuvenal (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press and William Heinemann, 1953),
XXX, 1, 954b.
51 - Not surprisingly, perhaps, the symptoms of melancholy parallel
the oxymorons found in Sappho's lyrics, such as bittersweet, which,
not coincidentally, is a term Sappho has been credited with
inventing.
52 - For the relationship between phantasia and sensus communis see
David Summers, A judgement of Sense (Cambridge, London and New
York: Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 71-109.
53 - Discussions of the 'disease' and commentaries on the texts that
describe it are numerous. See, for example, Andre DuLaurens, A
Discourse of the Preservation of the Sight; of Melancholik Diseases; of
Rheumes, and of Old Age, trans. Richard Surphlet (London: Felix
Kingston for Ralph Lacson, 1599); Mario Equicola, Libro de natura dt
amore (Venice: L. Lorio da Portes, 1525); Marsilio Ficino, Commentary
on Plato's Symposium on Love, trans. Sears R. Jayne (Dallas: Spring
Publications, 1985); Ruth A. Fox, The Tangled Chain: The Structure of
Disorder in the Anato"!)) of Melancholy (Berkeley, CA: University of
California Press, 1976); Bernard Gorceix, 'La melancholie au XVIe
et XVIIe siecles: Paracelse etjacob Bohme', &cherches Gmnaniques,
IX (1979), pp. 18-29; Ruth E. Harvey, The Inward Wits: Psychological
Theory in the Middle Ages and the Rtnaissance (London: Warburg
Institute, 1975); Stanley W. Jackson, Melancholia and Depression from
Hzppocratic Times to Modern Times (New Haven, CT and London: Yale
University Press, 1986); RobertS. Kinsman, 'Folly, melancholy, and
madness: a study in shifting styles of medical analysis and treatment,
145o--1675', The Darker Vuzon of the Rmaissance (Berkeley and Los
Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 1974), pp. 273-320;
John Charles Nelson, &nazssance Theory of Love: The Context of Giordano
Bruno's 'Erozcrjuron' (New York and London: Columbia University
Press, 1963); Mario Pozzi, Trattat1 d'amore del Cinquecento (Rome-Bari:
Laterza, 1975); Rudolph E. Siegel, Galen on Psychology, Psychopathology,
and Functions and Dzseases of the Nervous System (Basel: S. Kargen,
1973); and Hubertus Tallenbach, Melancholy: History of the Problem,
Endogentity, Typology, Pathogenesis, CliniCal Consideratfons, trans.
Erlingeng (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 198o). For a
concise overview see Beecher and Ciavolella's introduction to
Ferrand, pp. 7o-82, gS-112.
54 - The similarity extends to at least one form of melancholy:
erotomania. See, for example, Galen's commentary on Hippocrates'
Epidemics in Wack, p. 8. 'I know men and women who burned in hot
love. Depression and lack of sleep overcame them. Then, one day, as
a result of their love-sorrows they became fevered ... .' The torments
of justus' wife (Galen, Prognostics) and Pndica's Malady detail the
effects of lovesickness in women and men.
55- See Juan Huarte, The Examination of Men's Wits (Examen de
lngenios, 1975), trans. Richard Carew (London: Adam Islip for
Thomas Man, 1594), p. 5· For an overview of humoral theory and
female physiology see Maclean, pp. 28-46.
56 - Sibyls are an exception to the rule. See pseudo Aristotle,
Problems, XXX, 954a. Juliana Schiesari, The Gendtring of Melancholia
(Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1992), p. 6, notes that
while these women possess a moderate amount of heat that
distinguishes them as 'uncommon' they are nonetheless 'generic'
inasmuch as men of similar disposition are named: Plato,
Empedocles, Ajax, etc.
57- Ferrand, p. 12.
58 - Marsilio Ficino, De Vita Triplici, trans. Charles Boer (Dallas,
TX: .Spring Publications, 1g8o), p. 7·
59 - Ancient sources vary on the source of melancholy and its
various forms. Aristotle, for example, assigns central roles in the
generation of erotic appetites to the reproductive organs as well as
the heart. On the Soul, I, iv, 4o8b 1-15. For Plato, Phaedrus, 25od, eros
is love of the beautiful, and the beautiful pleases because it is a
reflection of the Idea, whose presence is felt by the human soul.
According to the pseudo Aristotle, Problems, XXX, 9543, 'Those with
whom this temperament exists by nature, at once develop various
types of character, differing according to their different
temperaments; those for instance in whom the bile is considerable
and cold become sluggish and stupid, while those with whom it is
excessive and hot become mad, clever, or amorous ... But many,
because this heat is near to the seat of the mind, are affected by the
diseases of madness or frenzy, which accounts for the Sibyls,
soothsayers and all inspired persons.' Another proposed source for
the clouding vapors that invade the lungs and brain of the
melancholic was the womb (Jvrstera). Accordingly, 'the hysterical
woman was a shadowy (cold, wet, and vaporous) imitation of the
fiery melancholic male.' See Christine Battersby, Gender and Gemus.
Towards a Feminist Aesthetic (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana
University Press, 1989), p. 33·
6o - Aristotle, Probkms, XXX, 953a; Ficino and Burton were sel~
proclaimed melancholies. See The Letters of Marsilio Ficino (London,
1978), II, pp. 33--34; Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy
(Oxford: Chipps, 1621), p. 3· Raphael's supposed casting of
Michelangelo as Heraclitus in The School of Athens, Stanza della
Segnatura, is a visual demonstration of the association of the
melancholic temperament with artists. See David Summers,
Michelangelo and the Language of Art (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1981), p. 117: 'The connection between painting,
fantasy and melancholy followed easily from the postulates of
Renaissance medicine, as explained by the late Cinquecento writer,
Romano Alberti. This account, it should be noted, is not simply a
justification for eccentric behavior; it is also a demonstration of the
intellectual nature of painting ... "we sec that painters become
melancholies because, since they wish to imitate fantasms, they must
keep them fixed in the intellect, so that they may express them in the
way they had previously been present to the sight."' Michelangelo's
self-identification with Socrates is further evidence of this association.
See Barolsky, pp. 24-25. Also see Rudolf and Margot Wittkower,
Born Uruk-1 Saturn (New York: W. W. Norton, 196g).
132 FREDRIKA H. JACOBS
61 -Seneca, 'De Tranquillitate Animi', Moral Essays, trans. John W.
Basore (Ca~bridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press and
William Heinemann, 1965), XVII, pp. IQ-12. For a discussion of
female insanity and creativity see Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan
Gubar, The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-
Century Literary Imagination (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press,
1979).
62- Vasari, V, pp. 2o8, 210.
63- Vasari, IV, pp. 262-263.
64 - For studies of early biography see D. Stauffer, English Biography
Befort 1700 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1930), and
J. A. Garraty, The Nature of Biography (New York: Knopf, 1957). For
a discussion of some of the formal structural elements in artists' lives
see E. Kris and 0. Kurz.
65- Roland Barthes, 'The death of the author,' in Stephen Heath,
Roland Bart/res: Image, Music and Text (New York: Hill and Wang,
1977), p. 142.
66 - Soussloff, p. 161.
67- Kathleen Barry, 'The new historical syntheses: women's
biography', journal of Women's History, I ( 1990), pp. 75-76.