Diana Mantuana (1547 - 1612). Diana Scultori was an Italian engraver from Mantua, Italy. She is one of the earliest known women printmakers, making mostly reproductive engravings of well-known paintings or drawings, especially those of Raphael and Giulio Romano, or ancient Roman sculptures. She was one of four children of the sculptor and engraver Giovanni Battista Scultori and the sister of the artist Adamo Scultori, who was many years older. Both of them are often called Ghisi from the family's close association with Giorgio Ghisi, a more significant artist, and a misreading of a remark by Vasari. Diana learned the art of engraving from her father, and probably her brother. She was mentioned in the second edition of Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Artists. In 1565, she met her first husband, the architect Francesco da Volterra. The pair moved to Rome by 1575. Once in Rome, Diana used her knowledge of business within the art world to advance her husband's career. On 5 June 1575, she received a Papal Privilege to make and market her own work. She used the importance of signature and dedication to her advantage. Three years later she gave birth to her son Giovanni Battista Capriani. Both Diana symbolically and Francesco actively became members of the Archconfraternity of the Cord of Saint Joseph during their artistic careers. The last known print by Diana dates 1588. After the death of her husband, she remarried another architect, Giulio Pelosi. She died in 1612. Engraving of Amphion and Zethus Tying Dirce to a Wild Bull - The Farnese Bull, a famous Roman sculpture recently excavated. The cultural changes associated with the Italian Renaissance were providing women greater opportunities to study art, and it became possible for female artists to gain international reputations. The work of Diana Scultori, born in 1547, is a reflection of this changing climate. One of three daughters of the Scultori family, as a woman she was unable to have a formal apprenticeship, but her father taught her his trade. Despite her lack of education in drawing specifically, she was able to use drawings from other artists to learn how to produce engravings. It was not unusual for the daughters of artisans to be trained in the family craft, but it was considered uncommon for a daughter to be trained in engraving and to make it a career as she did. She received her first public recognition as an engraver in Giorgio Vasari's second edition of Vites. After her marriage in 1575 to the aspiring architect Francesco da Volterra, the couple moved to Rome. Here, the focus of her work was reinterpreting works by artists linked to her husband and the papal workshops. Most prints were made to promote and support his career as an architect. She was well known for being concerned with maintaining a good reputation. She was regarded as a keen business woman, and one of the few women artists whom Vasari mentioned in the 1568 edition of his Lives, noting that she engraves so well that it is a thing to marvel at; and I who saw her, a very gentle and gracious girl, and her works, which are most beautiful, was struck with amazement. She worked within the restrictions encountered by artists of her time, female or otherwise. She used other artists' work as a foundation for her prints, but most of the drawings for her engravings came from either her husband, a family member, including her father, or an artist contemporary with whom she and her husband were acquainted. The Snakeholder, after Giulio Romano On 5 June 1575, the year of her first dated print, Scultori received the Papal Privilege to make and market her own work. Applying for a papal privilege was a fairly unusual practice before the papacy of Gregory XIII, especially for women, and it allowed her to establish a name for her household. Resembling a book-printing privilege, it is about 300 words in length and names Diana aswife of Franciscus Cipriani the architect, who is staying in this our alma Urbe. and indicates that she learned her art from her father. The privilege suggests that Diana applied for it because she was reluctant to print her engravings without a license and it was to protect her engravings from being copied and then sold by others of either sex, but most especially book dealers, sculptors, engravers and printers. The privilege rendered any unlicensed publisher or vendor of her engravings liable to a heavy fine of approximately 500 ducati. Of this, one third would have gone to the Pope in office, one third to Diana, and the final third to the judge who issued the decision, naturally encouraging a judgment in favor of the artist. In addition to such a fine, immediate excommunication from the Catholic Church would be incurred.
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