The antique heroines of Elisabetta Sirani

The painter Elisabetta Sirani (1638-1665), a pivotal figure in promoting the prominence of women artists in her native city of Bologna, was innovative in her portrayals of heroines from classical antiquity. Avoiding the eroticism generally employed by male contemporaries like Guido Reni, Sirani characterized such figures as Portia, Timoclea, and Cleopatra by virtues more commonly associated with men than women during the early modern period in Italy. Sirani's unusual approaches to antique subjects, grounded in her knowledge of pertinent texts, mark the emergence of women's specialization in history painting in Bologna, a development that must be understood in the context of Bolognese humanism and contemporary advances by Bolognese women in the fields of music and literature.