In his Lives of the Artists, Giorgio Vasari prefaces his biography of the Bolognese sculptor Properzia de’ Rossi (1490–1530) with a catalogue of female writers, poets, philosophers, grammarians, and astrologers of the classical past. At the conclusion of this Vita, Vasari pays tribute to three female painters of his own time—all alive at the time he wrote—who are as successful “in design and as clever in painting as Properzia was in sculpture.” The first, “la prima,” from which the title of our exhibition derives, was Suor Plautilla Nelli (1524–1588) who, Vasari says, “has done some things so well as to excite the wonder of artists.”
Vasari’s brief tribute to Plautilla in the Lives was tempered, and his praise of her is couched by a slightly patronizing recognition of her putative disadvantages—her gender, religious avocation, and limited artistic training. These constraints were in fact quite real and so we can only marvel at the extent of her success as an artist, given her lack of a master, limited exposure to art outside of the convent, and the religious responsibilities she held within it as prioress of Santa Caterina da Siena.
Plautilla’s paintings are exemplars of profound humility and devotion, her career a successful fulfillment of her calling, as she produced artworks of distinction and beauty both for their own sake and as a practical means of supporting her convent.It is hoped that this exhibition may encourage further study of this worthy and enterprising artist whose life is only minimally documented but whom we have come to know and esteem from the legacy of her art.
