The Renaissance of Sofonisba Anguissola (2019)
What a year 2019 was for Sofonisba Anguissola. Sofonisba realized her own Renaissance in 2019. She was championed by the Prado Museum in Madrid with its exhibition A Tale of Two Women Painters or Historia de Dos Pintoras, that ran starting October 22, 2019. She was dramatized in Lady in Ermine: the Story of a Woman Who Painted the Renaissance, published in 2019. Sofonisba is now recognized as a master Renaissance painter as never before and her contributions to advancing portraiture can no longer be denied and discounted.
Four hundred and forty years ago, in the final days of December 1579, Sofonisba defied tradition, custom, her family, and the advice of Francesco de Medici, and consummated a marriage to Captain Orazio Lomellini that resembled an elopement. She broke the dictates of custom and made an independent decision that altered the course of her life, for better and for worse. I admire Sofonisba’s courage and capture her self-determination in Chapter 25 of Lady in Ermine.
And therefore, channeling Sofonisba’s creative independence, and with my publisher’s gracious agreement, I will be re-launching Lady in Ermine in 2020, Author’s Revision, under my own imprint, A Lady in Ermine Press, with a fresh cover featuring the Palazzo Colonna Self Portrait that I so admired in Madrid on banners advertising the exhibition.
I am grateful to ACMRS (Bagwyn) for publishing Lady in Ermine in 2019 and for releasing to me the rights to Lady in Ermine in 2020. I look forward to viewing the Palazzo Colonna Self Portrait again in person after the image is on the cover of Lady in Ermine.
I am honored to help tell the story of Sofonisba Anguissola, master Renaissance painter, and I look forward to 2020.
Lady In Ermine: The Story of A Woman Who Painted The Renaissance 