King François I’s Book of Hours! It belonged to the art-loving Knight-King, the first Renaissance King of France! It appears in my novels from time to time as François uses it quite often for prayers. Purchased in the 1530s, François used it every day. It is a stunning masterpiece of...
Lavinia Fontana: a talented and lucky female painter
Do you know at least one female artist in Renaissance Europe? Sofonisba Anguissola, Fede Galizia, Artemisia Gentileschi, and so forth. However, so few of the many talented women accomplished a lot in a man-dominated world of the time. One of them is Lavinia Fontana, who was born in Bologna in...