66 MARCH/APRIL 2022being gloomy and austere. Nevertheless, So-
fonisba’s long sojourn in Madrid was marked
by close friendships, especially with Queen Is-
abel, who on arrival in Madrid was only 14 years
old. Sofonisba stayed by her side through her
pregnancies, and taught the royal children—
Isabella Clara Eugenia and Catalina Micaela.
These art classes helped forge an intimate
bond with the family. In 1561 an Italian am-
bassador reported: “Sofonisba the Cremonese
says that her pupil [Queen Isabel] is very good
and paints naturally with a crayon in a way that
one recognizes the sitter.” Sofonisba’s royal
portraits included her 1565 likeness of King
Philip. Her familiarity with some of the other
sitters, especially Queen Isabel, and later, her
two daughters, enabled her to blend warmth
and expressiveness with the rigid canons of
royal portraiture.
In 1568 tragedy struck when Queen Isabel,
23, died in childbirth. Italian ambassadors re-
ported Sofonisba’s intense grief at her friend’s
death. Even though many of Isabel’s cour tiers
left Madrid after her death, Sofonisba re-
mained at the request of Philip II, who wanted
her to help educate the young princesses Isa-
bella Clara Eugenia and Catalina Micaela (in
Spain, known as the infantas). Her positionat the court allowed her to achieve near-
unprecedented fame for a female artist.
Although many art historians now believe that
some of her works have been wrongly attrib-
uted to other painters—notably the chief court
painter, Alonso Sánchez Coello—it is clear
that Sofonisba was highly regarded at court. A
stream of pensions from the monarch attest to
her high standing at the palace.
In 1573 King Philip approved the marriage
of Sofonisba to a Sicilian nobleman, Fabrizio
Moncada, and provided his brilliant court
painter with a dowry. The infantas, then six
and seven, attended the proxy ceremony
in Madrid. The couple set up home in Sic-
ily, but their marriage was cut short by
Fabrizio’s death, at the hand of pirates,
in 1579.
Details of Sofonisba’s life on the island
are scarce, but it appears she kept working.
In 2008 researchers confirmed the discovery
of a document proving Sofonisba’s author-
ship of a painting of a Madonna in the Sicil-
ian church of Santa Maria de la Annunziata,
in Paternò. For centuries, the work—one of a
small number of religious paintings she pro-
duced—had been wrongly attributed to an-
other painter.Undimmed by Age
Sofonisba returned to northern Italy, possibly
to be near her family. After remarrying, she
lived in Genoa, where she may have painted
the then adult infantas. She lived there for 35
years. When she was in her 80s, and nearly
blind, she moved with her second husband
back to Sicily, where, in 1624 she was visited
by painter Anthony Van Dyck.
The young baroque artist was deeply im-
pressed by his encounter with the doyenne of
Renaissance art, immortalizing her in a portrait
in which her spirit burns on through her lined
face and tired eyes. She died in 1625, around
age 93. Her husband had these words engraved
on her tomb in the church of San Giorgio dei
Genovesi: “To Sofonisba, one of the illustri-
ous women of the world for her beauty and for
her extraordinary natural abilities, so distin-
guished in portraying the human image that
no-one of her time could equal her.”FAMILY PRIDE
In 1556 Sofonisba
painted a miniature
self-portrait that
featured a monogram
of her father’s name
(detail, above).
Around the edge, a
Latin inscription says
“Painted from a mirror
by her own hand,
Sofonisba Anguissola,
virgin from Cremona.”
Museum of Fine Arts,
BostonHISTORIAN ALESSANDRA PAGANO WRITES ON ARTISTS OF THE RENAISSANCE ERA.
SHE IS ALSO A SPECIALIST ON ART FROM HER NATIVE ITALIAN REGION OF CALABRIA.SCALA, FLORENCELEGENDARY
NAMES
S
ofonisba Anguissola’s name had an-
cient origins. Her father traced his an-
cestors to the Cartha ginians,
the North African empire
that invaded Italy in the third cen-
tury b.c. during the Punic Wars.
Her first name belonged to a
virtuous Carthaginian prin-
cess. Her surname derives
from a legend told about
another ancestor, a Byz-
antine nobleman who
pulled off a stunning
victory over the Umayy-
ad Muslims in the eighth
century. His successors be-
came known as “Anguissola”
because his shield featured an
eel—in Latin, anguillae.