Effigies are for Girls: Representing Women in Death in Quattrocento Italy

• In Event: Lying in State: The Effigy in Early Modern Italian Funerary Art ca. 1400–1600 II

Abstract

Jacopo della Quercia’s famous tomb of Ilaria del Caretto is typically considered the only notable—and sometimes even the lone—female effigy from fifteenth-century Italy. This paper looks beyond Ilaria to many other effigial tombs created for women in that century and examines how they were adapted to an array of biographical concerns and commemorative motivations. Although always “asleep,” the range of features presented in these effigies belies attempts to group them into a monolithic type. Specifically, this paper examines how these figures were dressed, their facial features—including whether they were youthfully ideal or virtuously wizened—and their attributes, such as dogs, prayer books, or empty hands. It concludes that these public portraits of women in death thoughtfully engaged varied commemorative modes, particularly regarding ideals of beauty and virtue. These strategic choices lay the groundwork for sixteenth-century changes, which included greater numbers and greater representational diversity in women’s effigies.

Author

• Brenna Graham, Independent Scholar