IRENE DI SPILIMBERG.
A bright example, and the pride of the Venetian school in her day, was Irene di Spilimberg, born at Udina in 1540, of a noble and illustrious family, originally of German origin. She exercised her art at its most flourishing period. She was educated in Venice, surrounded by all the luxury of external and intellectual life, and she had Titian for her master. Her fame, however, rests rather on the testimony of her contemporaries than on her own works. Titian, ever alive to female loveliness and artistic merit, has immortalized her by a beautiful portrait; and Tasso has celebrated her charms in one of his sonnets. She died in the opening of her blossom of fame, in the flush of youth and beauty, having scarcely attained the age of nineteen. Her death was deplored in poems and orations, a collection of which was published in Venice twenty years after the event, to set forth the splendid promise which the destroyer had thus untimely nipped.
Among her works still extant are the Bacchanals in Monte Albedo, and small pictures from religious subjects said to be in the possession of the Maniago family. Lanzi remarks: “The drawing is careless, but the coloring is worthy of the best age of art. We see the reflected rays of her great master’s glory, the soft yet rapid gradations of tint, the clear touches, the repeated applications of color, which give a veiled transparency to the tints; the judicious grouping, the combined majesty and grace in the figures, which constitute some of the merits of Titian.” Irene is said to have been a woman of the highest mental culture. Rudolphi includes her among the few women artists he mentions.
The sixteenth century was not only remarkable for the production of talent, but for its recognition. Another artist belonging to the Venetian school was Vincenza Armani, who was accomplished in engraving and modeling in wax, and was also celebrated as a poet and musician.