Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 3.djvu/251

Rh not needful that I should make further mention. The best of the Sister Plaiitilla’s works are without doubt those that she has copied from others, but from these it is manifest that she would have effected admirable things if she had been able to study as men do, from the life, and had been furnished with the advantages of various kinds which the student in design acquires in drawing from nature, &c. The truth of this observation may be perceived clearly from a picture of the Nativity of Christ copied by Sister Plautilla from one which was painted by Bronzino for Filippo Salviati, and is furthermore made manifest by the fact that the figures and faces of women, whom she could study at her pleasure, are much more satisfactorily rendered in her works than are those of men, and have a much closer resemblance to the truth of nature. In some of her pictures this artist has given the portrait of Madonna Costanza de’ Doni in her female heads; this lady is considered one of the brightest examples of beauty and excellence that our times have produced, and her likeness has been thus depicted by Sister Plautilla in such a manner that for a woman who, for the causes above-mentioned, could not acquire any great extent of practice, nothing better could be desired.

In like manner, and to her great praise and glory, has Madonna Lucrezia, the daughter of Messer Alfonso Quistelli della Mirandola, devoted and still devotes herself to drawing and painting, under the guidance of Alessandro Allori. This lady, who is now the wife of the Count Clemente Pietra, has produced works which, as may be seen by many pictures and portraits by her hand, are worthy of commendation from all. But with more zeal and in a more graceful manner than any other woman of our time, has the Cremonese Sophonisba, daughter of Messer Annibale Anguisciola,