Page:Women in the Fine Arts From the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentiet.djvu/32

Rh studied under Domenichino, Giovanni Lanfranco, Guido Reni, the Campi, and others. Sofonisba Anguisciola, Elisabetta Sirani, and the numerous women artists of Bologna were of this school.

The greatest excellence of this art was of short duration; it declined as did the literature, and indeed, the sacred and political institutions of Italy in the seventeenth century. It should not, however, be forgotten, that the best works of Guercino, the later pictures of Annibale Carracci, and the important works of Domenichino and Salvator Rosa belong to this period.

The second school was that of the Naturalists, who professed to study Nature alone, representing with brutal realism her repulsive aspects. Naples was the centre of these painters, and the poisoning of Domenichino and many other dark and terrible deeds have been attributed to them. Few women were attracted to this school, and the only one whose association with the Naturalisti is recorded—Aniella di Rosa—paid for her temerity with her life.

In Rome, Florence, Bologna, Venice, and other Italian cities, there were, in the seventeenth century, many women who made enviable reputations as artists, some of whom were also known for their literary and musical attainments. Anna Maria Ardoina, of Messina, made her studies in Rome> She was gifted as a poet and artist, and so excelled in music that she had the distinguished honor of being elected to the Academy of Arcadia.

Not a few gifted women of this time are remembered