Women in Frames: The Gaze, the Eye, the Profile in Renaissance Portraiture

Author(s): Patricia Simons

Reviewed work(s):
Source: History Workshop, No. 25 (Spring, 1988), pp. 4-30
Published by: Oxford University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4288817 .
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 ARTICLES AND ESSAYS

Pi. 4 Alesso Baldovinetti, Portrait of a Lady in

Yellow, detail, London, National Gallery. (Re-
produced by courtesy of the Trustees, The National
Gallery, London).

WVomenin Frames: the gaze, the eye,

the profi:lein Renaissance portraiture.
by Patricia Simons
Studies of Renaissance art have had difficulty in accommodatingcon-
temporary thinking on sexuality and feminism. The period which is
presumed to have witnessed the birth of Modern Man and the discovery of
the Worlddoes not seem to requireinvestigation.Renaissanceart is seen
as a naturalisticreflectionof a newlydiscoveredreality,ratherthan as a set
of framed myths and gender-based constructions. In its stature as high
culture, it tends to be either applauded or ignored (by the political right or
left respectively) as an untouchable, elite production. My work on profile
portraitsof Florentine women attempts to bring theories of the gaze to
bear on some of these traditionalMastertheories, therebyunmaskingthe
apparentinevitabilityand neutralityof Renaissanceart.
Around forty independentpanel portraitsof women in profile survive
fromQuattrocento(fifteenth-century)Tuscany(Pi.1), but it is thoughtthat
this genre began in Italy around the years 1425-50 with a cluster of five
male portraits.'The only extended discussionsof the Renaissanceprofile
convention tend to presume a male norm for all survivingpanels. Jean
Lipmanin 1936wrote of the femalefigures'bulk and weight'and 'buoyant
upthrust',Rab Hatfield'sstudy on the five male profilesof their 'bravura'
 Women in Frames 5

and 'strong shapes'.2 Both writers were imbued by Jacob Burekhardt's

interpretationof the Renaissance as a period giving birth to modern,
individualisticman.3 For the art historian specifically, the rise of an
individualisticconsciousnessduringthe Renaissance,plottedby Burckhardt
in 1860, explains the developmentof individualizedand more numerous
portraitureat the time.4 Hence for Lipman these figures- 'completely
exposed to the gaze of the spectator'5- were self-sufficient,invulnerable,
displayingby the surfaceemphasisof the designonly the surfaceof the self-
contained person. Hatfield's later attention to social context shifted the
emphasis, for he argued that 'intimacy is deflected' because 'social
prestige'is being celebratedand a family'pedigree'formedin the images.
But the portrayedwere characterizedby their visual order as reasoned,
intelligent men whose virtu, or public and moral virtue, required
'admirationand respect'.6For both writers,the profileportraitcelebrates
fame, and derives from publicpictorialconventions.
Only in one brief footnote did Lipman recognize that 'the persons
portrayed' were 'almost all women'. She went on, probably sharing
Renaissanceassumptions,to say that 'the feminineprofilewas intrinsically
flatterand more decorative'.7So, in an articledevoted to stylisticanalysis,
naturaland aestheticreasons 'explained'the predominanceof the female
in this format.Hatfield'sfocuson the five male examplesmeantthat he too
avoided a problemwhich my paper insists upon, namely, that civic fame
and individualismare not termsapplicableto fifteenth-centurywomen and
their imaging.The environmentcan be investigatedby way of the kind of
'admiration'and 'gaze' to which the decorativeimages and the seemingly
flatteredwomen were exposed.
Other investigations, such as John Pope-Hennessey's survey of
Renaissanceportraiture,or MeyerSchapiro'sexaminationof the profilein
narrativecontexts, also fail to make gender distinctions.8Usually, the
utilizationof the profilein fifteenth-centuryart is explainedby recourseto
the revivalof the classicalmedalandthe importationof conventionsfor the
portrayalof courtlyrulers,evokingthe celebrationof fame and individual-
ism. Such causalreasoningis inappropriateto the parametersand frames
of Quattrocentowomen. In this paper profile portraitswill be viewed as
constructionsof gender conventions,not as natural,neutralimages.
Behind this projectlies a late-twentiethcenturyinterestin the eye and
the gaze, largely investigatedso far in terms of psychoanalysisand film
theory.9Further,variousstreamsof literarycriticismand theory make us
awareof the constructionof mythsand images,of the degree to whichthe
reader(and the viewer) are active, so that, in ethnographicterms, the eye
is a performingagent. Finally,feminismcan be broughtto bear on a field
and a disciplinewhich are only beginningto adjust to a de-Naturalized,
post-humanistworld. Burckhardtagain looms here, for he believed that
'women stood on a footing of perfect equality with men' in the Italian
Renaissance, since 'the educated woman, no less than the man, strove
6 Journal
HistoryWorkshop

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Pi Aoymu,Prf'lorri of a Lad,' Mebure

Po, Naioa Galr
Victoria. gF. ,~.a. .
 Womenin Frames 7

naturally after a characteristicand complete individuality'.'0That the

'educationgiven to women in the upperclasseswas essentiallythe same as
thatgivento men' is neithertrue, we wouldnow say, nor adequateproofof
their social equality."'
Joan Kelly'sessay of 1977, 'Did Womenhave a Renaissance?',opened
a debate amongst historians of literature, religion and society but art
historians have been slower to enter the discussion.'2 A patriarchal
historiographywhichsees the Renaissanceas the Beginningof Modernism
continuesto dominateart historyand studiesof Renaissancepaintingare
little touched by feministenterprise.'3Whilstimagesof or for women are
nowYeginningto be treatedas a category,some of this work perpetuates
women's isolationin a separatesphere and takes little accountof gender
analysis. Instead, we can examine relationshipsbetween the sexes and
thinkof genderas 'a primaryfield with whichor by meansof whichpower
is articulated'.14 So we need to considerthe visual constructionof sexual
difference and how men and women were able to operate as viewers.
Further,attentioncan be paid to the visual specificsof form ratherthan
content or 'iconography',so that theory can be relatedto practice.
The body of this paper investigatesthe gaze in the displaycultureof
Quattrocento Florence to explicate further ways in which the profile,
presentingan avertedeye and a face availableto scrutiny,was suitedto the
representationof an ordered, chaste and decorouspiece of property.An
historicalinvestigationof the gaze which has usually been discussed in
psychoanalyticterms, this study might be an example of what Joan Scott
recently called for when she worried about 'the universal claim of
psychoanalysis'.She wantshistorians'insteadto examinethe waysin which
genderedidentitiesare substantivelyconstructedand relate their findings
to a range of activities, social organizations, and historically specific
culturalrepresentations'.'5 So my localizedfocus could be a supplement,
perhaps a counter, to Freudianuniversalizing,and to neutered general-
izations previously made about Renaissanceportraiture.On the other
hand, I would prefer to attempt a dialogue rather than a confrontation
between historical and psychoanalyticinterpretations.Here an inter-
disciplinaryforaywill characterizethe gaze as a socialand historicalagency
as well as a psycho-sexualone.
The historyof the profile to c. 1440was a male history,except for the
occasional inclusionof women in altarpiecesas donor portraits,that is,
portraitsof those makingtheir pious offering to the almighty.But from
c. 1440 nearly all Florentinepainted profile portraitsdepicting a single
figure are of women (except for a few studies of male heads on paper,
probablysketchesfor medalsandsculpturewhenthey are portraitsand not
studio exercises). By c. 1450 the male was shown in three-quarterlength
and view, first perhapsin Andrea Castagno'ssturdyview of an unknown
man whose gaze, hand and facialstructureintrudethroughthe frameinto
the viewer's space.'6 Often this spatial occupation and bodily assertion
8 History Workshop Journal

were appropriatelycaptured in the more three-dimensionalmedium of

sculpture, using either relatively cheap terracottaor more prestigious,
expensive marble. The first dated bust from the period is Piero de'
Medici's, executed by Mino da Fiesole in 1453.'7
For some time, however,women were still predominantlyrestrictedto
the profile and most examples of this format are dated after the mid-
century. Only in the later 1470sdo portraitsof women once more follow
conventionsfor the male counterparts,moving out from the restraining
controlof the profileformat,turningtowardsthe viewerand tendingto be
views of women both older and less ostentatiouslydressed than their
female predecessorshad been. Such a change has not been investigated
and cannotbe my subjecthere, whichis to highlightthe predominanceof a
female presence in Florentineprofile portraits.
Painted by male artists for male patrons, these objects primarily
addressedmale viewers. Necessarilymembersof the ruling and wealthy
class in patricianFlorence, the patronsheld restrictivenotions of proper
femalebehaviourfor womenof theirclass. Elsewherein Italy,especiallyin
the northerncourts, princesseswere also restrainedby rules of female
decorum but were portrayed because they were noble, exceptional
women.18In mercantileFlorence, however, that women who were not
royalwere recognizedin portraitureat all appearspuzzling,andI thinkcan
only be understoodin terms of the visual or optic modes of what can be
called a 'display culture'. By this I mean a culture where the outward
display of honour, magnificenceand wealth was vital to one's social
prestige and definition, so that visual language was a crucial mode of
discourse. I will briefly treat the conditionsof a woman'ssocial visibility
and then, having consideredwhy a woman was portrayed, turn to the
particularform of the resultantportrait.
To be a womanin the worldwas/isto be the object of the male gaze: to
'appearin public'is 'to be looked upon' wrote GiovanniBoccaccio.19The
Dominicannun ClareGambacorta(d. 1419)wishedto avoid such scrutiny
and establish a convent 'beyond the gaze of men and free from worldly
distractions'.20The gaze, then a metaphor for worldlinessand virility,
made of Renaissancewoman an object of public discourse, exposed to
scrutinyandframedby the parametersof propriety,displayand'impression
management'.2'Put simply,why else painta womanexcept as an object of
displaywithinmale discourse?
Only at certainkey momentscouldshe be seen, whetherat a windowor
in the 'window'of a panel painting,seen and therebyrepresented.These
centred on her rite of passage from one male house to anotherupon her
marriage,usuallyat an age between fifteen and twenty, to a man as much
as fifteen years her senior.22Her very existenceand definitionat this time
was a functionof her outwardappearance.Pleadingfor extra finery and
householdlinen, ratherthan merelyfunctionalclothing, to be includedin
her dowry,one widowimploredher children,whenher brothersforcedher
 Womenin Frames 9

into a second marriage,'Give me a way to be dressed'.23This woman

virtuallypictures herself as naked and undefined unless a certain level
(modo) of (ad)dressor representationas well as wealth can be attained.
Costume was what Diane Owen Hughes calls 'a metaphoricalmode' for
social distinctionand regulation.The 'emblematicsignificance'of dress
made possible the visible marking out of one's parental and marital
identity.24A bearer of her natal inheritanceand an emblem also of her
conjugalline once she hadenteredthe latter'sboundaries,a womanwas an
adorned Other who was defined into existence when she entered
patriarchaldiscouseprimarilyas an object of exchange.25
WithoutwhatChristianeKlapisch-Zubercalls'publicity',the important
allianceforgedbetween two householdsor lineagesby a marriagewas not
adequatelyestablished.26Withoutwitnesses,the contractwas not finalised.
By contrast, a priest's presence at this time was not legally necessary.
Visual display was an essential component of the ritual, a performance
which allowed, indeed expected, a woman'svisible presentationin social
displayand requiredan appropriatelyhonourabledegree of adornment.
The age of the women in these profile portraits,along with the lavish
presence of jewellery and fine costumes (usuallyoutlawedby sumptuary
legislationand rules of moralityand decorum),with multipleringson her
fingers when her hands are shown, and hair bound rather than free-
flowing, are all visible signs of her newly married(or perhapssometimes
betrothed) state. The woman was a spectaclewhen she was an object of
public display at the time of her marriagebut otherwise she was rarely
visible, whetheron the streets or in monumentalworks of art. In panels
displayed in areas of the palace open to common interchange,she was
portrayedas a signof the ritual'sperformance,the alliance'sformationand
its honourablenature.
An example of a father'sattention to his daughterbefore marriage,
however, also pointsup attitudestaken to a woman'spublicappearance.27
WhilstGiovanniTornabuonigrantedjewelleryto his daughterLudovicaas
partof her lavishdowry,his will of 1490neverthelessstipulatedthat two of
the valuable,carefullydescribed,items ultimatelyremainpart of his male
patrimony,for they were to returnto his estate upon her decease. A cross
surroundedby pearls, probablythe 'crocettina'mentionedin Giovanni's
will, hangsfrom Ludovica'sneck in her portraitby Domenico Ghirlandaio
within the family chapel at S. Maria Novella, decorated at her father's
expense between 1486 and 1490. She also wears a dress richlybrocaded
with the triangularTornabuoniemblem. So, at the time when she was
betrothed but not yet married,not long before she passed beyond their
confines, she is displayedforever as a Tornabuoniwoman, wearingtheir
emblem and wealth.
Ludovica is also represented as a virginal Tornabuoni exemplar,
attendantat the Birthof the Virginand with her hairstill hangingloose, as
it had in her earlier medal where a unicorn on the reverse again
10 History Workshop Journal

emphasized her honourablevirginity. In the chapel fresco Ludovica is

presentedas the perfect bride-to-be,from a noble and substantialfamily,
aboutto become a child-bearingwoman.Her father'ssolicitudeandfamily
pride oversawthe constructionof a publicimage declaringher value and
therebyincreasingTornabuonihonour.Soon her husbandwill conducther
on her rite of passage,collect his dowryand appropriateher honourto the
needs of his own lineage.
When the bridewentfuori ('outside')and was 'led' or 'takenaway'by
her husband,she bore a counter-dowryof goods suppliedby him.28One
mother, AlessandraStrozzi,happilyreportedof her daughterin 1447that
'Whenshe goes out of the house, she'll have more than 400 florinson her
back' because the groom Marco Parenti 'is never satisfied having things
made for her, for she is beautifuland he wantsher to look at her best'.29
That same Marco later recovered his investment, one which doubtless
weighedheavilyon the backof his adolescentwife, by havingeach garment
unpickedand selling every gem and sleeve.30Neither dowrynor counter-
dowryseem to have become entirelya woman'sproperty.
In wantinghis bride 'to look at her best' Macrowas seeking a visible,
displayablesign of his honour.Indeed a wife's costumewas consideredby
jurists a sign of the husband'srank.31 'Being beautifuland belongingto
Filippo Strozzi'Alessandrawrote to her son of a potentialbride in 1465,
,she must have beautifuljewels, for just as you have won honourin many
things,you cannotfall shortin this'.32Like the 'goldenfacade'of a palace,
'such adornments. . . are taken as evidence of the wealth of the husband
more than as a desire to impresswantoneyes' wrote FrancescoBarbaroin
his treatise On Wifely Duties of 1416.33 To Barbaro, a wife's public
appearancewas a sign of her proprietyand her husband'strust: wives
'should not be shut up in their bedrooms as in a prison but should be
permittedto go out [in apertum],and this privilege should be taken as
evidence of their virtue and probity'.34
He then went on, 'By maintaininga decorousand honest gaze in their
eyes, the most acuteof senses, they can communicateas in painting,which
is calledsilentpoetry'.35Justsuchuprightnessis silentlycommunicatedbythe
orofile panel where, as Lipmannoted, 'the head was kept to the qualityof
still life, often as objectivelycharacterizedand as inanimateas the cloth of
the dress'.36Attributesof costume, jewelleryand honourablebearingare
as much signs as the occasionalcoats of arms in these portraits.And in
Florence,these heraldicdevicesare the husband's,for the womanhasbeen
renamedandinscribedinto a new lineage. Hence in FilippoLippi'sDouble
Portraitof a Man and Woman(P1. 2), the Scolariman's coat of arms is
matchednot by her own natal heraldrybut by her motto, embroideredin
his pearlson the sleeve she has been given, whichavows'Loyalty'to him.37
Perhapswe can find an explanationfor those numerousdonorportraits
representedin profile by consideringthe earliercited linkage, by the nun
Clare Gambacorta,between 'the gaze of men' and 'worldlydistractions9.
 Womenin Frames 1

ai

l~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
....

Pi. 2 Filippo Lippi, Double Portait of a Man and Woman, New York, Metropolitan~~~~~
Museum of Art.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
12 HistoryWorkshopJournal

Particularlywhen shown in profile, the donor's faces are visible to both

divine and 'worldly',sacredand 'secular'(yet sacralized)realms, seen by
the adoredsanctitiesyet also viewed by priestsand devotees includingthe
donorsthemselves.Like nuns and donors,the women portrayedin profile
are displayedand visible objects, and yet they are removedfrom 'worldly
distractions'. They are inactive objects gazing elsewhere, decorously
avertingtheir eyes. In this sense they are chaste, if not virginal,framedif
not (quite) cloistered. However, unlike nuns, these idealizedwomen are
very much not 'beyondthe gaze of men'.
A young Florentinepatriciangirl rarelybecame anythingother than a
nun or a wife.38 In each instance she was defined in relation to her
engagementwith men, either marryingChristor a worldlyhusbandand
eschewing all other men. Girls who entered a convent sometimes made
their own choice, but often they were ugly, infirm or deformed, or else
they mightbe surplusgirlsin a familyoverburdenedby the potentialcosts
of expensive dowries. When assessingfuture wives, the groom's lineage
carefullyweighed the ties of kinship (parentado)to be formed and the
dowry's value, with other matters such as the woman's beauty and the
purityand fertilityof her female ancestors.39'Beautyin a woman',wrote
Leon BattistaAlberti,

must be judgednot only by the charmand refinementof her face, but

still more by the graceof her person and her aptitudefor bearingand
giving birth to many fine children . . . In a bride . . . a man must first
seek beautyof mind (le bellezzedell'animo),that is, good conductand
40
virtue.

It is this 'beautyof mind'whichis displayedin the idealizingprofileprotrait

as it was earlierexhibited(mostrare,to exhibit, is the verb)4'to selectors
before her marriage.Since AlessandraStrozzi and others spoke of the
brideas 'merchandise'('who wantsa wife wantsreadycash'she said)42we
can speakof an economicsof displayin fifteenth-centuryFlorence.Alberti
advisedthat the futuregroom

should act as do wise heads of families before they acquire some

property- they like to look it over (rivedere)severaltimes before they
actuallysign a contract.43

The girl was an object of depersonalizedexchange by which means a

mutualparentadowas established,a dowryof capitalwas broughtby the
girl and a husband'shonourbecame hers to display. She also suppliedan
unsulliedheritageand 'beautyof mind'.
The late fifteenth-centuryFlorentinebooksellerVespasianoda Bisticci
also wrote of a woman'svirtueas a possessionor dowry.He ended his Life
of the exemplaryAlessandrade' Bardi exhortingwomen to
 Womenin Frames 13

realise that a dowry of virtue is infinitelymore valuablethan one of

money, whichmay be lost, but virtueis a securepossessionwhichmay
be retainedto the end of their lives.44

Alberti has the elderly husbanddidacticallyaddresshis new, very young

wife in terms even more closely related to portraits:

nothingis so importantfor yourself,so acceptableto God, so pleasing

to me, and precious in the sight of your children as your chastity
(onesta). The woman's characteris the jewel (ornamento)of her
family; the mother'spurity has alwaysbeen a part of the dowry she
passes on to her daughters;her purityhas alwaysfar outweighedher
[physical]beauty.45

Visually, the strict orderlinessof the profile portrait can be seen as a

surprisingcontradictionof contemporarymisogynistliterature.Supposedly
'inconstant',like 'irrationalanimals'without 'any set proportion',living
'withoutorderor measure',46women were transformedby their 'beautyof
mind' and 'dowry of virtue' into ordered, constant, geometricallypro-
portioned and unchangeableimages, bearers of an inheritance which
would be 'precious'to their children.A woman, who was supposedlyvain
and narcissistic,47was neverthelessmade an object in a framed 'mirror'
when a man'sworldlywealthand her ideal dowry,ratherthanher 'true'or
'real' nature, was on display.
Giovanna Tornabuoni's portrait by Domenico Ghirlandaio (P1. 3)
contains an inscription,with the date 1488, indicatingthat 'conduct and
soul' were valuable, laudable commodities carried by the woman.48
Further, depiction strove for the problematic representationof these
invisiblevirtues:'O art, if thou were able to depict the conductand soul,
no lovelier paintingwould exist on earth'. Havingdied whilstpregnantin
1488, the now dead Giovannanee Albizzi is here immortalizedas noble
and pious, bearingher husband'sinitial, L for Lorenzo, on her shoulder
and his family's simplified, triangularemblem on her garment. She is
forever absorbed as part of the Tornabuoniheritage, displayedin their
palace to be seen by their visitorsand themselves,includingher son who
bore their name.
Withinthe panel, she is framedby a simple,closed-offroom;withinthe
palace, we know from an inventory,she was actuallyframedin 'a cornice
made of gold' on show in a splendid'room of golden stalls'.49Sealed in a
niche like her accoutrementsof piety and propriety,she is an eternally
static spectacle held decorouslyfirm by her gilded costume and by the
architectureof her arm, neck and spine.Giovanna'svery body becomes a
sign, attempting to articulateher intangible but valuable 'conduct and
soul'. The 'dowryof virtue'is encasedand containedwithinher husband's
finery, each enhancingthe other. Forever framed in a state of idealized
 14 HistoryWorkshopJournal
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 Womenin Frames 15

preservation, she is constructed as a female exemplar for Tornabuoni

viewers and others they wished to impresswith this ornamento.
Profileportraitssuch as Giovanna'sparticipatein a languageof visual
and social conventions.They are not simply reflectionsof a pre-existent
social or visual reality. Neither in the streets nor in the poetry of
RenaissanceFlorencewas a patricianwomanlike Giovannacapableof the
sort of independent existence she might seem to have in her portrait.
Invisible virtues, impossible to depict unless one were in paradise
accordingto the poetry writtenby Petrarchand Lorenzode' Medici,50 are
paradoxicallythe realm of these highly visible portraits on show in a
display culture keen to engage in impression management. In these
portraits a woman can wear cosmetics and extravagant decoration
forbidden by legal and moral codes.51There this orderly creature was
visible at or near a window, yet she was explicitlybanishedfrom public
appearanceat such windows.52There a dead wife or absent daughteror
newly incorporated, deflowered wife was made an object of com-
memoration,as eternallyalive and chaste.
Perhaps the profile form became increasingly contradictory and
archaic,leadingto its partialabandonmentin favourof the three-quarter
format already available for male portraiture.At times, however, the
profile's memorableand remote nature still suited requirementsfor the
visualpreservationand enhancementof whatElizabethCropperhas called
a 'memory image that fills the void of her absence'.53Portraits, said
Biondo in the sixteenthcenturyas Alberti had in the fifteenth, 'represent
the absent and show us the dead as if they were alive'.54 Such a
contradiction, or at least tension, could both explicate the profile's
eventual demise and lead us to comprehendits earlier existence. The
paradoxicalrenderihigvisible of invisible virtues, available to the visual
medium as it was not possible in social reality, meant that artistic
representationwas a contributionto rather than a reflection of social
language or control. A woman's painted presence shares with cultural
values of the time an idealizedsignification.Indeed, it increasesthe stock
of impressive, manipulative language available within Quattrocento
culture. Visual art, it can be argued, both shared and shaped social
languageand need not be seen as a passive reflectionof pre-determining
reality. For the representation of women, the profile form and its
particularswere well suited to the construction,ratherthan reflection,of
an invisible'reality'.
It is not only the display of attributes like jewellery and costume
(perhapsoften more splendidfantasiesthan were the actualpossessions)
which pronounce the portrayedwoman as the bearer of 'wealth' both
earthlyand invisible.The profileformitself is amenableto the construction
of a display object since the viewed is renderedstatic by an impersonal,
typifyingstructure.A ruler(such as Jean Le Bon or HenryV) or Leonine
Warrior55can be powerful, iconic images in profile, but the decorative,
16 HistoryWorkshopJournal

generalizingand idealizing potential of the profile made it an apt and

numericallypredominant convention for the reification of Florentine
women.
Whenthe FlorentinesAndreaVerrocchioor Leonardoda Vinci carved
or drewAlexandrineheroes in profile, they elaboratedmasculinityby way
of solid helmets and breastplateseven more three-dimensionalthan the
faces which are also modelled in some relief.56But Florentine female
profilestend to appearon unstable,spindlybases, with an elongatedneck
exaggeratingtheirattenuation.The vulnerableand elegantlyartificialneck
also separatesthe face from its alreadyinsubstantialbody. Fine, isolated
featuresexist precariouslyin a flat sea of pale flesh. Volumeis repressedin
portraits such as Alesso Baldovinetti's Portrait of a Lady in Yellow
(P1.4),57 cheek bones and shoulderblades are denied by an image caught
on the painted surfacelike a butterfly.In Baldovinetti'sproduction,the
hair (probablya false, fashionableadornmentat the back) and the lively
yellow sleeve bearing a husband'slarge heraldic device, are each more
capableof energeticmobilitythroughspace than the womanseems to be.
'Individuality'appears to the degree that simplifyingsilhouettes can
representparticularfaces. But full characterizationdepends upon facial
asymmetry and momentary moods are also denied by the timeless
patterningprofile. In these mostly anonymousprofile portraits,face and
body are as emblematic as coats of arms. They mark a renaming, a
remaking,in whichindividualnames are omitted. The face contributesto
identification,as legislatorsrealisedwhen they bannedthe use of a veil by
all women other than prostitutes.58The latter were marked as bodies
grantedsexuallicence, theirpotentiallack of controlhence broughtunder
masculine and visual rein. Through the regulatory language of facial
display, all women were sexuallylabelled and controlled. Officialscould
interrogatea veiled woman, seeking her identitynot by first name but by
naming her father, husband and neighbourhood.59Occasionallya first
name is includedin a three-quarterview of a womanby such means as the
juniper(ginepro)behindLeonardo'sportraitof Ginevrade' Benci,60but in
the profile portraits the family name, never a matrilineal one, is
paramount.
The traditionalimmortalizingof a dead man or a male rulerby use of
the profile was appropriatedfor female representation,yet the form's
restrictivecapacity was accentuated. One of the few survivingpairs in
which both the male and female portraits are in profile, Piero della
Francesca'sdepictionof the Duke and Duchess of Urbino (Pls. 5 and 6),
couples a rulerwith a woman.61Because the duke sufferedfrom a battle
wound to his right eye he had to be shown in profile. This necessity is
turned to advantage by strong blocks of colour (which are especially
balancedeither side of the stabilizedface), hardvirile silhouette,massive
neck and swarthy,modelled flesh. This is contrastedwith a pale, heavily
decoratedladywho has been plucked,powderedand adornedinto a chaste
 Womenin Frames 17
emblem. On the reverse of her portraitrides the Triumphof 'feminine
virtues',on his the Triumphof Fame.62Both rulerandwomanare typecast
and standfor more thantheirindividualselves, but the male is constructed
as a more active, dominantfigure.
GiovannaTornabuoniand her peers lived and died in a Mediterranean
displayculturewhere honour and reputationwere vital commoditiesand
appearancewas alwaysunderscrutiny.Sumptuarylegislation,for instance,
governed adornment'inside the home or without',63acting on the belief
that state actions could, as well as should, enter various spaces and
determinethe rulesof display.Neitherthe woman,nor her accoutrements,
nor her portrait,had much 'private'space. 'Shunevery sort of dishonour,
my dear wife' counselledAlberti'selder. 'Use every meansto appearto all
people as a highly respectablewoman'.64
In an oligarchic,patrilinealsociety where little value was ascribedto
women except as carriersof a 'dowryof virtue',women were encouraged
to stress their restraint and seemly inheritance. Their own complicit
investmentin their 'secure possession'appearsextensive, judgingby the
relatively few records which survive. Patriarchaldefinitions of proper,
obedient behaviour were accepted by literate matrons like Alessandra
Strozzi. When advisingher son about being a husbandshe wrote 'a man,
when he really is a man, makes a woman a woman'.65Where then might
we find a woman's'view' of her profile portrait?
Two distinctionsmade recentlyby historiansof Renaissanceculturecan
guide us; first, Klapisch-Zuber'sbetween the dowry and the trousseau.66
Whilst the dowrypassed from fatherto husband,the bride could carrya
few minor, intimateitems from her mother. Mostly for personaluse and
often associatedwith a procreativerole, these goods could be dolls, Books
of Hours, sewingtools and articlesfor her toilette. Klapisch-Zuberargues
that 'the trousseauis the principlechannelby whichfemininegoods, often
heavily symbolic, passed from mother to daughter'and these were 'the
fragmentsof a hidden or incompletefeminine discourse'.67In a sense, a
profile portraitcould be one such 'fragment'.A young female viewer was
instructedby her mother's portrait and shaped herself in her mother's
image.68When preparingher own 'dowryof virtue', whichwas informed
by both the maternaland paternalinheritance,she was alsoattendingto a
kind of 'trousseauof onesta'.
The second set of distinctionsis one pointed to by Hughes, between
meretrice(prostitute), matrona (matron), daughter, and wife. When a
liminal border was crossed and a woman was recognized as sexually
mature, for instance, she became subject to sumptuarylegislation.69The
older woman could also wittily contravene sumptuaryrestrictions,and
argue with her husband over clothing expenses.70As one Bolognese
woman claimed in the mid-fifteenthcentury, men could win success and
honourin manyfields but only ornamentationand dresswere availableto
women as 'signs of their valour'.7' Older women performed a kind of
18 History Workshop Journal

labour, converting their 'dowry of virtue' into an investment 'retained to

the end of their lives'.72 When nubile daughters were in the house, mothers
assisted with the trousseau's collection. Maternal guardians of their sons,
they assessed the virtue and appearance of potential brides. With or
without the presence of children and grandchildren nearby, a woman
continually defended her respectability and image, resorting like men to
'signs' in a display culture. The commodity of virtue was circulated
amongst a female economy, from grandmother to mother, to daughter, to
her children. For instance, a woman could boast about the 'nobility and
magnificence of her family', especially to other women, and her 'upbringing'
was carefully assessed by her female elders.73 Guardians of their family's
honour and piety, including their own,74 women when portrayed in profile
were often visually addressing their daughters as exemplars, reinforcing,
even enlarging, standards of virtue.
But women were daughters or matrons in a man's world, these very
distinctions being ones (like nun or wife) formed by a woman's relationship
to men. Again we must analyse gender, not to negate a 'hidden . .
feminine discourse', but to comprehend visual artifacts which were not
hidden, not only seen as personal female 'fragments'. Profile portraits were
primarily objects of a male discourse which appropriated a kind of female
labour or property. When wives were charged under the sumptuary laws, it
was men who paid the fines, just as they had paid for the jewels and dresses
in the first place. Men also paid for the portraits, on which they appended
male coats of arms.
When young, women were cordoned off in the profile form which could
later instruct their own daughters. When older, women became informed
actors in the selection of a bride, scrutinizing others' daughters.75 The
active female eye was virtually always that of an elderly guardian. The
choice and examination of a possible bride necessitated the gathering of
information about her appearance. A well-known instance of this process
from Britain is Hans Holbein's deceptive portrait of Anne of Cleves, sent
to Henry VIII before their marriage in 1540. Some Florentine letters
survive, several by women, which contain verbal portraits of prospective
brides when (rarely) one of the partners was away from the city. In 1467
Lucrezia Tornabuoni, Lorenzo de' Medici's mother, travelled to Rome to
examine Clarice Orsini, who did become Lorenzo's wife (Sandro Botticelli's
panel in the Pitti Palace may represent Clarice about ten years later:
P1.7):76She was

fair and tall . . . of good height and has a nice complexion, her
manners are gentle, but not so winning as those of our girls, but she is
very modest . . . her hair is reddish . . . her face rather round . . . Her
throat is fairly elegant, but it seems to me a little meagre or . . . slight.
Her bosom I could not see, as here the women are entirely covered up,
but it appeared to me of good proportions. She does not carry her head
 Women in Frames 19

e : ..: .. ..
..:

Pl. 5 Piero della Francesca, The PI. 6 Piero della Francesca, The Duke of
Duches,s of Urbino, Florence, Uffizi Ulrbino, Florence, Uffizi Gallery.
Gallery.

Pi. 8 Anonymous, Profile Portrait of a

Lady, London, National Gallery.
Pi. 7 Sandro Botticelli, Prorile Portrait (Reproduced by courtesy of the Trustees,
of a Lady, Florence, Palazzo Pitti. the National Gallery, London).
20 HistoryWorkshopJournal

proudlylike our girls, but pokes it a little forward;I thinkshe was shy,
indeed I see no fault in her save shyness. Her hands are long and
delicate . . .

Well might she have been shy under Lucrezia'smercilesseye!

In 1486a male reportto Lorenzode' Medicion his son's futurewife in
Naples noted her 'neck whichis somewhatthick at the back' and said that
her guardians'wouldsooner show one of theirgirlsto ten men thanto one
woman'.77Virtually taking on a surrogate male position, these fierce
female observerswere also defendingtheir stake in their own economy.
But they were adoptingstandardsconvenientto a patriarchy,using 'male
languagein orderto be heard'.78To some as yet unknownextent they may
have refineddefinitions,avoidedor flauntedothers, but women's'culture'
or 'networks', currentlybeing investigatedby social historians, do not
readilyappearin what are usuallycategorizedas 'domestic',but shouldbe
termed 'palatial',representationsproducedfor and by men.
Like the detailed epistolaryreports,ideal descriptionsof the Beloved
or the Ideal personification,especiallyin poetry, were 'anatomizing',as
Ruth Kelso, NancyVickersand others have argued.79The female body is
scatteredinto separateareassuch as neck, eyes, skin, mouthand hair, and
other factorslike her size and bearingare also examined.The profileform,
already a fragmentarystatement fixing one side of the upper body but
absenting the rest, complementssuch an aesthetic typology due to its
simplifyingclarity.Hence it easilybecamean earlyformatfor caricaturein
the work of artists like Leonardo or Gian Lorenzo Bernini.80Lipman
noted a clear colour division in the profile portraitsbetween hair, head,
corsage and sleeves,8' but other features, like the silhouette of neck and
nose, lips, jawlineanduntaintedskincolour, are also markedout distinctly
(P1. 8).
A 'rounded'or integrated,plasticcharacteris deniedby the impersonal,
claustrophobicpresentationof a face which has no space or volume of its
own. The groomand girlin Lippi'sdoubleportrait,for instance(P1.2), are
each framedby a series of windowswhichallow our mercilessscrutinybut
cannot enable their own engagementwith each other or with the viewer.
The averted eye and face open to scrutiny,necessarilypresentedby the
profile view, permit the close, cool and extended exposure of the body
reportedin fifteenth-centuryletters and poems. BarbaraKruger'srecent
commenton the eye's intrusionand violence, usingthe caption'Yourgaze
hits the side of my face', aptlychose a female profileas accompaniment.82
In fifteenth-centurysociety, loweredor avertedeyes were the sign of a
woman'smodesty, chastityand obeisance.83A loose woman, on the other
hand, looked at men in the street.84Temptationor a loverwere avoidedor
discouragedif a virtuouswoman did not returnthe gaze.85Whilst actual
behaviourdoubtless included surreptitiousglances or longing looks, it is
indicativethat the poet VeronicaGambara,when she explicitlylooked on
 Women in Frames 21

her object of 'desire',was comfortednot by a man but, unexpectedlyand

ironically,by 'hills', 'waters'and a 'gracioussite'.86Being a noble woman,
she was not allowed an optic engagement with men nor had poetic
conventionsleft space for female poets who could activelylook. With wit,
her sonnet slips between contradictions,not even requiringan unavailable
male object of the gaze: 'desire is spent except for you alone' she said to
her 'blest places'.
'Buryyour eyes' exhortedSan Bernardinoaddressingwomen from the
pulpit, in what was only a particularlyconcreteversionof a commonplace
concerning the decorum of the viewed eye.87 In the profile form eyes
cannotbe obviouslydowncast,for this would disturbthe strictpatterning,
but the woman'seye and face is deflected, buried, to the extent that they
are averted. Thence she is decorously chaste, the depersonalizedand
passionlessobject of passion.
Passion leads us to the poetics and psychologyof the eye. The poetic
convention of 'love's fatal glance', especially since Petrarch'swritings,
imaged the dangerouswomanwhose 'arrows'of love from her eyes could
aggressivelypierce the lover.88In a sonnet by Petrarch'her eyes have the
power to turn[him]to marble'and PietroBembo laterplayswith the same
optic fear.89In one poem 'I gaze defencelessly'into a woman's'lovelyeyes'
and 'lose myself', in another of c. 1500 he 'sculpted [her image] in my
heart'yet 'you burnme, if I gaze on you, you who are cold stone'. Around
1542 his fellow Venetian Pietro Aretino also worked with the popular,
Petrarchanconventions, writing of Titian's 'brushes' as equivalent to
Love's 'arrow', so that male tools are capable of some control over a
dangerof their own making.90The beloved's woundingglance, voiced in
poetry, is especiallymademodestand muteby the profileformat;the male
lover can behold and possess without being seen and hence without
becoming vulnerable. The ideally passive and modest young woman
appropriately'appears'rather than 'acts'91in the static form, unable to
arouse, distract or engage with the authoritativeocular presence. Any
potential'Medusaeffect',92the unmanningcausedby Medusa'sstony and
fatal gaze, is defused.
The male profile was a short-livedform in panel portraiture,perhaps
because it presented too inactive and disengageda view of these virile
familyexemplars.93In psychoanalyticterms, further,the near 'blindness',
implicitin the profileform's'buried'eye, threatenedanymale portrayedin
profile with impotence or castration.94In classic Freudianterms, a blind
man can no longer see a woman'slack of the phallus.He cannot then be
awareof his own sexualandpotent difference,so he is in a sense castrated,
undifferentiated.Scopophilia,a sexual gaze, is constructedas a masculine
activityin Renaissancepoetry and Freudianpsychoanalysis.The viewing
active male, outside the profile'sframeand lookingon, was virile. When a
sixteenth century Sienese novelist wanted to characterizeFlorentines,
famedfor 'sodomy',he wroteof them 'not wantingto look at womenin the
22 History Workshop Journal

face'.95A centuryearlierhis compatriotSan Bernardinofrequentlyspoke

of homosexualor uninterestedhusbandsnot looking at their wives.96The
DominicanFra GiovanniDominicialso interpretedface-to-facecontactin
heterosexual terms. He adapted a Biblical injunctionagainst a father's
indulgenceof his daughter(Sirach7:24) by castingit in the languageof the
eye and face and extendingthe distrustto the mother:the fatheris not to
smile on the daughter'lest she fall in love with his virilecountenance',nor
must the mother 'ever . . . show [her son] a face which will cause him while
still little to love women before knowingwhatthey are'.97The languageof
the eye could be a sensual and hence feared, even repressedone. The
passionles,chastestate of a womanin profileis the productof this burden.
The de-eroticisedportrayalof women in profile meant female eyes no
longer threatenthe seeing man with castration.Her eyes can not wardoff
his, nor send 'arrows'to the lover's heart. Castrationanxieties are also
displacedby fetishisation,by the way in which a woman'sneck, eye and
other features are renderedsafe commoditiesthroughfragmentationand
distancing,excessiveidealisation.98A psychoanalyticlevel of interpretation
can also be offered for viewers who were female. When the female
guardian assessed other women, or when the exemplary mother was
visuallypresentedto her daughters,it may be that a feminineparallelto
masculinefetishism, that is, narcissism,was operating.But the 'maternal
gaze' posited by the film theoristE. Ann Kaplanor the narcissisticdesire
to see one's self in one's children posited by Sigmund Freud, do not
adequately fit the evidence left to us in Quattrocento artifacts.99
Rememberingthe degree of female complicityin an extreme patriarchy,
we could take account of a summarizingphrase employed by Linda
Williamsin her study of female spectatorsof film, 'her look even here
becomes a form of not seeing anythingmore than the castrationshe so
exclusivelyrepresentsfor the male'.100
The potentialinstabilityof sexual identityis controlledby a fixed and
immutablesign of difference constructedin the profile portrait.Female
impotenceis contrastedwith the potent flesh or brushof the male viewer
or artist. Lacking both phallus and any genitalia of her own in these
truncatedimages, the woman is seen as an absence of an absence. As
Diane Owen Hughes suggests in her study of family portraiturein early
modernEurope,imagesof womencanbe interpreted'notas reflections.
but ratheras idealizedor admonitoryrepresentationsof what is desiredor
what is feared'.'0'
To turn now from sensualityto politics, from one form of potency to
another, is not to suggest that the divisionsare clear or absolutebetween
seemingly interior and exterior acts. Whilst contemporarystudies of the
gaze, most recently Jacqueline Rose's Sexuality in the Field of Vision, focus
upon psychic theories, the investigationabove has tried to excavate an
historicaldimension. When theories of the gaze are applied to physical
objects like paintings,especiallythose from pre-Freudiantimes when the
 Womenin Frames 23

languageof sexualityand codes for the eye's conductwere differentfrom

ours, we need to considera range of culturaland historicalfactors. Here
MichelFoucault'sHistoryof Sexuality,particularlyderivedfroma studyof
ancientGreece and Rome, has done much to alert us to the changingand
historicallydeterminednatureof what is unthinkable,what performed.102
JeffreyWeeks also has arguedfor a contextualunderstandingof sexuality,
supported by his own studies of nineteenth and twentieth-century
Britain.103 Sexualityandthe operationof the gaze in fifteenth-centuryItaly
will have theirown historiesand contextstoo.'04Castrationanxietymay be
an ahistoricalor transhistoricalphenomenon, for instance,105but profile
portraitsare far more thanspecificmanifestationsof a universalfear. They
existedfor a relativelyshorttime in a particularregionand 'displayculture'
for a variety of reasons. Feminist historians can use their practice to
question, refine or deconstruct Freudian orthodoxy and patriarchy's
appearanceof naturalinevitability.
We could, for instance, recall Foucault'sinvestigationof the 'Eye of
Power'in post-EnlightenmentFrance,whichobserved'captivesilhouettes'
in the Panopticon or viewing machine, built mainly as schools, army
dormitoriesand prisons.'06But we could speak of ocularpolitics in terms
of patriarchyand gender as Foucaultdoes not. The gaze as an instrument
of controland supervision,particularlyover women, operatedearlierthan
Foucault would seem to believe, in less technological or awesome
architecture.107The peep-hole in monastery,nunneryand asylumdoors,
for instance, or the wrought-irongrill behind which cloisteredfolk were
incarceratedyet seen, allowed the regulatoryeye's performance.In the
first decade of the sixteenth century a man versed in courtly practice
advised cardinals to hide viewing or listening tubes in their audience
chambers 'so that men's speech, gestures and expressionscan be more
clearly studied by means of observation.108 Deception was necessary,
otherwise'those who come to pay their court are moved to abandontheir
naturalbehaviour'.109
Earlier architecturaladvice concerning the observation of young
women did not seem to require a hidden eye, perhapsbecause 'natural
behaviour'was not allowedor desiredfromwomen anyway.Around 1464
the Florentine architect Antonio Filarete, who worked often in ducal
Milan,describeda proto-Panopticonfor the housingand educationof very
young girls.

From the outside one can look into the rooms where the skills are
being leamed and can see what is being done . . . they need to be
seen, so they can be married. .. [but] no man can enter for any
reason. ?110

Here is the protective,potent male eye operating.

The powerof the female gaze, especiallythat of girlsand widows(both
24 HistoryWorkshopJournal

of whomwere consideredsexuallyavailable),was fearedor deniedwhen it

was likely to be engagedwith the male look. But older women had more
authoritywhen their gaze operated for the purposes of protecting and
augmenting the reputation of the lineage. The young woman was
anatomized by scopic, patriarchalscrutinywhen she was the bearer or
potential bearer of assessableproperty.The profile portraitof a woman
presenteda sign of kinshipexchange, displayingthe nobilityof her natal
line, the exemplary nature of her own virtue and then her husband's
honour and possession. The female eye was disempoweredand her body
an emblem for the displayof rank, honour and chastity.
By the late fifteenth centurythe profile portraithad been displaced.
Florentine women portrayedin three-quarterview and length began to
include older exemplarsdressedin plainercostume, such as Lorenzo de'
Medici's relatively influential mother Lucrezia Tornabuoni, who is
probablyshown mourningher husband'sdeath.'1'But the profile was still
utilized on occasion. Leonardo'sportrayalof another powerful woman,
Isabella d'Este, belongs to the traditionof north Italianrulerportraitsin
profile, as had an earlierprofile portraitof a princess,possiblyalso of an
Este woman, by Pisanello.112
In Florence, paired portraitsof marriedcouples, such as the one by
SebastianoMainardiin the HuntingtonLibrary,San Marino,showed the
male in three-quarterview in front of a landscapewith a city and worldly
activity, but the female was in profile, painted in a flatter, more absent
manner, cut off in a loggia and housebound.113 Artists of the sixteenth
century at times reverted to the archaicprofile. Hence the poet Laura
Battiferi was shown in strikingprofile by Agnolo Bronzino in the mid-
century' 14 and Jacopo Pontormo's Alessandro de' Medici draws his
beloved lady in profile as a sign of his singularregardfor (i.e. of) her.'15
The male gaze continuedin its triumphantpotency while the female gaze
remainedrepressed:one reason, we may speculate,why the female artist
has, until very recently, been a rare creature.

NOTES
* My thanks to Australian
colleagues, Felicity Collins, Robyn Cooperand Ursula
Hoff, who commentedon an earlydraftof this paper.SamuelH. KressFoundationfunding
assistedmy travelin February1987to Boston, wherea shorterversionof this finalpaperwas
deliveredin the symposiumon 'GenderandArt History:New Approaches'at the CollegeArt
Associationannualconference.I am also gratefulto severaleditors of HistoryWorkshop
Journal,especiallyLyndtalRoper, for their interestand comments.All translationsare my
own, unless otherwise indicated.
1 JeanLipman,'TheFlorentineProfilePortraitin the Quattrocento',Art Bulletin,18,
1936,pp. 54-102 remainsthe basicsurveyandcatalogue.Muchof herargumentis repeatedin
J. Mambour,'L'evolutionesthetiquedes profils florentinsdu Quattrocento',Revue Belge
d'Archeologieet d'Histoirede l'art,38, 1969,pp. 43-60. The five maleportraitsareconsidered
by Rab Hatfield, 'Five EarlyRenaissancePortraits',Art Bulletin,47, 1965,pp. 315-34.
2 Lipman, 'The FlorentinePortrait',pp. 64, 75; Hatfield, 'Five Early Renaissance
Portraits',p. 317.
 Womenin Frames 25
3 JacobBurckhardt,The Civilizationof the Renaissancein Italy,S.G.C. Middlemore
(trans.), London, 1960, especiallyPart 11'The Developmentof the Individual'and Part IV
'The Discoveryof the Worldand of Man' (firstpublishedin Germanin 1860).
4 The chief surveyof Renaissanceportraitureis JohnPope-Hennessy,ThePortraitin
the Renaissance,London, 1966.
5 Lipman,'The FlorentineProfilePortrait',p. 96.
6 Hatfield, 'Five Early RenaissancePortraits',pp. 319, 321, 326.
7 Lipman,'The FlorentineProfilePortrait',n. 69.
8 Pope-Hennessy, The Portraitin the Renaissance;Meyer Schapiro, Words and
Pictures.On the literaland the symbolicin the illustrationof a text,The Hague, 1973.
9 See, for instance,LauraMulvey, 'VisualPleasureand NarrativeCinema',Screen,
16, no. 3, Autumn 1975, pp. 6-18; LauraMulvey, 'Afterthoughtson "VisualPleasureand
NarrativeCinema"inspiredby Duel in the Sun', Framework,nos. 15-17, 1981;MaryAnn
Doane, 'Filmand the Masquerade:Theorisingthe Female Spectator',Screen,23, nos. 3-4,
1982,pp. 74-87; E. Ann Kaplan,Womenand Film. Bothsides of thecamera,London, 1983;
L. Mykyta, 'Lacan, Literature and the Look: Woman in the Eye of Psychoanalysis',
SubStance,39, 1983, pp. 49-57; JacquelineRose, Sexualityin the Field of Vision, London,
1986.
10 Burckhardt,The Civilizationof the Renaissance,pp. 240, 241.
11 Ibid, p. 240. Studieson educationrelevanthere includeMargaretKing, 'Thwarted
Ambitions: Six Learned Women of the Italian Renaissance',Soundings, 59, Fall 1976,
pp. 280-304;GloriaKaufman,'JuanLuisVives on the Educationof Women',Signs,3, 1978,
pp. 891-6; BeyondtheirSex: LearnedWomenof the EuropeanPast, PatriciaLabalme(ed.),
New York, 1980.
12 Joan Kelly, 'Did Women have a Renaissance?'in BecomingVisible:Womenin
EuropeanHistory,RenateBridenthaland ClaudiaKoonz(eds.), Boston, 1977,repr.in Joan
Kelly, Women,Historyand Theory,Chicago,1984.For an introductionto currentthinking,
witha few essayson artafterthe Quattrocento,see RewritingtheRenaissance.TheDiscourses
of SexualDifferencein EarlyModernEurope,MargaretW. Ferguson,MaureenQuilliganand
Nancy J. Vickers(eds.), Chicago,1986.
13 SvetlanaAlpers, 'Art Historyand Its Exclusions:The Exampleof Dutch Art' in
Feminismand Art History:Questioningthe Litany,Norma Broude and Mary D. Garrard
(eds.), New York, 1982;PatriciaSimons, 'The ItalianConnection:Another Sunrise?The
place of the Renaissance in current Australianart practice', Art-Network,nos. 19-20,
Winter-Spring1986, pp. 37-42.
14 Joan W. Scott, 'Gender: A Useful Categoryof HistoricalAnalysis', American
HistoricalReview,91, 1986, p. 1069.
15 Scott, 'Gender',p. 1068. The interactionbetween psychoanalysisand historyis a
complex and controversialissue; see Elizabeth Wilson, 'Psychoanalysis:Physic Law and
Order?'and JacquelineRose's response,'Femininityand its Discontents',each reprintedin
Sexuality.A Reader,FeministReview (ed.), London, 1987. The latter is also reprintedin
Rose, Sexualityin the Field of Vision.
16 Fern Rusk Shapley, Catalogueof the Italian Paintings,National Gallery of Art,
Washington,1979, vol. 1, pp. 127-9; MaritaHorster,Andreadel Castagno,Oxford, 1980,
pp. 32-3, 180-1, pl. 93.
17 John Pope-Hennessy, 'The Portrait Bust' in his Italian RenaissanceSculpture,
London, 1958.IrvingLavin,'On the SourcesandMeaningof the RenaissancePortraitBust',
Art 'Quarterly,33, 1970,pp. 207-26, by arguingthata presentationof totushomowas the aim
of these busts, does not considerissues of gender.
18 These portraitsof women(mainlyfromFerraraor Milan)are also usuallyin profile,
as are severalportraitsof northItalianmale rulers.A separatestudycould be done of the
courtly,importedprofileconventionfor suchpowerfularistocrats,and of the occasionaluse
of the profilefor male portraiturein fifteenth-centuryVenice, wherevery few women at all
are portrayedbefore the sixteenthcentury.
19 GiovanniBoccaccio, The Corbaccio,A.K. Cassell(trans.), Urbana, 1975, p. 68.
20 RichardKieckhefer, UnquietSouls. Fourteenth-century saints and their religious
milieu, Chicago,1984, p. 47.
21 The last phraseis a majorcategoryusedby the sociologistErvingGoffmanis hisThe
Presentationof Self in EverydayLife, GardenCity, New York, 1959.
22 ChristianeKlapisch-Zuber,Women,Family,and Ritualin RenaissanceItaly,Lydia
26 HistoryWorkshopJournal
Cochrane(trans.), Chicago, 1985, especiallypp. 19-20, 101f, 110-11, 170.
23 Ibid, pp. 127, 226.
24 Diane Oweil Hughes, 'La moda proibita. La legislazione suntuarianell'Italia
rinascimentale',Memoria,nos. 11-12, 1984,pp. 95, 97, with the exampleof womendressed
in Albizzi familyinsigniaon pp. 94-5.
25 1 am here applyingthe interpretationsoffered in Gayle Rubin, 'The Traffic in
Women:Notes on the "PoliticalEconomy"of Sex' in Towardsan Anthropologyof Women,
Rayna Reiter (ed.), New York, 1975, and ElizabethCowie, 'Womanas Sign', m/f, no. 1,
1978, pp. 50-64.
26 Klapisch-Zuber, Women, Family, and Ritual, pp. 183ff, 188, 190, 218.
27 The following is drawn from Patricia Simons, 'Portraitureand Patronage in
QuattrocentoFlorence,withspecialreferenceto the Tornaquinciandtheirchapelin S. Maria
Novella', Ph.D. thesis, Universityof Melbourne,1985, especiallypp. 139, 299.
28 Klapisch-Zuber,Women, Family, and Ritual, ch. 10, 'The Griselda Complex:
Dowry and MarriageGifts in the Quattrocento'.
29 Alessandra Macinghi negli Strozzi, Lettere di una gentildonna fiorentina del secolo
XV, Cesare Guasti (ed.), Florence, 1877, p. 5, translatedin LauroMartines,'A Way of
Looking at Women in Renaissance Florence', Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 4,
1974, p. 25.
30 Klapisch-Zuber, Women, Family, and Ritual, p. 277.
31 Ibid, p. 245 n. 101;Hughes, 'La moda proibita',pp. 89, 102-3.
32 Strozzi, Lettere,p. 446, translatedin Martines,'A Way of Looking at Women',
p. 26.
33 Francescoda Barbaro,De re uxoria, Attilio Gnesotto (ed.), Padua, 1915, p. 79;
translated in The Earthly Republic. Italian Humanists on Government and Society, Benjamin
G. Kohl and Ronald G. Witt (eds.), Manchester,1978, p. 208.
34 Barbaro,De re uxoria, p. 74; Kohl andWitt, The Earthly Republic, p. 204, adapted
slightlyhere.
35 Barbaro, De re uxoria, p. 74; Kohl and Witt, The Earthly Republic, p. 204, again
adjusted.
36 Lipman,'The FlorentineProfilePortrait',p. 97.
37 Federico Zeri with the assistanceof ElizabethE. Gardner,Italian Paintings.A
Catalogue of the Collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Florentine School, New
York, 1971, pp. 85-7. Ringbomhas arguedthat the man's position looking in througha
window is usuallythe location occupiedby a painting'sdonor: Sixten Ringbom, 'Filippo
Lippis New Yorker Doppelportrat:Eine Deutung der Fenstersymbolic',Zeitschriftfur
Kunstgeschichte,48, 1985, pp. 133-7. If this is the case, then a visual conventionis also
constructinghim as the painting'spatron,a man of wealthand status.
38 RichardTrexler, 'Le celibat a la fin du Moyen Age: les religieusesde Florence',
Annales E.S.C., 27, 1972, pp. 1329-50.
39 Paolo da Certaldo,for instance,advisedthat one check a woman'sfamily, health,
sanity, honourand 'bel viso' or beautifulface: quotedin GiovanniMorelli,Ricordi,Vittore
Branca(ed.), Florence, 1956, p. 210 n. 1, with other references.
40 Leon Battista Alberti, 'I libri della famiglia'in his Operevolgari,Cecil Grayson
(ed.), Bari, 1960,vol.l, pp. 110-11,translatedin TheFamilyin RenaissanceFlorence,Rende
Neu Watkin's(trans.),Columbia,S.C., 1969, pp. 115-16.
41 For instance, Strozzi, Lettere, p. 445; B. Buser, Lorenzo de' Medici als italienischer
Staatsmann,Leipzig, 1879, p. 171.
42 Strozzi, Lettere,p. 4; BaldassarCastiglione,Le lettere,Guido La Rocca (ed.),
Milan, 1978, vol. 1, p. 265.
43 Alberti, 'I libri della famiglia',p. 110; translatedin The Family in Renaissance
Florence, p. 115.
44 Renaissance Princes, Popes and Prelates: The Vespasiano Memoirs, Lives of
Illustrious Men of the XVth Century, William George and Emily Waters (trans.), New York,
1963, p. 462.
45 Alberti, 'I libri della famiglia',p. 224; translatedin The Familyin Renaissance
Florence, p. 213. Paolo da Certaldo, Libro di buoni costumi, Alfredo Schiaffini(ed.),
Florence, 1945, p. 129, said that 'a good wife is a husband'scrown, his honourand status
(stato)'.
46 The phrasesare from Paoloda Certaldo,Libro, p. 105 ('La feminae cosa molto
vana e leggiere a muovere', that is, very vain and inconstant,or easily swayed; see also
 Womenin Frames 27

p. 239), CenninoCennini, The Craftsman'sHandbook,Daniel V. Thompson,Jr. (trans.),

New York, 1960. p. 48-9, and MarsilioFicino in David Herlihy and ChristianeKlapisch-
Zutber,Tuscansand TheirFamilies.A Studyof the FlorentineCatastoof 1427, New Haven,
1985, p. 148.
47 Boccaccio, TheCorbaccio,passim,with otherreferencesto misogynistliteratureof
the time.
48 Philip Hendy, Sonte Italian RenaissancePictures in the Thyssen-Bornemisza
Collection,Lugano, 1964, pp. 43-5; Simons, 'Portraitureand Patronage',pp. 142-5.
49 Archiviodi Stato, Florence,Pupilliavantiil Principato,181, folio 148 recto.
50 Petrarch'sLyricPoems. The 'Rimesparse'and otherlyrics,R.M. Durling(trans.),
Cambridge,Mass., 1976, sonnets77 and 78; Lorenzode' Medici, 'Comento'in his Scrittie
scelti, Emilio Bigi (ed.), Turin, 1955, pp. 364f.
51 Boccaccio, The Corbaccio,passim; Diane Owen Hughes, 'SumptuaryLaw and
SocialRelationsin RenaissanceItaly',in DisputesandSettlements: LawandHumanRelations
in the West,John Bossy (ed.), Cambridge,1983;Hughes, 'La moda proibita'.
52 For instance,Diane Bornstein,TheLadyin the Tower:MedievalCourtlyLiterature
for Women,Hamden,Conn., 1983,pp. 24, 74. Doris Lessing'scommenton anothercontext
might be pertinenthere: 'In Purdahwomen gaze out of windowsand keep openingdoors
quicklya little way to see whatmightbe happeningon the otherside; it is a place whereyou
listen and watch for the big events going on outside the room you are imprisonedin': The
Wind Blows Away our Wordsand Other DocumentsRelatingto the Afghan Resistance,
London, 1987, p. 134.
53 Elizabeth Cropper, 'The Beauty of Woman: Problems in the Rhetoric of
RenaissancePortraiture'in Ferguson, Quilliganand Vickers, Rewritingthe Renaissance,
p. 188.
54 Ibid, p. 188; Leon BattistaAlberti, On Painting,John R. Spencer(trans.), New
Haven, 1966 revisededition, p. 63: 'Paintingcontainsa divineforce whichnot only makes
absent men present . . . but moreover makes the dead seem almost alive'.
55 AnonymousFrench School, Jean II Le Bon, Paris, Louvre (second half of the
fourteenthcentury);AnonymousEnglishSchool, HenryV (1387-1422),London, National
PortraitGallery (the latter howeveris a sixteenth-or seventeenth-centurypanel, probably
derivedfrom a largervotive or donorportrait).For the LeonineWarriorsee n. 56 below.
56 Peter Meller, 'Physiognomicaltheoryin RenaissanceHeroicPortraits'in Studiesin
WesternArt. Acts of the XX InternationalCongressof the Historyof Art, Princeton,1963,
vol.2, pp. 53-69. Titian's portraitof the Duke of Urbino (c.1537) was comparedwith
'Alexander'sface and torsp'by PietroAretino, whose sonnet mentionssuch featuresas the
Duke's 'fieryspiritin his eyes' and the 'courage'burning'in his breastplateand in his ready
arms'. For the text and translationsee Mary Rogers, 'Sonnets on female portraitsfrom
RenaissanceNorth Italy', Wordand Image,2, 1986, pp. 303-4.
57 Martin Davies, The earlier Italian Schools, National Gallery, London, revised
edition, 1961, pp. 42-3; Eliot Rowlands,'Baldovinetti's"Portraitof a Lady in Yellow"',
BurlingtonMagazine,122, 1980, pp. 624, 627.
58 Hughes, 'La moda proibita',pp. 97-8.
59 Loc. cit. An interestingcomparisoncould be made with strict Muslimpractice,
wherewomenare veiled and only the husbandcan permitphotographyof a wife'sface. The
faces of old women and childrenseem less solely the man'sto possess:Lessing, The Wind
Blows, pp. 78, 80, 108.
60 Shapley,Catalogueof the ItalianPaintings,pp. 251-5, pl. 171.
61 KennethClark,Piero della Francesca,London, 1951, pp. 206-7, Pls. 101-10, who
notes that the Duke's neck was thickened so that 'the present outline accentuatesthe
monumentalcharacterof the silhouette'.Derivedfromthispairingof a rulerwitha wife, each
in profile,are ErcoleRoberti'sportraitof the BolognesedespotGiovanniII Bentivogliowith
GinevraBentivoglio:Shapley, Catalogueof the ItalianPaintings,pp. 406-7, Pls. 288-9. A
thirdpairby LorenzoCosta,fromFerrara,emphasisesthe woman'sprofileby posingher face
before a darkwindow:G. Szabo, The RobertLehmanCollection,New York, 1975, p. 58.
David Buckland'sphotographicportraitof TheNumerologist(1984),displayedwith TheWife
(1985)in his exhibitionOn a GrandScaleat The Photographers' Gallery,London(20 March-
25 April 1987), consciouslyrefersto Piero'spaintings.The woman'spale flesh, decoratively
curledhair, thin body and neck projectingless into space than the man's, for instance,all
recall the representationof the Duchessof Urbino.
28 HistoryWorkshopJournal
62 Clark,Pierodella Francesca,p. 206.
63 Florentinelegislationof 1355/6,translatedin Boccaccio,TheCorbaccio,pp. 154-62
passim.
64 Alberti, 'I libri della famiglia',p. 224; translatedin The Family in Renaissance
Florence,p. 213. Similaradvicewas given by Paolo da Certaldo,in the contextof whichhe
wrote of a woman's'fameof chastity'being 'like a beautifulflower':Libro, p. 73.
65 Strozzi, Lettere,p. 471; translatedin Martines,'A Way of Looking at Women',
p. 22.
66 ChristianeKlapisch-Zuber,'Le "zane"dellasposa.La fiorentinae il suo corredonel
Rinascimento',Memoria,nos. 11-12, 1984, pp. 12-23.
67 Ibid, pp. 20, 21.
68 See, for example, Alberti, quoted at n. 45 above; Kaufman,'Juan Luis Vives',
p. 892; Bornstein,The Lady in the Tower,p. 70.
69 Hughes, 'La modaproibita',pp. 98-9; also Diane OwenHughes,'Representingthe
Family:Portraitsand Purposesin EarlyModernItaly',Journalof Interdisciplinary History,
17, Summer1986, pp. 7-38.
70 Hughes, 'La moda proibita',pp. 82, 93-6 passim.
71 Ibid, pp. 93-4, translatedhere fromHughes'paraphrase.
72 Bisticci,quoted at n. 44 above.
73 For the first quotationsee Boccaccio, The Corbaccio,pp. 38-9, 50-1, 69f; for the
second, Alberti, TheFamilyin the Renaissance,p. 115.
74 See, for example,ElizabethSwain,'Faithin the Family:The Practiceof Religionby
the Gonzaga',Journalof FamilyHistory,8, 1983, pp. 177-89. Male Afghan refugees also
leave 'an old womanin commandof everything'includingthe childrenand wives, when the
men returnto battle:Lessing,TheWindBlows,pp. 107, 109, see also pp. 113, 149, andn. 59
above.
75 Alberti, The Familyin RenaissanceFlorence,p. 115.
76 Livesof theearlyMedicias toldin theircorrespondence, JanetRoss (trans.anded.),
London, 1910, pp. 108-9; GabrieleMandel, The CompletePaintingsof Botticelli,London,
1970, no. 49.
77 Buser, Lorenzode' Medici,p. 17i.
78 Lisa Tickner,'NancySpero. Imagesof women and la peinturefeminine'in Nancy
Spero, London, 1987, p. 5, referringin particularto the ideas of Luce Irigaray.
79 Ruth Kelso, Doctrinefor the Lady of the Renaissance,Urbana, 1956, especially
p. 195; Elizabeth Cropper, 'On Beautiful Women, Parmigianino,Petrarchismo,and the
VernacularStyle', Art Bulletin, 58, 1976, pp. 374-94; Nancy Vickers, 'Diana Described:
ScatteredWomanand ScatteredRhyme', CriticalInquiry,8, Winter1981, pp. 265-79; see
also Rodolfo Renier, n1tipo esteticodella donna nel medio evo, Ancona, 1885;Emmanuel
Rodocanachi,La femmeitalienneavant,pendantet apresla Renaissance,Paris,1922(reprint
of the 1907 edition), pp. 89f; GiovanniPozzi, 'I ritrattodella donna nella poesia d'inizio
Cinquecentoe la pitturadi Giorgione',LettereItaliane,31, 1979, pp. 3-30.
80 Schapiro,Wordsand Pictures,p. 45; A.E. Popham,TheDrawingsof Leonardoda
Vinci,London,1946,especiallyPls. 133ff,passim;IrvingLavin,'Berniniandthe Art of Social
Satire'in Drawingsby GianlorenzoBernini:from the MuseumderBildendenKunsteLeipzig,
GermanDemocraticRepublic,IrvingLavinet al., Princeton,1981.
81 Lipman,'The FlorentineProfilePortrait',p. 76.
82 BarbaraKruger,We won'tplay natureto your culture,London, 1983.
83 For example, Barbaro,De re uxoria, pp. 72-3, 74 (the latter is quoted at n. 34
above). The restrictionhas a long history.Celie'ssisterwroteto herfromAfrica:'To "lookin
a man'sface"is a brazenthingto do . . . it is our own behaviouraroundPa' (Alice Walker,
The Color Purple,London, 1983, p. 137).
84 Gene Brucker,Giovanniand Lusanna.Love and Marriagein RenaissanceFlorence,
Berkeley, 1986,p. 27. In an Italianceramictrencherof about 1525-30,a man and a woman
looking at each other are accompaniedby the inscription'All things are done by money',
which probably indicates an ocular and monetary exchange with a prostitute: A.V.B.
Norman,WallaceCollection.Catalogueof CeramicsI. Pottery,Maiolica,Faience,Stoneware,
London,1976,pp. 117-8. Pornographyoften showsthe womandirectlylookingat the viewer:
RosalindCoward,'SexualViolenceand Sexuality'in Sexuality.A Reader,p. 318. However,
complicityor equalitycan be the pointof the mutualgaze, dependingon the context'sgender
loading,narrative,and so on. Thus, the VirginMarysometimeslooks out at the viewer (of
 Women in Frames 29

eithersex) in Renaissdncepaintingsto suggesther intercessoryrole. The usualpresenceof the

(Christ)child with her reinforcesthe foreclosedpossibilityof a taboo sexualencounterwith
the Mother.
85 For example, Judith Brown, Immodest Acts. The Life of a Lesbian Nun in
Renaissance Italy, Oxford, 1986, p. 55; Bisticci, Renaissance Princes, Popes and Prelates,
p. 453.
86 VeronicaGambara,'SinceI, by my fortune,returnto look on' in TheDefiantMuse.
Italian Feminist Poems from the Middle Ages to the Present, Beverly Allen, Muriel Kittel and
Keala Jane Jewell (eds.), New York, 1986,pp. 4-5 (with Italiantext too).
87 Iris Origo, The World of San Bernardino, London, 1964, p. 68.
88 Ruth Cline, 'Heartand Eyes', RomancePhilology,25, 1971-72,pp. 263-97;Lance
Donaldson-Evans, Love's Fatal Glance: A Study of Eye Imagery in the Poets of the 'Ecole
Lyonnaise',PlaceUniversity,1980;Rogers, 'Sonnetson femaleportraits',p. 291. A bowl of
about 1535mildlyillustratesthe convention:a youngcouplelook at each otherwhilstCupid's
arrowis about to be releasedvery close to the rhan'shead (Norman, WallaceCollection,
pp. 91-2).
89 Petrarch'sLyric Poems, no. 197 (pp. 342-3); for Bembo see Rogers, 'Sonnetson
female portraits',p. 301.
90 Ibid,p. 303. On the phallicbrushin modernpaintingsee CarolDuncan,'Virilityand
Dominationin EarlyTwentieth-Century VanguardPainting'in Feminismand Art History.
91 The distinctionbetweendepictedfemaleand male figuresis drawnin JohnBerger,
Waysof Seeing,Harmondworth,1972,p. 47.
92 CraigOwens, 'The MedusaEffect or, The SpectacularRuse' in Kruger,We won't
play nature.
93 Of course many men continueto be portrayedin profile within largerworks, as
donorsin altarpiecesor as onlookersin religiousandhistoricalnarratives.Donorand'courtly'
portraitureconventionsare in partbeing utilisedin suchworks,but it couldbe said also that
the men areshownas active,at timesscopic,viewers.Engagedwiththe artifact'sentireaction
or focus, these men are not containedwithinthe tightframeof an independentprofilewhich
providesno object for the portrayedperson'sgaze.
94 For the importanceof visual evidence to Freud'stheories, see Stephen Heath,
'Difference', Screen, 19, Autumn 1978, pp. 51-112. On the loss of an eye symbolising
impotence in medieval France see Jacqueline Cerquiglini,' "Le Clerc et le Louche":
Sociologyof an Esthetic', PoeticsToday,5, 1984,p. 481.
95 PietroFortini,Novelledi PietroFortiniSenese,T. Rughi (ed.), Milan, 1923,p. 64.
96 Origo, The Worldof San Bernardino,pp. 50, 53, 70. For a man'svirile and 'fiery
spiritin his eyes' see n. 56 above.
97 Giovanni Dominici, Regola del governo di cura familiare compilata dal Beato
GiovanniDominicifiorentino,Donato Salvi (ed.), Florence,1869,p. 144. The firstphaseis
translatedin Origo, The Worldof San Bernardino,p. 64, the second in David Herlihyand
ChristianeKlapisch-Zuber,Tuscansand TheirFamilies,p. 255, but neithertext treatsboth
injunctionsto the male and female partner.
98 On fragmentationsee Coward,'SexualViolence and Sexuality',pp. 318-9.
99 Kaplan,Womenand Film;reviewedby D. Waldmanand J. Walker,'Is the Gaze
Maternal?',CameraObscura,nos. 13-14, 1985, pp. 195-214.
100 Linda Williams, 'When the Woman Looks' in Re-Vision. Essays in Feminist Film
Criticism,MaryAnn Doane, PatriciaMellencampand LindaWilliams(eds.), Los Angeles,
1984, p. 88.
101 Diane Owen Hughes, 'Representingthe Family',p. 11.
102 MichelFoucault,The Historyof Sexuality,RobertHurley(trans.), London, 1979,
vol. 1: An Introduction.
103 Jeffrey Weeks, Sex, Politics and Society: the regulation of sexuality since 1800,
London, 1981;JeffreyWeeks, Sexuality,Chichester,1986.
104 The possibility,in relationto profileportraiture,is raisedin n. 17 and 93 above.
105 Scott, 'Gender',p. 1068.
106 Michel Foucault, 'The Eye of Power' in his PowerlKnowledge: Selected Interviews
and other Writings 1972-77, C. Gordan (ed.), Brighton, 1980.
107 For instance,see n. 83 above. An unveiledwomanawayfromPurdahwas probably
observed by 'the area Eye, the little policeman'in Peshawar:Lessing, The Wind Blows,
pp. 118-9. Interestingimplicationsaboutpoliticsand the eye are raisedby the texts cited in
30 HistoryWorkshopJournal

Marc Bensimon, 'The Significanceof Eye Imagery in the Renaissancefrom Bosch to

Montaigne',Yale FrenchStudies,47, 1972, pp. 266-90, and Cerquiglini,'Le Clerc et le
Louche', pp. 479-91.
108 Kathleen Weil-Garrisand John F. D'Amico, 'The RenaissanceCardinal'sIdeal
Palace:A Chapterfrom Cortesi'sDe Cardinalatu' in Studiesin ItalianArt and Architecture,
Henry A. Millon(ed.), Rome, 1980,p. 83.
109 Ibid, p. 83; see also p. 95, on ways of conductingan audienceand 'judgingthe
motion of their eyes'.
110 Antonio Filarete, Treatiseon Architecture,John R. Spencer(trans.), New Haven,
1965, pp. 242-3.
111 Shapley,Catalogueof the ItalianPaintings,pp. 203-4, pi. 140.
112 Popham, The Drawingsof Leonardo,pi. 172; GermainBazin, The Louvre,M.I.
Martin(trans.), London, 1979, revisededition, pp. 131-2 on Pisanello'sA Princessof the
House of Este.
113 Raimond van Marle, The Developmentof the Italian Schools of Painting,The
Hague, 1931, vol. 13, pp. 209f, Pis. 142-3, 145, who illustratesthe male half of the
Huntingtonpairand both portraitsof a similarpairin the KaiserFriedrichMuseum,Berlin.
114 ElizabethCropper,'Prolegomenato a New Interpretationof Bronzino'sFlorentine
Portraits'in RenaissanceStudiesin Honor of CraigHugh Smyth, Andrew Morroghet al.
(eds.), Florence, 1985, vol. 2, p. 158 n. 4 cites L. Bellosi and relates this portraitto the
typologicalprofilesof Dante not to the genderconventionsdiscussedabove.
115 Leo Steinberg,'Pontormo'sAlessandrode' Medici, or, I only have eyes for you',
Art in America,63, January-February 1975, pp. 62-5, whichcould be taken furtherin the
light of the argumentoffered above.