I was born in Bologna in 1552.
My name is Lavinia.
Lavinia Fontana.
And I am a paintress.

The life of Lavinia Fontana. A riot of adventures and colours told to young readers of all ages. An exciting journey published by Minerva and sketched by the illustrations of Carlotta Passarini magically combined with the sparkling storytelling of Paola Goretti, with whom we discuss the challenges in sketching an authentic existence at all costs.

Can you tell us about the genesis of the book and the challenges of immersing yourself in the character?

As the 16th-century artist that I am, I have been working steadily on the Europe of the courts for several years and Lavinia Fontana has been part of my studies since the time of my degree thesis on variations in female fashion in 16th-century Bolognese painting. From there she became part of my life, and this is the biographical plane that binds me to her, but the choice to deal with the artist is also part of the great contemporary interest in women painters and photographers.

I am thinking, above all, of the various exhibitions on the subject and of a new attention that dates back to the 1970s, especially in the United States; I remember in particular the volume Le Grandi Pittrici by Anne Sutterland, Quando anche le donne di misero a dipingere by Anna Banti, the monographic exhibition curated by Vera Fortunati, Pittora singolare (1552-1614) by Maria Teresa Cantaro, up to the contemporary exhibitions, such as the one organised at the Prado in 2019 and the following one at the National Gallery in Dublin in 2023.

Therefore, the intuition to offer the second childhood a work about her has deep roots that are also rooted in my personal experience and the desire to tell the story of a happy, fulfilled and fortunate woman who can be perceived as a virtuous memento, to bring to light illustrious figures who were able to write their own story by having a room of their own, by virtue of a unique talent and courage that led them to intimately pursue their own happiness.

I placed myself in the character, as happened with other illustrious examples: Marguerite Yourcenar's Memoirs of Hadrian or Maria Bellonci's Private Renaissance, where both authors placed themselves in the narrator's ego and in the shoes of the identities they were tracing; in the same way, I confronted Lavinia to entertain an affective dialogue with her, as if to tell her, “Talk to me, and I will listen and transcribe!”

How did you work in concert with Carlotta Passarini?

The concertation came later. First came the drafting of the script, then we identified the points of the narrative that could be illustrated and, at this juncture, the wisdom of Tiziana Roversi, Fatterelli Bolognesi's head of the book collection, whose long experience helped to choose the points to be illustrated, was enlightening. Tiziana is a long-standing pedagogist with great familiarity with children's literature, and it was from her that the relationship with the illustrator began. A crucial moment in which overlapping editing sessions, all coordinated by Tiziana, led to—also—the choice of the cover. The design represents the union of two symbolic cities in Lavinia's biography: Rome, where she spent the last part of her life, and Bologna, also because of the deep bond that united the two cities in the 16th century.

Was it difficult to address an audience of very young people?

I had already tried my hand at a similar publishing venture with La rosa di Bologna. A perfumed story, for which I had to dilute the Byzantine writing I tend towards, making the text bathe in poetry. For Lavinia, too, there was a great lyrical simplification on a child's scale in order to trace the child's moods with the greatest possible ability to enter into the very simple grace of poetry.

In this way, the book acquires a great intercultural value and is addressed to all children of all races to tell them that they can be anything they want to be, through the example of Lavinia.

I would like to end by asking you how you went about choosing the images to be included.

The choice of images was carefully addressed because it could be a gamble to mix new illustrations with reproductions of pictorial works. This gamble was strongly desired by Roversi, to my initial scepticism because I felt it was not compatible, but with such an open working group, I had to reconsider immediately. The choice was easy, at that point, because we opted for the fundamental works that were also easy to find from a geographical point of view, collaborating with the Ministry of Culture, especially for those we wanted at all costs: the Madonna di Ponte Santo or the Gozzadini Family (BO), a sort of secular altarpiece with a stunning operation by Lavinia. It is, in fact, a family snapshot, in which Lavinia's sentimentality brings together the living and the dead, united in a single embrace. A poignant operation to hold sentimental ties together through the art of the brush.

From the Galleria Borghese, however, through the director Francesca Cappelletti, we obtained Minerva in the act of dressing up, her last, singular painting. She, who all her life had portrayed the aristocracy and had been called upon to paint the highest offices of the time, the first time ever for a female artist. Final step: the liberation of an entire existence. Paradigm of the coherence of the very structure of her life.