The 17th century “architectress” who was left in obscurity
DS.WRITER:
Sophia Throuvala
Image: Galleria Corsini, Una rivoluzione silenziosa, The “wall of talented women” at Galleria Corsini. Photo: Alberto Novelli | Image source: https://artherstory.net/plautilla-bricci-artist-architettrice/
“A silent revolution: Plautila Bricci painter and architect”, is the title of the first and very important exhibition (5/11-19/4) of the homonymous artist, which I recently visited. The works of Plautila Bricci were gathered, conserved and exhibited for the first time collectively in one of the most emblematic spaces in Rome, Galleria Corsini, curated by Yuri Primarosa. The contemporary approach of the exhibition within the permanent Corsini collection, with the use of intense, acrylic blue and yellow colours for the labels and frames, indeed represented a new addition to the list of names of Roman Baroque artists. But who is Plautila, why don’t we know of her? How important is she to have her works exhibited amongst one of the most famous collections of Rome and why now?
Plautila is not a contemporary artist nor some new Artemisia that was discovered yesterday. However, it’s the first time that the sum of her work concerns connoisseurs and non-connoisseurs alike, and is exhibited to the general public, introducing her by name and occupation.
This Roman artist of the 17th century is the first and only woman that self-identifies and signs as an “architettrice” (meaning female architect in Italian), thus creating a term that has intrigued art history scholars and other respective fields. The “need” for such an exhibition did not arise, as mentioned above, from the discovery of a “new” painter worthy of mentioning and adding to the artistic pantheon of Seicento, on the contrary, the reason behind it was a historical novel. Melania Mazzucco’s book titled “L’architettrice” wasn’t published too long ago and is one of the biggest best sellers of Italian literature. Its subject, given away by its title, revolves around the story of the first “modern” architectress in the city of popes and baroque grandeur. It’s interesting how a mass response to a piece of fiction brought to the light something that wasn't so hidden in the first place yet remained unknown to the masses: the name and some works of Plautila Bricci.
Plautilla Bricci, Drawing for the tomb of Cardinal Giulio Mazzarino, post 1661. National Library, Turin; image courtesy of Consuelo Lollobrigida | Image source: https://artherstory.net/plautilla-bricci-1616-1705/
Plautila, a mostly self-taught artist in her time, without coming from a papal or affluent family, managed with her ambition to leave a legacy that can still be located in some of the most touristic spots in Rome. Still, she remains “unknown”. Her father was a painter, composer, musician and dramatist with connections within the church of the Carmelites and the artistic circles of his time. He operated as a mediator for Plautila to gain access to the world of art despite her gender and class, a combination of social elements that dogmatically restricted access to education and noble professions. Unmarried and creative, she dedicated her life to art, always living with her family, since at the time a woman could not live alone no matter her self-sufficiency. By developing a close relationship with the artist Elpidio Benedetti (an exclusive artist for Giulio Mazzarino and later Jean-Baptiste Colbert, that is, French nobility), she managed to come into contact with the art and artists in Rome as well as the French culture, factors that significantly influenced her work.
The most important work of Plautilla Bricci, Saint Louis IX of France between History and Faith, 1676–1680, oil on canvas, 321 x 164 cm. Rome, San Luigi dei Francesi | Image source: https://artsupp.com/en/artisti/plautilla-bricci/san-luigi-ix-di-francia-tra-la-storia-e-la-fede
Plautila starts to undersign all her paintings as “Plautila Bricci, invenit et pinxit”, meaning “devised and painted”, clearly differentiating herself from the artists of the different schools who reproduced variations on subjects by great artists like Caravaggio. Her need to name her work as her own is not something we easily come across, especially not in “obscure” artists, while the remaking of the word “architect” into “architectress”, obviously stating her gender, is a unique addition to art criticism’s terminology. Even though Plautila was never an artist with huge production, based on what we know today, she was a very active and well-known presence, which knew and was inspired by artists such as the great Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Pietro da Cortona, Andrea Sacchi, Giovan Francesco Grimaldi and Giovan Francesco Romanelli. One of the most famous biographers of the time, Filippo Baldinucci, writes her biography and praises her architectural skills and intelligence.
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Galleria Corsini, Una rivoluzione silenziosa | Image source: http://fotoweb.cultura.gov.it/fotoweb/albums/YYPLK2dMz2iTlLRg/
So, Plautila is the only woman who practised architecture as a profession, and in fact her plans were not only left on paper but were realised. In particular, the iconic Villa Benedetta in Porta San Pancrazio, dubbed "il Vascello", was a map of the high art of the time, with the collaboration of some of the most important artists of their generation, such as Bernini, Cortona and Grimaldi. The building was completely destroyed in 1849 by the French. Beyond the Villa, Plautila dares to propose public works such as the staircase at Trinità dei Monti in Piazza di Spagna, which was not implemented, but with the help of Elpidio she gained an unprecedented appreciation of her work and visibility in a male-dominated society of artists and patrons.
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Galleria Corsini, Una rivoluzione silenziosa | Image source: http://fotoweb.cultura.gov.it/fotoweb/albums/YYPLK2dMz2iTlLRg/
She conceives and realises some of the most beautiful altars and chapels in Rome, the most important of which is in the church of San Luigi dei Francesi, the seat of the French church in Rome. She designs and creates the baroque chapel on all levels, from sculptures and reliefs to architectural composition, and of course, paints the very famous altar. It is the ultimate realization of the visual intelligence “genio” by a woman within one of the most important religious and political spaces of her time, next to the famous triptych of Caravaggio about the life of Matthew. In addition, from 1675 to 1686 she created works in the Basilica of St. John Lateran, frescoes in St. Dominic etc. In the terminology of the time, she is a gentiluomo and/or uomo universalis, that is, an absolutely capable and talented person.
With the reappearance of Plautila, but also because of the way she is conceived and portrayed as a presence through the exhibition at the Galleria Corsini, some questions arise which are not yet easy to answer. The resulting archival research, initially prompted by Mazzucco's novel and then fueled by the parallel actions of the exhibition, contributes to the addition of the artist to the history of art, as Linda Nochlin first suggested in the '70s in her work “Why have there been no great women artists?”. Nochlin talked about how the presence of women artists is bypassed in the recording of history and the evaluation of their talent but also about how they are not included in historical exhibitions.
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Galleria Corsini, Una rivoluzione silenziosa | Image source: http://fotoweb.cultura.gov.it/fotoweb/albums/YYPLK2dMz2iTlLRg/
With great effort, first made by Nochlin and then by other feminist historians and theorists of art who followed her methodology or created new ones, the list of female names was enriched yet remains wanting and brief to this day. It’s important to highlight the fact that given the exclusion of women from an academic education and generally from a creative and professional domain, especially during the 16th-17th century era, it’s only logical that there aren’t so many female figures as there are male, and it is only a historical subsequence that professional terms like “architect” only have a masculine form, due to the exclusively male professionals in this domain. However the historiographical trouble of an artist that had such a prominent presence in her time but also in the well-preserved past -which is very much accessible in the present- constitutes a contemporary problem as does the re-examination of the terms used to talk about them.
Plautilla Bricci, Saint Louis IX of France between History and Faith, 1676–1680, oil on canvas, 321 x 164 cm. Rome, San Luigi dei Francesi, chapel, altar and sculptures | Image source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Luigi_dei_Francesi
The question at hand, which I don’t know if it’s broached by the exhibition or book, is the following: How could an artist, whose works are located within historically studied spaces (like the San Luigi dei Francesi church or even the Vatican), who even created a new professional title for herself and distinguished herself based on gender, remained relatively unknown and up until today hadn’t been historically recorded? The answer can be retrieved from Nochlin who noted that the bigger picture of recorded art history has been established by men. We can contemplate many things, prompted by the fact that Nochlin’s question remains relevant and important.
So, perhaps from the silencing and rediscovery of Plautila Bricci, a fruitful dialogue will begin on art and work in the Baroque period, on the use of terms and how they were formed and used to this day, and finally on the very interesting issue of the visibility of works, which, while in plain view for centuries, are overshadowed by a hypertourism that favours other works and artists.
https://artherstory.net/plautilla-bricci-1616-1705/
https://artherstory.net/plautilla-bricci-artist-architettrice/
Una rivoluzione silenziosa. Plautilla Bricci pittrice e architettrice
https://www.einaudi.it/approfondimenti/melania-g-mazzucco/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Luigi_dei_Francesi
