Many of us are familiar with the names of the Medici in Florence, Federigo da Montefeltro in Urbino, the Este in Ferrara, the Gonzago of Mantua, any number of the Popes in Rome, and maybe even of Fugger in Germany - they were all great patrons of the arts. And they all have something in common: they were men. We rarely consider the Renaissance women who were also patrons, which is exactly what this talk sets out to do. 

There is good reason for the neglect. Legal restrictions meant that women rarely had control of the purse strings - but then, as some of you may remember, in the UK women were not allowed to have a bank account in their own name until 1975 without the authorisation of their father or husband... Back in the 15th and 16th centuries there were also societal constraints about the ways in which women could access society, and even on how they should express themselves. 

Nevertheless, there were specific circumstances when determined, wealthy women were able to spend their own money, and some chose to spend it on art - and in rarer cases, even architecture. This talk will be a survey of some of the women who we can see were patrons from their appearance in the paintings, and of others we know about from documentary evidence. 

While most of the people we will discuss will almost certainly be new to you, at least one is more familiar: the highly educated, and extremely sophisticated Isabella d'Este, the Marchioness of Mantua. Determined to be just like her father and uncles, the marquises and dukes of Ferrara, she too was one of the great patrons of Renaissance art. We will end with a thorough discussion of the works she both collected and commissioned.