Artemisia is a novel and a biography at the same time about the life and the work of the controversial figure of the 1600 painter Artemisia Gentileschi.

Many are indeed the historical references and quotations, but many are also the moments in which her life is imagined. The book is interesting because Artemisia is a woman and a painter, two unenviable conditions at that time. In fact despite the admiration for artists, they were anyhow treated as servant and therefore considered of a lower status and then she is a woman and so inferior per birth.

The book makes us live from within the most intimate aspects of this young girl while she’s growing up in the workshop of her father, who will influence and fascinate her so much (Orazio Gentileschi was himself an important painter). We follow her while she learns from her father: she starts with drawing, then she prepares the colours for him and then when, finally, she begins to paint.

A large part of the book is dedicated to Artemisia’s rape done by Agostino Tassi, a painter and a friend of her father. We read of her torture so to confess what has happened, the shame on her and her departure from Rome, where she could no longer stay. Strengthened by this experience and determined to obtain the artistic and economic independence Artemisia comes to Florence and here she is able to enter the Academy of Arts and Design (the first woman ever) and so to become a “real, recognized” painter!
In the book we learn in fact that Artemisia’s earnings were all given to her husband because women could not handle money, nor sign contracts or other similar activities.

 In Florence Cosimo II Medici loved Caravaggio and the artists of his school and so adored Artemisia giving her major and important works to do. She will also be part of the city’s inteligentia  having as friends, among others, Galileo Galilei.

In Florence there is now a beautiful exhibition on the work of Caravaggio and Artemisia Gentileschi has got a big part in it.

What a most suitable time to read this book to get to know more about her life and so better appreciate her pictures and this way be able to see in "Judith and Holofernes" at the Palatine Gallery her selfportrait while she violently kills the man who had raped her!