Elisabetta Sirani (8 January 1638 – 28 August 1665) was a pioneer female artist in Bologna, Italy, where she worked and established an art academy for other women. She died in 1665, aged 27, and the mysterious circumstances of her death, alongside her young age, led to believe there was foul play involved. A maidservant […]
Pierre Mignard (Troyes, 17 November 1612 – Paris, 30 May 1695) was a French painter, brother of the equally renowned Nicholas who was also a painter. He was contemporary to Charles Le Brun, the favourite painter of King Louis XIV, and he carried on with him a bitter rivalry that lasted his whole life. At […]
Porcia, born on 70 b.C., was the daughter of Cato the Younger, a stoic roman senator of the late republic, and the wife of Marcus Junius Brutus, the infamous assassin of Julius Caesar. Brutus married her after divorcing Claudia, the daughter of his long-time ally Appius Claudius Pulcher, without offering any reason whatsoever. This divorce […]