Die Frauen der Sforza I: Bianca Maria Visconti – Die Stammmutter der Sforza
nur als Buch (Farbband) bei amazon.de: 294 Seiten, mit Stammtafeln und 243 Bildern, Independently published, 1. Auflage 2020, ISBN 978-1-6515-0580-9, € 43,90
Image-Gallery
The year of Ippolita Maria's birth we know through the following mentioned letter: "Another letter, from 1450, describes a display by the 5-year-old Ippolita Maria Sforza before the French ambassador." (in: Evelyn S. Welch: Sight, Sound and Ceremony in the Chapel of Galeazzo Maria Sforza, in: Early Music History, Vol. 12, 1993, pp. 151-190).
In the background she delivers the head of Saint John the Baptist to her mother Bianca Maria Visconti and in the foreground she dances in front of her father, Francesco Sforza (the second person on the right side), and her brothers Galeazzo Maria (on the right side) and Filippo Maria, Sforza Maria and Lodovico il Moro (in the background on the right side) and two male visitors.
By art historians named as "Giovanna degli Albizzi Tornabuoni"; again, like in the case of her daughter, the Milanese Duchess Isabella von Aragon, who has been named by the art historians as the merchant's wife Mona Lisa, there is no proof whatsoever. This portrait painting of Ippolita Maria Sforza was created in the year of her death, 1488. This mistake could only have been made, because the art historians have not only no knowledge about the specific symbols (or emblems) of the high dynasties of the Renaissance, but also do not know that (almost) all women of all times like to copy the clothes and the hairstyles of famous members of their gender.
A letter, which Ippolita Maria Sforza wrote to her best friend, Lorenzo il Magnifico de' Medici, in December 1486: "I cannot tell you the pleasure it gave me to see your handwriting and I have found even more pleasure in seeing your nephew [Luigi de' Rossi], as I think he has something of you about him; and God knows how I long to see you, so that I can thank you with my own lips for all you have done for me and mine; for I am sure that I could not be more obliged to anyone than to Your Lordship, though you have been acting for yourself, since you know that our affairs are your affairs. Magnifico Lorenzo mio, I do not know how your wife would like your taking so much care of the soul you wot of, for those who indulge in such devotions observe vigils not written in the calendar. However, to obey you, though without sharing the wickedness, I send you the gloves [of course her gloves!] and some other trifles suited to your devotion. If you want anything else, say so, for I am as glad to do anything to please you as I should be for my own brothers." (in: Lacy Collison-Morley: The early Medici, London 1935, p. 153).
The Dominican friar Girolamo Savonarola (1452-1498) complains about the painting in his times in the year 1496: "... The images of your Gods are the images and likenesses of the figures you have painted in churches, and then the young men go around saying to this girl and that girl, “That girl is the Magdalene, that other girl is Saint John,” because you have the figures in churches painted in the likeness of this woman or that other one, which is ill done and in great dishonor of what is God's. ... Look at all the convents. You will find them all filled with the coats of arms of those who have built them. I lift my head to look above that door, I think there is a crucifix, but there is a coat of arms: further on, lift your head, another coat of arms. I put on a vestment, I think there is a painted crucifix on it, it is a coat of arms, and you know they have put coats of arms on the back of vestments, so that when the priest stands at the altar, the arms can be seen well by all the people ..." (in: Creighton E. Gilbert: Italian Art 1400-1500 - Sources and Documents, Northwestern University Press, Evanston, Illinois 1992. pp. 157-158).
The depicted lady on the left side is not, as the art historians claim, Giovanna degli Albizzi, who only copied as so many Italian women of her time the hairstyle of the famous Milanese Princess Ippolita Maria Sforza, the Duchess of Calabria.
Neu: Bianca Maria Visconti
Neu: Caterina Sforza
Die Frauen der Sforza II: Caterina Sforza - Die Amazone der Sforza und die Muse von Botticelli
nur als Buch (Farbband), bei amazon.de: 320 Seiten, mit Stammtafeln und 153 Bildern, Independently published, 1. Auflage 2021, ISBN 979-8-7119-9157-1, € 44,73
Dritter Band der Sforza Serie
Die Sforza III: Isabella von Aragon und ihr Hofmaler Leonardo da Vinci
488 Seiten, 322 Abbildungen und Stammtafeln, €49.90 (Format 21 x 27 cm)
