The Artemisia of the title is the painter Artemisia Gentileschi, who was active in the first half of the seventeenth century but recognised as a great artist only seventy years ago by the critic Roberto Longhi. An ardent disciple of Caravaggio, Gentileschi worked in Florence and Rome, taught painting in Naples, travelled in England and, when, hardly more than a child, was subjected to public trial after being the victim of a rape. Neither historical novel nor literary biography, Banti’s book offers a compensation of sorts to a person too long unfairly ignored.


The first draft was lost beneath the bombs, whereupon Banti wrote a second draft in the form of an ‘open diary’. The story of the forgotten painter alternates with the writer’s apprehension at rewriting a work and determination for a reciprocal rescue. Banti finds a correspondent in Gentileschi, a sister in art, someone with whom to share dreams, resentments and passions in the belief that women artists have always risked being doomed to obscurity. The result is a confession, part-truth and part-invention, both biography and autobiography; one of the strangest and most demanding novels in the whole spectrum of Italian literature.

‘Under the rubble of my house I have lost Artemisia, my companion from three centuries ago who lay breathing gently on the hundred pages I had written. At the same time as I recognize her voice, hordes of swirling images pour out...images, at first, of a disillusioned and despairing Artemisia before she died...images, all of them crystal clear and sharp, sparkling under a May sun. Artemisia as a child, skipping among the artichokes in the monks’ garden on Pincio hill, a stone’s throw from her house; Artemisia as a young girl, shut in her room, holding her handkerchief over her mouth to stifle her sobs; and hot-tempered, her hand raised in anger, calling down curses with knitted brow; and a young beauty, with bent head and a faint smile on her lips, all dressed up in a slightly severe gown...’ p4