The Trials of Artemisia Gentileschi: A Rape as History Author(s): Elizabeth S. Cohen Source: The Sixteenth Century Journal, Vol. 31, No. 1, Special Edition: Gender in Early Modern Europe (Spring, 2000), pp. 47-75 Published by: Sixteenth Century Journal Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2671289 Accessed: 16-02-2016 21:33 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/ info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. Sixteenth Century Journal is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Sixteenth Century Journal. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 147.253.216.44 on Tue, 16 Feb 2016 21:33:26 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions SixteenthCenturyJournal XXXI/1 (2000) The Trials of Artemisia Gentileschi: A Rape as History ElizabethS. Cohen YorkUniversity Lately rediscoveredand celebratedas a talentedfemaleartistin the greattraditionof European painting,Artemisia Gentileschi continues to be representedas strongly definedby her sexuality.Incomplete and anachronisticreadingsof the recordsfrom the 1612 trialforher rape have underpinnedan image of Artemisiaas, in the older a flirtand vamp or,in more recent ones, a feministand resisterof male treatments, of the documentsrestoresthe painter violence. Here a more historicalinterpretation to her seventeenth-centurycontext and adjusts our understanding of both her behavior duringthisyouthfulepisode and her laterachievements. BY THE DRAMATIC SUBJECTS, vivid colors, and contrasting lights and darks of Caravaggio’s baroque school, the paintings of Artemisia Gentileschi recently have enjoyed a deserved rebirth of interest and admiration. Feminist critics, in particular, have celebrated these works because not only were they created by a skillfuland independent female artist,but also they yield a gallery of images of strong women. In the limelight of gender studies, Artemisia has been resurrected from obscurity as an artistic amazon, a heroine of resistance to patriarchy,a potent woman whose work recognizes and lauds her own kind. Ironically,much of Artemisia’s reputation now, as in past centuries, still rests less on her accomplishments than on an adolescent misfortune. Late in her teens, she was raped by a colleague and friend of her father’s, another painter, Agostino Tassi; nearly a year later, her father, Orazio, initiated a prosecution against him, and extensive records of the trial survive. Combining irresistibly sex, violence, and genius, like the story of Heloise and Abelard, the rape of Artemisia Gentileschi has been retold many times. So often, indeed, and with such relish that this episode overshadows much discussion of the painter and has come to distort our vision of her. In the past as well as in the recent renewal of interest in Artemisia, biographers and critics have had trouble seeing beyond the rape. In her case the old-fashioned notion that women are defined essentially by their sexual histories continues to reign, as if a girl who suffersassault must be understood as thereaftera primarily sexual creature. Not only did Artemisia Gentileschi suffersexual violence in the past, but also, because of these judicial documents, her reputation continues to be violated in the present by an overly sexualized interpretation. The distorting preoccupation with Artemisia’s sexual experience derives in considerable part from a poor sense of history. Before explaining much of the DISTINGUISHED 47 This content downloaded from 147.253.216.44 on Tue, 16 Feb 2016 21:33:26 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 48 Sixteenth CenturyJournal XXXI/1 (2000) painter’swork by referringto a single incidentin her life,even a plausiblytraumatic one, scholarsshould examine very carefullywhat happened and especially what these eventsmighthave meantin the contextof theirown culture.Therape mustbe read as history.1 Two kindsof falsestepshave led astraymuch of the writing about Artenmisia. One is weak historicalmethodin decipheringthe documentaryrecord.The otheris mappingmodern ideas about psychologyand sexuality, as if timeless,onto people distantin the past. Instead of this usually unconscious in what othershave thought anachronism,it is importantto recognize difference and felt.In the mattersof selfand genderthatare keyto interpreting we Arternisia, mustconsiderhow earlymodernEuropeans understoodthe relationships between body,psyche,and social persona.The tightlinkagesbetween bodily,especiallysexual, integrityand psychologicalwell-being thatare axioms of modern thinking did not have the same centralityin earlymodern minds.Social persona,in turn, was relatively more importantto them. My argumentmoves in several dimensions.For orientation,I open with a briefbiographicalresume,includinga skeletonaccount of the rape and trial.Next comes an examinationof some samplesfromthe literaturethatover manyyears has re-createdand interpretedtheseevents;here the goal is to show how anachronisticreadinghas perpetuated a highlysexualized image of the painterand her work.Then, the focus turnsto the trialrecorditself.Aftersome generalconsiderationson the properhandlingof these rich,but complicateddocuments,I examine the rape fromthe differing, sometimescontradictoryperspectivesof several of decidingwhat happened and why. witnesses.This exerciseprovesthe difficulty It also shows the range and ambiguityof meanings that this rape had for those involved.Social alliances,professionalreputations,even money were as much at stake as sex and moral honor.Against thisbackground of tangled purposes and I thenlook closelyat Artemisia’sown wordsand behavior.A reading relationships, of her testimoniesin the contextof seventeenth-century mentalityrecognizesthe sexual dimensionof events,but highlightsits social more than its bodily or psychological impact.An emergentfeministconsciousnessrooted in angerat an outragedbody is littleevident.The writtenrecordshows the painterrespondingwith but withinthe constraints to the rape and itstroubledsocial circumstances strength of her time,not as mighta twentieth-century heroine. Let us startwith an outline of events.At the beginning of the seventeenth centurytheTuscan Orazio Gentileschilived as a moderatelysuccessfulpainterin lRoy Porter,”Rape-Does It Have a Historical Meaning?” in Rape, ed. SylvanaTomaselli and Roy Porter (Oxford: Blackwell, 1986), 216-36. Many histories of rape in premodern Europe have ofEros: focused on incidence and prosecution;see, for example,for Italy,Guido Ruggiero, Botindaries Sex Crimeand Sexualityin RenaissanceVenice(NewYork: Oxford UniversityPress,1985), chap. 5. StudMaidens:Writing ies of rape narrativeshave attended more to experience: KathrynGravdal,Ravishling Rape ii Medieval FrenchLiteratureand Law (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991); Miranda Chaytor,”Husband(ry): Narrativesof Rape in the SeventeenthCentury,”Genderand History7 (1995): 378-407; GarthineWalker,”Rereading Rape and SexualViolence in Early Modern England,” Genderand History10 (1998): 1-25. This content downloaded from 147.253.216.44 on Tue, 16 Feb 2016 21:33:26 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Cohen / TrialsofArteniisia Gentileschi49 Rome.2 In 1605, his wife died, leaving him fourchildren:twelve-year-oldArtemisia and threeyoungerboys.Followingcommon practice,Orazio taughthis children,includingthe eldest,the familycraft. While not everydaughterof a painter was trainedto followin her father’swork,manyprofessionalfemaleartistslearned theirskillsat home.3Artermisia, as it proved,was gifted.A quick learner,by her late teensshe was capable not only of assistingin her father’s workshop,but also of producing work of salable quality on her own.4 She was also becoming of age to marry.Evidentlyconcerned about his nubile daughter,bereftof maternaloversight,Orazio arrangedwith his marriedwoman neighbor,Tuzia, to serve in the role of chaperon and companion. The professionallife of Roman artistsin this period involveda livelysociability.5 Among the visitorsto her father’shouse,Artemisiamet futurecolleaguesand potentialspouses.This open, but respectablesocial milieu providedthe settingforthe famousrape and trial. In 1611, Orazio shared work and a circle of friendswith Agostino Tassi. Despite a checkeredpersonal history, Agostino was evidentlyan engaging companion who ingratiatedhimselfwith membersof Orazios’ household,including Tuzia and Artemisia.6One May afternoon,Tassi called to findArtemisia,accompanied by Tuzia, working on a portraitof a child.When the chaperon leftthe room,Agostino flirtedwith Artemisiaand then forcedher to have sexual intercourse.Artermisia resisted,continuingto protestadamantlywhen releasedfromhis weight.To mollifyher,Tassi promised marriage and she accepted this commitment.In succeedingweeks and months,the pair maintaineda sexual relationship while joining in the parties of their circle.Then, in March 1612, about nine monthsafterthe assault,Orazio launched a prosecutionagainstAgostinoandTuzia for conspiring to deflower his daughter.The trial dragged on through seven monthsof intermittent and legal maneuvers.During at leastthe first interrogations six weeks, there continued private negotiations toward a settlementending in marriage.In NovemberTassi was sentenced,althoughhe evaded punishment.7 2R. Ward Bissell, Orazio Gentileschiand thePoeticTraditionin CaravaggesquePainting(University Park:PennsylvaniaState UniversityPress,1981), 1-2, 9. 3WhitneyChadwick, Women, Art,and Society(London:Thames & Hudson, 1990), 83, 87, 104-5, 122. 4Mary Garrard,ArtemisiaGenitilesclhi: Tue Imiageof the FemnaleHero in BaroqueArt (Princeton: Princeton UniversityPress,1989), 15-17. and Cond,.ict ofArtists 5RudolfWittkowerand MargotWittkower,Born tinderSaturn:The Character (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1963), 46-63, 150-75, 183-202, 246-48; this account highlights the sensational,but shows some aspects of the artists’social world. Other dimensionsappear in Francis Haskell,Patronsand Painters, 2d ed. (New Haven:Yale UniversityPress,1980), esp. chaps. 1 and 5. 6PatriziaCavazzini, Palazzo Lancelottiai Coronari(Rome: IstitutoPoligraficoe Zecca dello Stato, 1998), 173-75. (Paris: Robert Laffont,1998), annexes, 7Alexandra Lapierre,Artemlisia: Un duelpour l’immortalite 456-57 (below I cite thisdocumentaryappendix as Lapierre,”Annexes”); Cavazzini, Palazzo Lancelotti, 175-76, 208. Sentenced to fiveyearsof exile fromthe city,Tassi neverthelessremained in Rome until the next spring.When,in April 1613, his condemnation was reiteratedand amplified,his patronshad it annulled.He was formallyexonerated,but disappearedpromptlyand discreetlyto work on a commission in the country. This content downloaded from 147.253.216.44 on Tue, 16 Feb 2016 21:33:26 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 50 Sixteenth XXXI/1 (2000) CenturyJournal Despite thiscrisis,Artemisia’s careerwas on its threshold.Immediatelyafter the trial,she marriedPierantoniodiVincenzo Stiattesi,an inconsequentialpainter and the brotherof a familyassociate. By 1613 the couple had moved to Florence, where Artemisiaemergedas a professionalartistin her own right.Supported by prestigiouspatrons,she was soon enrolledas one of the few women, ever,in the Accademia del Disegno.9 Later,her career took her back to Rome, to Genoa, Venice, and Naples. Late in the 1630s she painted in England with her fatherin the royalhouse at Greenwich.10She provedsuccessfulnot only in the technicalities of her craft,but also in the necessarybusinessof pleasingpatronsand finding 11 Adaptingwhere necessaryto the tasteof the market,she remained commissions. reasonablyprosperous,although she needed to be carefulwith money.By her painting,Artemisiasustaineda small family.12Most of her severalchildrendied young.Sometimeafter1622, her ne’er-do-wellhusbanddisappearedfromher life. Thereafteron her own, she supported and raised at least one daughter.13Some fortyyearsafterthe rape trial,followingan active life as internationallyadmired artistand as a mother,Arternisiadied in Naples,in 1652 or 1653. * * * Since Artemisia’sdeath,sexualityhas been centralto her reputation.This carnal legend has threesources:(a) the recordof the rape trial,(b) the traditionof writing about Artemisia,and (c) her paintings,especiallytheirthemesand bodily sensuality.The threeformsof evidence appear to reinforceone another,and circles of argumentbased on theirconvergencecontinue to be spun. In my argumentfor toningdown the emphasison Artemisia’ssexualityand forreadingit in a way fitting the seventeenthcentury,I break into the circle by addressingthe verbal record,and leave the paintingsto arthistorians.Looking firstat the writingabout I would dismantleits claimsby pointingto its failureas historyin two Arternisia, ways.First,the older traditionoftenascribesto the paintera sexual notorietythat seems in greatparta mythwith littlebasis in writtentexts.Secondly,more recent treatments continueto highlighther sexuality, but anachronistically endow it with twentieth-century psychologyand gender-consciousness. Artemisia’sreputationin her own lifetimeshows littlesign of grave sexual blemish.The trial transcriptsregisteronly inconclusive,mostlymale comment 8Lapierre,”Annexes,”444, 457. ArtemisiaGentileschi, 9Garrard, 34-53; Lapierre,”Annexes,”458-64. l0Garrard,Artemnisia Gentileschi, 88-120. llGarrard,Artemisia Gentileschi, 53, 83-85, 89-91,110,120,127-28,135-36. 12Elizabeth Cropper,”New Documents forArtemisiaGentileschi’sLife in Florence,” Burlington Magazine 135, no. 1088 (November 1993): 760-61; Lapierre,”Annexes,”463. 13Lapierre,”Annexes,” 470-71; the only mention of Pierantonio after1622 is a letter of 1637 where Artemisiarequests to know his whereabouts. Documents show her living in Rome with one daughter in 1624, but lettersof 1636 and 1649 both speak of a daughter’smarriage plans: Garrard, ArteinisiaGentileschi, 63, 386, 391. The time gap suggeststhere must be two differentdaughters;this hypothesishas led to speculation thatArtemisialaterhad another,likelyillegitimate,child. This content downloaded from 147.253.216.44 on Tue, 16 Feb 2016 21:33:26 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Cohen /TrialsofArtemisia Gentileschi51 about Artermisia, her virginityand her conduct.Since all the reporterswere partisan,both the positiveand the negativeremarksare suspect.14While the trialwas held in camera, the proceedingsthemselvesalso mighthave set local tongueswagging. Gossip about Artemisia,the rape,or the court case, however,did not mean permanentdamage. In earlymodern Rome where slanderwas rife,people knew enough to enjoy,but also to weigh and discard,casual talk.No other record of public contumelyabout the rape has been found.Neither routinegossip nor the publicity trialitselfproveArtemisia’sirrevocablysullied honor. On the contrary, about the adult artistdepicted not a libertine,but a respectableand admiredprofessional.5 Judgmentsabout the impact of the trialon the young painter’spublic image thereforemust be cautious. In particular,failingevidence of an indelible blemishon her reputation,the hypothesisthatshe or othersexploitedher notorietyin the artmarketlacks force. Without clear rootsin Artermisia’s lifetime,the latergrowthof the legend of her sexual celebrityis obscure.Between her death and the twentiethcentury,she received little writtencoverage.16 Female artists,in general,have gotten short shrift.In collected lives of artists,for example, portraitsof women are few,and those are scant on informationabout professionalachievementsand long on steThis literary reotypesthatemphasize strengthor weakness of moral character.17 An per se,raisedthe specterof sexuality. conventionpresumesthata woman artist, anecdote told by the late-seventeenth-centurybiographer Filippo Baldinucci about the painterGiovanni Francesco Romanelli, his admirationforArtemisia, Here is representeda a characteristic and his wife’sjealousy illustrates ambiguity.18 woman artistwho stimulateddesire-all the more because she was talentedThe image ofArtemisiais sexualwithoutherselfactingor feelingthe temptress. Where then do we findArtemisiaas, more ized, but only weakly and indirectly. thanjust a femalepainter,an egregiouslysexual icon? A principalsource forthis traditionis a pair of slanderouspoetic epitaphspublishedshortlyafterher death. Yet, appearing in a collection that pokes salacious fun at a variety of things, includingfamouspeople, the versessupplyevidence as much forArtemisia’sbroad 14Garrard,appendix B, 474, 479; Lapierre,”Annexes,”434-38. 63-64, 135, 137. Lapierre,”Annexes,” 470-7 1, like many others, 15Garrard,Arteinisia Gentileschi, assumes,ratherthan shows, thatthe painterhad a reputationas a “galliarde”; the author cites possible loversand an illegitimatechild as consistentwith such a reputation.I would distinguishbetween Artethough theirnumber,nature,and misia’sbehavior and her public image. She may have had love affairs, publicitywe do not know. Such conduct would not necessarilymean being widely known as a libertine. 206 and n. 57. Gentileschi, 16Garrard,Artenmisia and Architects Sculptors, 17For example, Properzia de’ Rossi in Giorgio Vasari,Lives ofthePainters, (London: Random House Dist., 1996), 1:856-60, and Lavinia Fontana in Giovanni Baglione, Le Vite di GregorioXIIIfino a tuttoquello d’Urbano VIII (Rome, Dal Ponteficato dei pittori,scultoriet architetti, 1649), 143-44; see also ibid., 92, about Hippolita, wife of Fabrizio Parmegiano. del disegnoda Cimabuein qua… (Florence, 1681-1728), 18FilippoBaldinucci, Notizie de’professori 3, 83-84. Gentileschi, dec. 2, par.2, sec. 4, pp. 293-94. See also, Garrard,Artetnisia This content downloaded from 147.253.216.44 on Tue, 16 Feb 2016 21:33:26 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 52 Sixteenth CenturyJournal XXXI/1 (2000) renown as forher lasciviousness.19No otherposthumous textsin thisvein have appeared. Artemisia’sfortunesimprovedin the hands of twentieth-century scholars.The several hundredyears of deep obscuritywere broken,firstin 1916 by Roberto Longhi’s respectfularticle and aftermidcenturyby a slowly gatheringwave of publications.20Early on, Artemisiaoftenappeared as a footnoteor slightlysalacious sidebarto discussionsof her fatheror ofTassi.Later,she figuredin feministspirited anthologies of recovered women artists.Most recently,in the last ten years,she has emergedon her own as the focus of exhibitionsand large,interpretivestudies.21Other contributionshave enrichedand correctedour knowledgeof the artist’slife.22 The emphasison Artermisia’s sexualitypersisted,as manyof the earlierscholarlytreatmentsplayed ambivalentvariationson the traditionalWesternlinkage between women and transgression. The Wittkowers,for example, in Born under Saturn(1963) included in theircluckingportraitof seventeenth-century Rome’s artisticbohemia an account of the trial.Focusing on Tassi as the indulgedbad boy, a lastheydismissedhis victimin a single,lapidarysentenceat the end:”Artermisia, civious and precocious girl,laterhad a distinguishedand highlyhonorable career as an artist.”23 intentions,Eleanor Tufts,in her earlyeffort Though with different of recovery, HiddenHeritage:Five Centuries ofWomen Artists(1974), gaveArtermisia’s profilea similarcast.While celebratinga neglected figureTuftshighlightedthis “Her privatelifewas painter’sromanticlifein a tone thatundercuther credibility. full of amorous affairs, and she, not surprisingly, a superb writerof love letters. Nevertheless,her firstintroductionto the ways of love and desirewas as a victim of rape.”24 In these portrayalsArtemisia’ssexualitywas at her core. In light of European culturaltraditionsabout the worthof women,thattraitdiminishedher. More recentfeministapproachesto Artermisia, conthoughdrawingdifferent clusions, often continue to put sexual experience, specificallythe rape, at the centerof her identityand achievements.Blaming the victimbecomes celebrating the victim.Stillexceptionaland transgressive, Artemisiais now a heroine,a trium19Lapierre,”Annexes,”471. 20Roberto Longhi, “Gentileschi padre e figlia,”Arte 19 (1916): 245-314; reprintedin Scritture giovanili:1912-1922 (Florence,1961),1:219-83. 21Besides Garrard and Lapierre,see Roberto Contini and Gianni Papi, eds., Artenfisia(Rome: Leonardo De Luca, 1991), the catalogue of a major exhibition,includingessaysusefulhere by Luciano Berti and Gianni Papi. See also, Elizabeth Cropper,”Artemisia Gentileschi,la ‘pittora,”‘in Baroccoal feinminile, ed. Giulia Calvi (Rome: Laterza, 1992), 191-218; R.Ward Bissell,Artemnisia Gentileschiand theAuthority ofArt:CriticalReadingand CatalogueRaisonne(UniversityPark:PennsylvaniaState UniversityPress,1999). 22R. Ward Bissell, “Artemisia Gentileschi: A New Documented Chronology,”Art Bulletin50 (1968), 153-68; Cropper,”New Documents”; Lapierre,”Annexes.” 23Wittkowerand Wittkower,BornunderSaturn,162-64. 24EleanorTufts,Our HiddenHeritage:Five CenturiesofWomenArtists(NewYork: PaddingtonPress, 1974), 59. These “love letters,”likely a figmentof the romantic construction of Artemisia,have not been traced. This content downloaded from 147.253.216.44 on Tue, 16 Feb 2016 21:33:26 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Cohen /TrialsofArtemisia Gentileschi53 phant resisterof patriarchy. Through rape survival,Artemisiais said to have developed a feministconsciousnessthatexpressesitselfin her paintings,especiallyin the strikingviolence of her repeatedrenderingsof”Judithand Holofernes.”Germaine Greerintroducesthisinterpretation in her chapteron Gentileschi,”The Magnificent Exception” (1979). Calling her “the female equivalent of an Old Master,” GreerlocatesArtermisia as the anomalous woman in the romantics’greattradition of the artistas the social rebeland tormentedindividualist.25 In her firstparagraph, Greer sums up Artemisia’scareer by referringobliquely to its supposed turning point-the rape. At one time she wished to be the wife of a painter,but she was saved fromthis fate against her own will. The retiredlife of women was an impossibility for her and so she lived aggressive, independent and exposed, forcingherselfinto postures of self-promotion,facing down gossip,and working,workingwith a seriousnessthatfew otherwomen everpermittedthemselvesto feel.26 Greer then proceeds to argue for Gentileschi’sartisticmerits,but the shadow of sexual notorietyremains.Here Artemisiaranksas a heroinebecause she overcame her misfortune; yetshe nevercould reallyput it behind her. A decade later,Mary Garrard,in the firstmajor monograph on Artemisia The book’s many-stranded Gentileschi(1989), elaboratesthisinterpretation. argument discussesArtemisia’stechnicalskills,her relationswith patrons,and her intellectual and artisticenvironment, but stressesthe painter’sindividualpsycheand its resistanceto the violent intrusionsof a patriarchalculture.Garrardacknowledges the knottinessof the trialrecord,but proceeds intrepidlyto assignto the rape crucial transformations in Artemisia’scharacterand to derive fromit the power of some of her most startling works.27Thegeneralfactof the rape,not itsparticularities,sufficefor explanation.Though more integratedinto her artisticand social environmentthan Greer’sArtemisia,Garrard’sis again a standout,giftedand independent.The analysislines this exceptionalityclosely to the eventsof 1611-12. Here, once more,the rape accountsformuch of Gentileschi’sachievement. In currentscholarlywriting,despitethe greaterbalance in Garrardand some as definitively otherworks,the portrayalofArtemiisia markedby rape endures.The human interesthook seems irresistible, especiallyto writersof syntheticaccounts of women and art.28And some authorseven of more specialized studiescling to Paintersand TheirWork(New York: 25Germaine Greer,The ObstacleRace: The FortunesofWomnen FarrarStrauss,1979), 207. 26Greer,ObstacleRace, 189. ArteinisiaGentileschi, 27Garrard, 26, 32, 204-8, 228-32, 305-13; the inclusion of a long appendix of trialdocuments,403-87, confirmsGarrard’semphasison the rape. In the laterchaptersshe broadens her explanationfromthe rape specificallyto the more generalstressesforwomen of patriarchalsociety. in theWest,vol. 3, Renaissanceand 28FrancoiseBorin, “Judgingby Images,”in A HistoryofWomien Paradoxes,ed. Natalie Davis and Arlette Farge (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Enlightenmnent theRenaissanceto Press,1993), 233-35. Olga Opfell, SpecialVisions:ProfilesofFifteenWomien Artistsfromn thePresentDay Jefferson, N.C.: Macfarland, 1991), 1- 1. Theodore K. Rabb, RenaissanceLives: Por- This content downloaded from 147.253.216.44 on Tue, 16 Feb 2016 21:33:26 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 54 Sixteenth XXXI/1 (2000) CenturyJournal the image of the eroticizedArtemisia.George Hersey,forexample,perpetuating withoutnuance thisview of the painter,speculativelypins myriaddetailsofArtemisia’swork to her sexual history.29 Most recently, AlexandraLapierre’sbiographical novel,Artemisia: Un duelpourP’immortalite (1998), givesmore thana thirdof its pages to the years 1611-12. While Lapierre did much archivalresearch,she ultimately decided that only by writing fiction could she interpolate emotional the rape, dynamicsthatthe documentssimplycould not sustain.In her narrative, the trial,and Artemisia’ssubsequent marriageform key episodes in a love-torn rivalrybetween the impulsivefather, uncertainof his honor,and his brilliant,passionatedaughter.30 Lapierre’shybridof scholarshipand imaginationis only the latestof works, especiallyin the last decade, to have broughtArtemisia’sstoryto a largerpublic. Inspiredby materialacademics unearthed,creativewritersand filmmakershave produced an arrayof fictionsabout Artemisia,the rape-survivorand feministheroine. These, in theirturn,may have reinforcedthisvision among some scholars. The pioneer was the 1947 Italiannovel,Artemisia, publishedunder the pseudonym Anna Banti,by a writermarriedto the art historianLonghi.31Since 1990,Artea play and a docudrama, misia has figuredin a varietyof imaginativetreatments: both Canadian; a French featurefilm;and, less centrally, Britishmysterytales in in theirshadings,mostof theserepresenprintand on television.32 While differing tations highlight sexuality.All have found in the rape story an emotionally charged,”true-life”drama thatresonateswith compellingsocial and moral issues of the currentday.Forgettingthe distance between themselvesand the seventeenth-centurypainter,both writersand their audiences have identifiedeasily with the protagonist. Presumingto know Artemisia’sexperiencethroughimagination,theyhave ended up seeing theirown world more thananother.For the playwright or novel reader,for whom historyis incidental to self-knowledge,this forscholarsseekingto understand presentismmay not be a problem.Nevertheless, traitsofan Age (NewYork: Pantheon, 1993), 176-91, gives severalpages to the rape and its aftermath, but these eventsdo not color the picture of Artemisia’slaterprofessionallife.A recentItalian popularization,Tiziana Agnati and FrancescaTorres,ArtemisiaGentileschi: La pittmra dellapassione(Milan: Selena Edizioni, 1998), providesa similarlymore balanced account. 29George Hersey,”Female and Male Art: Postilleto Garrard’sArtemnisia Gentilescli,”in Parthensopes Splendor:Artofthe GoldenAge in Naples,ed. J. C. Porter and S. S. Munshower (UniversityPark: PennsylvaniaState UniversityPress,1993), 322-34. 300n a range of general and specific points, some of Lapierre’s interpretations are plausible, if unprovable,and othersunconvincing;examples appear in notes below. 31Anna Banti (pseudonym of Lucia Longhi Lopresti),Artemisia(Florence, 1947; English translation by ShirleyD’Ardia Caracciolo, Lincoln: Universityof Nebraska Press,1988). 32Play:Sally Clarke,”Life without Instruction:(1991); televisiondocudrama:Adrienne Clarkson, “Artemisia,”Canadian BroadcastingCorporation (1993); film:Agnes Merkel,Artetnisia (1998); mystery novel:Joan Smith,WhatMen Say (1993); television drama:”Painted Lady,”Granada Television, 1997. Unabashedly ahistorical,Merkel’s filmplays down the event of the rape,but romanticallysexualizes Artemisiaand her whole world of baroque artists. This content downloaded from 147.253.216.44 on Tue, 16 Feb 2016 21:33:26 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Cohen / TrialsofArtemisia Gentileschi55 the past, including art historians,such ahistorical thinking,however sincerely empathetic,can be a trap. In studyingArtenmisia, thisimaginativeanachronismis easilycompounded by overlymodern thinkingabout psychologyand gender relations.In the wake of late-nineteenth-century sexualityresearchand psychoanalysis, ideology about the personputs sex at the center.Late-twentieth-century while rejectingor feminism, revisingmany earliertenetsabout gender,continues to treatsex as pivotal.This assumptionunderliesan influentialreevaluationof sexual violence as a defining node in relationsbetween men and women. In thispsychologicaltheoryof politics,rape becomes an essentialenforcerof male hegemony.This way of thinking presumesthatphysicaland, especially,psychicintegrityare main pillarsof a firm sense of self and that personal autonomy is critical for well-being. Rape may thereforeinjurebody and reputation,but most cruciallyit attacksthe selfby violatingprivateboundaries.33Furthermore, women in all patriarchal thatis, allsocieties are expected alike to sufferthese destructiveintrusions,as concept and threat,even if not as actual experience.This universalizingideology of rape has more and less consciouslyshaped the mind-setwith which manyscholarsrecently have approachedArtemisiaGentileschi.To understandthispainter’sassaultin its proper seventeenth-centurycontext,however,these anachronisticassumptions mustbe put aside.Discountingalso the receivedlegends of the sexyArtemiisia, we now should look afreshat the originaltrialmanuscripts. * * * To decipherArtenmisia’s experience,we mustread the primarydocumentswith all possible historian’sskills.The firsttask is to assess the extent and nature of the sources. For the Tassi-Gentileschi conflict,there is a single fount,the criminal court of the governor of Rome; all that we know comes throughthatbody.34 Even so, the recordsare complex and not easy to master.Whilemost sit gathered in one volume, significantfragmentsof informationkeep coming to light,scattered among the court’s many separate series. In assessingrape and its consequences,one musttake account of the whole of the known evidence,interpreting each piece in light of the rest.The characterof the sources is also crucial. No recordfromthe past is transparent; judicial testimoniespose special problems,not 33For exampleW. Sanders, Rape and Women’sIdentity(Beverley Hills: Sage Publications, 1980), 15, 22, 133-37. On the problems of such universalizing for history,Porter,”Rape,” 230; Walker, “Rereading Rape,” 2-3. 34The original manuscriptsare held in theArchivio di Stato di Roma (hereafter ASR),Tribunale criminale,Governatore,Processi 1600-1619, busta 104; some portions are very fragile.Eva Menzio, ed., Atti di tinprocessoper stuxpro (Milan: Edizioni delle Donne, 1981) is a quite accurate,largelycomin the original Latin and Italian.The somewhat flawedEnglish translationby Efrem plete transcription G. Calingaert,published in Garrard,includes some additional archivalmaterial.Lapierre,”Annexes,” esp. 430-57, gives original textsof further, previouslyunpublisheddocuments.For the convenience of an English-speakingreadership,I refermostly to the translation,Garrard,appendix B, where correspondences to the pagination in the manuscriptsare carefullynoted. Some of the translationerrorsare addressedin notes below. This content downloaded from 147.253.216.44 on Tue, 16 Feb 2016 21:33:26 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 56 Sixteenth CenturyJournal XXXI/1 (2000) alone because theirrich color and dramaticnarrativecreatea compellingillusion of straightforward truth.Also,trialsare multivocal,shaped at once by the conventionalformalitiesof legal language and practiceand by the diversityof the speakers’ political, social, and culturalpositions.What witnesses said is no impartial photographof theirworld; rather,more or less consciously,theypaint a picture thatreflectstheircapacitiesand theirstakes,both in and out of court.Constrained also by the rulesof perjury, theywere pressedto tella storythatconformedto the categoriesof the law and withstoodthe rigorsofjudicial inquiry.In the end, the judges hearda cacophonyof sincereassertions, naive dissimulations, wily plausibilities,and stonewallinglies. For modern scholars,to liftsuch statementsout of their contextin the largerrecordis tempting,but risky.Instead,waryof theirown credulity,readersmustproceed carefully, keeping a close eye to the complex layering of textand to strategicrhetoric.35 The next question is the relationshipbetween the manuscriptsand the past In Artemisia’scase,the single corpus of documentsprovidesaccess to theyrefract. two distinctgroups of historicalevents:thereare,first, whateverhappened in the Gentileschicircle,startingin the springof 1611, and second,the trialitself,which deliversnaropened almosta yearlater,in March 1612.While the court transcript ratives,interrogations,and rebuttalsconcerning the earlier goings-on, the trial proceedingsare themselvesa separateset of events,with theirown dynamics,players,and motives.To filterwhat participantssay about the deeds of 1611, we must reckonwith what theywere tryingto accomplishunderjudicial scrutinythe following year.The betterto read one phase of the storythroughthe other,it helps to lay out context for each. Beginning with the rape and its circumstances,we need to look at social expectationsand conventions,especiallyconcerningfamilies and theirnubile daughters.For the trialitselfwe mustexamine the potentimpact of the law and itsprocedures. The social and moral environmentin which Artemisia’srape occurred was highlyinsecureand uncertain.Early modern Rome was heterogeneous,mobile, and violent.36Where the Gentileschislived,the rioneof Campo Marzio,was especiallyso.This large districtsheltereda motleyof ranks,occupations,and nationalities, from monks and river men to grandees and grooms, as well as many of Rome’s artists. Otherswho stayedforyears Many people residedonly temporarily. 350n reading the past fromtrial documents, Elizabeth S. Cohen, “Court Testimony from the Past: Self and Culture in the Making ofText,”in Essays on LifeWriting,ed. Marlene Kadar (Toronto: UniversityofToronto Press, 1992), 86-91;Thomas Kuehn, “Reading Microhistory:The Example of Giovanniand Lbsansa,”Jowrnal ofModernHistory61 (1989):512-34. 360n violence, see Steven Hughes, “Fear and Loathing in Rome and Bologna,”JotirnalofSocial History(1987): 97-116; Peter Blastenbrei,Krimninalitdt in Roma, 1560-1585 (Tiibingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1995). In the late 1590s the city’sgeneral statutesintroduced specific referencesto violence againstwomen, specificallystrongermeasuresagainstbreakinginto theirhouses; see Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Misc., Arm. IV-V, b. 47, fols. 95-102. More generally,on Roman society,Peter Partner, RenaissanceRomne1500-1559 (Berkeley:Universityof CaliforniaPress,1976), esp. chap. 3. This content downloaded from 147.253.216.44 on Tue, 16 Feb 2016 21:33:26 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Cohen / TrialsofArtemisia Gentileschi57 were yet wont, like Orazio and his family,to move fromhouse to house.37 By papal regulation,thisdistrictalso lodged most of the city’sprostitutes.They in turn attractedrestlessyoung men in search of company,sex, or a good brawl.38Thus, the Gentileschis’neighborhoodvibratedwith animationand mayhem.Whilethe citygovernmentfoughtto extendorder,personalsecurity eitherphysicalor psychological was oftena fleetingluxury. In thisdiverseand fluidsociety,the Gentileschicircle,like otherRomans, had to navigateamong several,not alwaysconsistentcodes of moral and social conduct,some Christian,otherslay.Ideals were preached,rules made,but in practice negotiationwas more common thansimple enforcementand conformity. Amidst the rough practicalitiesof seventeenth-century dailylife,moral standardsdid not translateinto behavior so smoothlyas theywould in the more controlledEuropean environmentsof latercenturies.In particular,honor in earlymodern streets was no matterof black and white.39Rather,various groups and stationshad to A teenwork out theirown guidelinesforthe acceptable and the reprehensible. aged girl like Artemisiawould have to maneuver in her neighborhood among many rangesof expectationand behavior.A parallelmoral fluidityunderliesthe actionsof the men in the trial. Regarding Artemisia,the Gentileschihousehold faced a set of burdensome social obligationshedgingnubile women. Responsible parentshad to findsuitable marriagesfortheirgrown daughters.This dutyimposed two oftendifficulttasks: locating an eligible and willing bridegroom and providinga dowry that often strainedthe family’sresources.40By 1611 theseproblemsconfrontedOrazio.41 He was supposed also to safeguardhis daughter’schastity. Rome sharedwith Mediterranean culturea preferenceforclose supervisionof women, especiallymarriageable girls.To protect their daughters Romans sometimes locked them in the house, but more commonlyjust forbadethem to be alone in the streetsor with male visitors.42Nevertheless,manyfamilies,fragmentedby death and migration 37Garrard,appendix B, 483, summarizes this peregrination;the sources are the statidelleaniiie, the annual parish censuses. 38ElizabethS. Cohen, “Seen and Known: Prostitutesin the Cityscape of Late Sixteenth-Century Rome,” Ren-aissance Sthdies12 (1998): 404-6. 390n honor culturein Renaissance Italy,see Sharon Strocchia,”Gender and the Rites of Honor in Italian Renaissance Cities,”in Genderand Societyin RenaissanceItaly,ed. JudithC. Brown and Robert C. Davis (NewYork: Longman, 1998), 39-60. For an example of honor as process, Lucia Ferrante, “Honor Regained:Women in the Casa del Soccorso di San Paolo in Sixteenth-CenturyBologna,” in Sex and Genderin HistoricalPerspective, ed. Edward Muir and Guido Ruggiero (Baltimore:JohnsHopkins UniversityPress,1990), 46-72. 40Strocchia,”Gender and the Rites of Honor,” 44-45. 41Even if Orazio was seeking a husband forArternisia, we can treatwith skepticismgossip among artists’assistantsabout her sexualitybeing used as bait,including the claim thatOrazio had her modeling nude to thatend: Lapierre,”Annexes,”437-38. 42For a classic and starkexample of these strictures, in RenaisLeon BattistaAlberti,ThleFamtily sance Florence,trans.Ren6e Watkins (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1969), 207-8. Other sources,including prescriptiveliterature,show women appearing in public in a varietyof circumstances. This content downloaded from 147.253.216.44 on Tue, 16 Feb 2016 21:33:26 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 58 Sixteenth CenturyJournal XXXI/1 (2000) or distractedby work and daily life,could not enforce these restrictions.Also, hiding the potentialbride altogethercould make it harderto snag a husband.At the time of the rape Orazio and Artemisiawere strugglingwith these contradictoryimperatives. The negotiabilityeven of virginityillustratesthe flexiblenorms foryoung women. In earlymodern Rome the loss of a maidenheadwas not an irremediable Premaritalsex was, catastrophethatlefta girlwith no prospectsbut prostitution.43 indeed,religiouslyand sociallyproscribed,and a nonvirginforfeitedsome worth in the marriagemarket.Nevertheless,when, with or without the woman’s consent,premaritaldeflorationdid happen,the loss could sometimesbe made good. If promisesof marriage,even words blurted in private,accompanied sex, many understoodit as a partof courtship.Theman was expected to honor his commitment,normallyby completing the spousals. Coupled thus with these minimal formsof betrothal,even forcedintercourseestablisheda continuingrelationshipin which furtherphysicalintimacymightbe tolerated.44Afterthe Council ofTrent, the Church no longer accepted the exchange of promises followed by carnal knowledgeas equivalentto marriage,but in manyplaces the popularpracticelived on.45 In Artermisia’s case we mustinterpretthe rigorousnormsof churchand law withinthe frameof lifeand social negotiation. Turningfromthe circumstancesof the rape to the context of the trialnine monthslater,we mustsurveythe courtsand theirprocedures.Most of the docuin a “trialforinformentsin the Gentileschi-Tassidossiertranscribeinterrogations mation.” Under Roman legal practice,in a criminal prosecution this standard preliminaryinquiryestablishedthe factsof the case.46 Officialsquestioned,individually and in private,the accused, the victim (if alive), and others thoughtto have knowledgeof a crime.When necessary, the magistrates sortedout conflicting testimoniesby face-to-faceconfrontations between the accused and witnessesor such torturehad to be administered byjudicial torture.Partof the usual repertoire, accordingto clear guidelines.The judges used both these techniquesin theTassi trial.Modern readersare shocked thatArtemisia,the victim,underwentordeal. Yet,in the logic of earlymodernjudicial practice,thisresortmade sense;indeed, 43Elizabeth S. Cohen, “No Longer Virgins:Self-PresentationbyYoung Women in Late Renaison Genderin theItalian Renaissance,ed. Marilyn Migiel sance Rome,” in Refiguring Woman:Perspectives and Juliana Schiesari (Ithaca: Cornell UniversityPress, 1991), 169-208. See also, Sandra Cavallo and Simone Cerutti,”Female Honor and the Social Control of Reproduction in Piedmont between 1600 ed. Edward Muir and Guido Ruggiero (Baltimore: and 1800,” in Sex and Genderin HistoricalPerspective, 22, exemplifiesthe kind JohnsHopkins UniversityPress,1990), 73-109. Garrard,ArtemisiaGentileschi, of overstatementoftenseen on thispoint. 44Ruggiero, Boundariesof Eros,31-32, 39, 101-102; Cohen, “No Longer Virgins,” 179, 189. Maidservantsimpregnatedby the theirmasterssimilarlywould sometimes be entitled to dowries in order to marryand redeem the loss of virginity;see Dennis Romano, “The Regulation of Domestic 22 (1991): 666-67. Service in RenaissanceVenice,”SixteenthCenturyJournal 45Cavallo and Cerutti,”Female Honor,” 74-75. 46Thomas Cohen and Elizabeth Cohen, Wordsand Deeds in RenaissanceRome (Toronto: UniversityofToronto Press,1993), 16-19. This content downloaded from 147.253.216.44 on Tue, 16 Feb 2016 21:33:26 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Cohen / TrialsofArtemisia Gentileschi59 officialssympatheticto the Gentileschis’claimsadopted tortureto strengthen their case.As young,female,and sexuallyimpure (forwhateverreason),Artemisiacould not testifywith much judicial weight;the ritualizedpain validated her claims.47 Normally,once the courtwas satisfiedthatit knew all it could, the assembledverbatim transcriptswere passed along to the next phase of the trial,when judges heardargumentson pointsof law raisedby the depositions.Finally,the magistrates issued a sentence.Under thissystem,the participantsnevermet all togetherin an open forum.Thus, Artemisia,while she had to endure solitaryinterrogation, formalconfrontationwith her rapist,and some minutesof physicaltorture,did not face the public ordeal of a modernjury trialwith its hostile cross-examinationsand legal dramatics. The judicial phase of the storybegan in March 1612, when Orazio Gentileschi petitioned Pope PaulV Initially,Orazio’s melodramaticcomplaint accused threepeople of severalcrimes.He chargednot onlyAgostinoTassi,but also Tuzia, his daughter’schaperon,and Cosimo Quorli, an officerin the papal household, with theforcibledeflorationofArtemisiaand with theftof a painting.48 To emphasize his injury,Gentileschi trumpetedthe claim of friendshipbetrayed,which made the offenses, “like a murder.” The titlepage of the trialrecord,thoughciting both “stupriet lenoncinii,”thatis, deflorationand procuring,names onlyTassi as defendant.49 Neitherthe stolencanvasnor theputativepandersclaimedthejudges’ attention.50 The trialfocusedthereforenot on theftor procuring,but on rape. The classificationof the crime as “stuprum”indicates the direction of the judges’ inquiries.This term,which modern commentatorsoftenhave translated by the generic”rape,”at the time had a narrowerlegal meaning:forcibledefloration.51To provethischarge,the victimhad demonstrably to have been a virgin,to be no longer a virgin,and to have refusedconsent to sex. Typically,the court sought evidence of severalsorts.On the matterof consent,thejudges needed to hear a credible,if oftenconventional,account of the victim’srefusal.Since in legal doctrineonlyvirginscould suffer the standarddefensearguedthatthe girl stuprum, had not been intact.Easily controverted, depositionsagainstor forthe girl’schas47Garrard,appendix B, 461, forthe court’sexplanation of tortureas appropriateand usefulto the Gentileschi.The “sibille” were understoodas a fairlymild formof ordeal: Prospero Farinaccio, Operumn (Venice: GeorgiusVariscus,1603), pt. 1, vol. 2, pp. 122, 126. criminalium 48Garrard,appendix B, 410. Lapierre,”Annexes,” 443-44 suggests,plausibly,that Giovanni BattistaStiattesi,a notary,preparedthisand otherlegal documents forOrazio. Her furthercontentionthat Stiattesiinstigatedand mastermindedthe trialto revengehimselfon Quorli is not convincing. 49The transcriptlabels the crimes in the Latin genitivesingular;compare Garrard,appendix B, 407. 50ForTuzia’s role in the trial,see below; for Quorli, see Lapierre,”Annexes,”428-49, 442. Quorli,a mysteriousfigurewho died within a month of the trial’sopening, never testified.Witnessessaid thathe playeda pivotalrole as a troublemakerin the eventssurroundingthe rape,but the allegationsare not easilysorted out or tested.Quorli, much entangledwithTassi in both businessand pleasure,is said firstto have promoted his seduction ofArtemisiaand laterto have discouragedtheirmarriage. 51Cohen, “No LongerVirgins,”169, n. 1. On the evolving law of rape,see JamesBrundage, Laus, Sex and ChristianSocietyin Medieval Europe (Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press, 1987), 311-13, 531-32. This content downloaded from 147.253.216.44 on Tue, 16 Feb 2016 21:33:26 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 60 Sixteenth CenturyJournal XXXI/1 (2000) titywere to be supplementedby testimonyto physicalsigns.Declarations by the young woman about pain and blood, indicatorsof the breaking of the hymen, should, if possible, be corroborated by witnesses who saw her soon afterthe assault.In addition,midwives were called as experts to examine her body.The court’s understandingof the crime thus turned more on the physical and, by extension,moralstatusof the victimthanon the violence of the attack.52 The law gauged damage to economic and social assetsratherthan suffering and psychologicaltrauma.Best reparationwas to marrythe victimto the criminal, who therebyrestoredthe honor he had wreckedand bore the financialburdenhe had inflicted.Second-best compensation was money for a dowry.53Therefore, defloration,which had concrete consequences in the marriage market,was a readiermatterforjudicial redressthan otherformsof rape where the costs were less easilyidentified.Furthermore, stuprurharmed,besides the woman, her family,especiallyher menfolk.It was they,more than the victim,who took the matter to court. As Artemisia’sfather,Orazio launched the trial.His timingwas odd. Though he claimed thatthe offenseagainsthimselfand his familythreatenedto ruin thern, he had waited many monthsbefore invokingthe pope’s justice.Why the delay? What does this time lag say about the father’smotives?Taken at face value, Orazio’s complaintsought in standardfashionto repairhis daughter’shonor by securingthe accused as a husband or makinghim fundher dowry.His tone suggestsalso a desireforrevengeagainsttraitorousassociates.Yettheseboons came at a cost.In baroque Rome, fora respectablefamilysuch a lawsuitwas alwaysa calculatedrisk.Since litigationthreatenedto air the family’sdirtylinen,a fatherscrupulous of honor mightwell preferto settlemattersquietly.54If the advantagehad to be worth the risk,what did Gentileschi hope to gain fromseeking public redressso late?How had the balance of costsand benefitschanged so thatcharges too expensive to bring nine months earlierseemed, by spring 1612, worth the price? Orazio himselftells us little.55Testimonyfromother witnesses suggests some explanations. Scholarsshould not disregardthe timelag,forit mustreflectOrazio’s attitudes and strategies. One explanationforthe delayis thatthe fatherdid not know about the rape,at leastfora while.Althoughlate in the trialhe claimssuch ignorance,it 520n judicial practice in Rome regardingsttiprurn, see Prospero Farinaccio, Opertimicriminiiiialhvii (Nurernberg:Wolfgang MauritiusEndter,1696), pt. 5, sec. 4, pp. 710-27. 53For someVenetian examples,see Ruggiero, BoundariesofEros,33, 102, 105, 107. 54Testirnony on thispoint comes not fromOrazio, but fromArtemisia,who, severalmonths into the trial,explains the delay as an effortto avoid disgrace: Garrard,appendix B, 464. This may have been a latter-dayapology; it mightnot reflectthe father’sinitialconcerns. 551n the trial,besides the petition,Orazio deliverslittle evidence, and that only at a late stage, when he sues againstfalsetestimonyby Tassi’s defensewitnesses:Garrard,appendix B, 481; by then the situationhas evolved,and so, probably,have Orazio’s strategies.External to the trialis hisJulyletterto the grand duchess of Tuscany,where he praises his daughter’stalents,denounces Tassi’s outrage,and solicitspoliticalbacking againsthim and his patrons:Leopoldo Tanfani Centofani,Notizie di artistitratte dai docinneniti pisaiii (Pisa: E. Spoerri, 1897), 221-24. This content downloaded from 147.253.216.44 on Tue, 16 Feb 2016 21:33:26 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Cohen / TrialsofArternisia Gentileschi61 More plausibly, the father, can hardlyhave been more thanpartialor temporary.56 on the lookout fora husbandforArtemisia,foundTassi eligibleand was therefore prepared,at leastafterthe faitaccompli,to interpretintimacyas a partof courtship leading to a wedding.If so,voluntaryblindnessfora timemay have suitedOrazio’s purposes.57Such a stancefitteda choice of privatenegotiationas the best way to advance the marriageand protecthis daughter’s-and his own-reputation.Then, in the springof 1612, somethingmusthave caused the fatherto doubt his marital strategy. Among Gentileschi’s associates,relations may have soured for reasons havinglittleto do with the girl.58Whether the issue was bad loans, professional rivalries,personalityconflicts,or some mix of these,Agostino’sirregularrelationship withArtermisia may have been less the root of Orazio’s iratepetitionthan an occasion to harassan enemy.A more likelytriggerforOrazio’s legal campaignwas Tassi’s dragging his feet about the marriage.59Whatever the cause, Orazio’s responsessuggestcoping and calculationmore thanthe impulsive,outragedhonor of his petitionto the pope. Note here how eye-catchingstrongwords,taken out of context,can mislead. If the assembledtrialrecordsrevealOrazio as most likelya busy professional grapplingwith a thornyfamilyproblem,principalwitnessesofferedotherinterpretationsof the events.Artemisia’schaperon,Tuzia, accused of pandering and jailed, tries to play down everyone’sculpability.60Originally a neighbor,when recruitedby Orazio as a companion forhis nubile daughter, Tuzia, with her children and oftenabsent husband,establisheda kind of allied household with the Gentileschis.The gregariousmatronevidentlyenjoyed theirlively,more prestigious social circle.61To legitimateher alliance with the family,her depositions striveto portrayOrazio as a man of honor and conscientiousparentand Artemi’sia as a reputableyoung woman.Tuzia representsherselfas the attentivefriendof the motherlessteenager.While the chaperon reportsthejoint residenceas busy with 56Garrard,appendix B, 481-82. Orazio’s credibilityin this testimonyis undermined by the nearbyfalsifiedassertionof Artemisia’sage as fifteen.I cannot concur in Lapierre’s reconstructionof Orazio as highlyscrupulous of his daughter’shonor,yet learning fromStiattesiofTassi’s sexual liaison with her only monthsafterward. 57Cavazzini, Palazzo Lancelotti,175, suggeststhatTassi,then enjoying success as a painter,would have seemed to Orazio a desirable alliance. For another example of turninga blind eye: Cohen and Cohen, Wordsand Deeds, 130. 58Garrard,appendix B, 441-42, 448, 475.Though articulated mostly in the dubious claims of Tassi and his supporters,thisargumentbears some plausibility. 591n a statementlikely coached by Agostino, Marco Antonio Coppini said Orazio had Tassi imprisoned”per non darli 200 scudi che gli haveva da dare e per farglipigliarper moglie la figliola”: Lapierre,”Annexes,”436. Compare testimonyofValerio Ursino regardingthe 200 scudi, summarized in Garrard,appendix B, 487. This is another example of the need to read everystatementin the contextof the whole. 60Garrard,appendix B, 418-24.Tuzia firsttestifiedon 21 March. Garrard,appendix B, 418, follows Menzio’s errorin giving 2 March as the date.The second interrogationtook place 23 March; the formulaat the end specifiedthatshe should be returnedto her cell (not “home”; cf.Garrard,appendix B, 424), to await the court’s pleasure.Not questioned again,Tuzia was released a few days later:Lapierre,”Annexes,”431. 61Garrard,appendix B, 462-63, 477. This content downloaded from 147.253.216.44 on Tue, 16 Feb 2016 21:33:26 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 62 Sixteenth CenturyJournal XXXI/1 (2000) the comingsand goingsof guests,she carefullyspellsout the maintenanceof social proprietiesaroundArtemisia. Aspiringto be a friendand clientalso ofTassi-Tuzia alludes to severalfavorshe and his friendshad done forher-she needs to justify his presenceas well. She describesAgostinoas at firstdevotedto both Orazio and Artemisiaand energeticin defenseof theirhonor,but laterso obsessed with the girlthathe became a pest. In testimonyabout the awkwardmoment of the rape,forwhich a chaperon must bear responsibility, Tuzia seeks to exonerate herselfas best she can. She finessesher account of the fatefulafternoon:Agostino came, as he oftendid; she, Tuzia, went upstairsto her quarters;she knew nothingmore.Her testimonynext laysdown a smoke screen,reportingmore expansivelythat”many times”the pair were alone in a bedroom together.She claimsto have reprovedher protegeabout thisintimacyand receiveda plausiblyadolescentinjunctionto mind her own business.Tuzia concludes her serpentine,not wholly consistenttale by invokingthe minimalproprietiesobserved;Agostino was the only man with whom Artemisia was ever alone, and both the loverssaid theyhad had no sex.Tuzia wantsto suggest that,although the couple’s behavior was a triflefamiliarby herstandards,it was nonethelesswithinthe realmof the respectablefora seriouscourtshipheaded formarriage.Seeking to obscureher own culpabilityTuziatriesto make it look as had happened. if,to her knowledge,nothingindecorousor extraordinary Giovanni BattistaStiattesi,anothermajor witness,offersa different view of the rape and itsaftermath.62 His testimonyshowcasesthe erraticand irresponsible behaviorof the men,in partto validatehis own efforts as a mediator.As friendand debtor ofTassi and sometimeboarderin the Orazios’ house, he, likeTuzia, has to steera course between the two sides.Financiallypressed,Stiattesi,a notary,made his way as a hanger-on and go-between. From this position he undertook to Orazio’s court case sigarrangea privateresolutionof the Gentileschis’difficulties. naled thatthese efforts had faltered,but theycontinuedin parallelwith the trial. Stiattesitestifies forthe prosecution,but his linksto the defendantand his ongoing His depositionand the role as peacemakerforcehim to speak to severalinterests. lettershe proffered as supportingevidence lay out a colorfulpictureof the irregular personal lives of the coterie.StiattesireportsTassi’sschemingand womanizing and alleges his hiringassassinsto rid him of his unfaithful wife.Further,sharinga bed with the witnessone night,the painterhad confessedto defloweringArtemisia and to promisingmarriage.63Obligations,however,preventedAgostino from followingthrough.His wife,who had run offwith anotherman,was perhapsstill alive.Also,Tassi was beholden to Quorli, and the latterhad shiftedfromfostering to discouragingthe alliance.Stiattesi’srecitalof Quorli’s own improprietiestoward 62Garrard,appendix B, 424-30, 465-69; his corroboratingcorrespondence,ibid., 430-35, 47172. Stiattesitestifiedon 24 March and 15 May. 63A common practice,sharingbeds did not presume sex; see, for example,ASR, Tribunale criminale, Governatore,Processi, XVI secolo, busta 28 (1556), fol. 560v, and busta 31 (1570), fols. 401v, 402v. This content downloaded from 147.253.216.44 on Tue, 16 Feb 2016 21:33:26 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Cohen / TrialsofArtemisia Gentileschi63 Artemisia,including vicious badmouthingand probablyattemptingto rape her himself,depictsTassi’sbehavior in two tints.64On the one hand,Tassilooks bad for keeping such company,but on the other,his feeble intentionsto do right seem,by contrast,a littlebetter.This witnesspulls no punches,even forthose for whom he speaks.He does not castArtemisiaas a bad girl,nor Orazio as a poor but represents father, both as willingparticipantsin the outingsand partiesof this rowdyband of friends.Stiattesi’sstrategy in the trialat once assistedOrazio by diffusingthe blame as much as possible and servedAgostinoby pointingat negotiation and marriage as the way out. From Stiattesi’sperspective the rape was a practicalproblemamong flawedfriends;by solvingit,he could win favor. Faced with sharplegaljeopardy,in courtAgostinoTassi told a versionof the rape thatbelied his behavior,as reportedbyTuzia, Stiattesi, and others.65Although Tassi had already invited prosecution several times, even, earlier in 1611, on chargesof incestwithhis sister-in-law, he had alwaysblusteredand dodged his way out of trouble.66He was familiarwith interrogation.As a colleague of Orazio, whom he would doubtless meet again,Tassi at firstsaw the virtue of shunting blame fromthe fatheronto the daughter.Thus, Agostino describeshimselfas the loyalfriendwho came to the aid of Orazio as he struggledto corralan unbridled child.In Tassi’stestimony, Artemisiaappears as a promiscuousflirtwith a bad reputationaround town.He claimsthat,at Orazio’s request,he had hung around the house and hauntedArtemisia’stripsin the cityto fend offher assignationswith other men. He readilysupplies names of more than one said by local gossip to have taken her virginity. Then, as the trialunrolls,Agostino’simage of Orazio as beleagueredfriendshiftsto emphasizepaternalfecklessness in not providingpropAll the while,Tassi adamantlyand repeatedlydenied sex with erlyforthe daughter. Artemisia.For a man facingsuch charges,thismix of stonewalling,paintinghimselfas virtuous,and blackeningthe honor of his accuserswas the usual strategy. Clouded by this smoke screen of lies and inconsistencies, Tassi’s feelingsfor Artemisia remain murky.Although suspect witnesses declare him enamored, whetherhe everloved her is impossibleto tell.67Certainly, she had piqued his as well as others’ sexual interest.His defense,however,demands that he pretend never to have had intimatecontact with her.Thus, the contradictorytestimony swingsbetween, on the one hand, allusions to her flirtations, to her availability, and to Quorli’s urginghim to tryher and, on the other,heated denials of touching her. His intentionsconcerningArtemisiaare hard to pin down. Certainly,if 64Quorli’s failureto rape Artemisia,due in part to Tuzia’s presence,contrastedwithTassi’s experience. Did Tuzia leave the room to facilitatewhat she saw as Agostino’swelcome courtship,while acting the proper chaperon with Quorli? Stiattesi,a biased witness,suggested that the embarrassedQuorli laterrevengedhimselfby blocking the marriage. 65Garrard,appendix B, 438-55, 458-60, 464-69; see also 471-72. Between March and May, the imprisonedTassi was interrogatedseven times. 66Cavazzini,Palazzo Lancelotti, 203-5. 67Garrard,appendix B, 426, 480; Agostino’s alleged jealousy of Artemisia’scontact with other men is also offeredas evidence of love, 428. This content downloaded from 147.253.216.44 on Tue, 16 Feb 2016 21:33:26 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 64 Sixteenth CenturyJournal XXXI/1 (2000) sex alone had been his goal,therewere manyeasierwaysto get it thanseducingor assaulting a colleague’s daughter.While Tassi was not above enjoying the audacityof the ploy,he also would have known thatsuch an indulgencewas likely to cost him a seriouscommitmentto the girl.Some real attractionmusttherefore have also sparkedthe rascal’spursuit.A feisty, talentedyoung woman may well have appealed to a seasoned womanizer like Tassi. At least at first,he had not looked to marry. At the time of the rape he thoughthe stillhad a wife,albeit one so estrangedthathe claimed not to know where she was. Such separationsand such ignoranceof a spouse’swhereaboutsdid occur in earlymodern Rome; Tassi would not have been the only husband to pursue a liaison thinkingthatit might one day end in marriage.68Though his ultimateintentionsremained shadowy, perhaps even to himself,afterthe rape Tassi acted as if,indeed, meaning to wed. Acknowledgingboth to Artemisiaand Stiattesihis promises,he thwartedother matchesforher.Moreover,while boldly protestinghis innocence to the magistrates,Tassialso negotiatedfromprison toward an out-of-courtsettlementthat included marriage.69To his judges the rapist depicted the victim as a slut, neglectedby her father, while out of officialhearinghe would have her his wife. The image of Artemisiaand of the rape vary sharplydepending on who is or others.Whateverhappened and why,the partictestifying:Tuzia, Stiattesi,Tassi, ipantsmolded theirbehavior and theirwords in court to fittheirassortedgoals. Their crosscutting more and less perspectivesofferus a range of interpretations, convincing.How is the scholar to decide where in the cloud of allegationsthe mostplausiblestoriesreside?In thissuitthe court itselfinclinesto favorthe complainant and his daughter.70That does not mean, however,that in the “good” Artemisiaconstructedby sympatheticwitnesseswe can read thejudges’ views or simple,historicaltruth.To sort thingsout, the next step is to look at Artemisia’s own testimonyas itselfand in the lightof others’claims,forshe too had purposes and strategies. To addressthe centralquestionsof how Artemisiaexperienced her 68For another case where a man who might have a surviving wife far away was nonetheless treatedas a potential suitor:ASR, Tribunale criminale,Governatore,Processi, XVI secolo, busta 48, trial8 (1559), translatedin Cohen and Cohen, W7ords and Deeds, 103-26. 69See the testimoniesof Stiattesi,his wife Porzia, and Father Giordano: Garrard,appendix B, 467,470,481. 70Repeatedly,the court challenged the veracityofTassi’s claims: e.g., Garrard,appendix B, 459, 465. Another segment of the trial record,”Proceedings in the Case againstAgostino Tassi, Garrard appendix B, 411-13 (called “Instrutione”in the original),summarizesthe case againstTassi.This is not a standardelement in trialdocuments;recordednot in the magistrates’Latin,but in the vernacular,it is not clear when or by whom thissynopsiswas assembled.In any case, it should not be read as neutral truth,nor as the judges’ official view. Both published versions of the trial transcript,Italian and English,have omitted a significantmarginaladdition to this narrative.On ins. f. 9 (Garrard,appendix B, 412), the words “Arte maga” [“magical arts”] were intended to be insertedinto the sentence,”Che Agostino habbia usato in questi negotii [Artemaga] et per venireal suo Intento et subgerireArtin-itiaa Tassi is being accused of sorcery.This charge suo gusto….”Thus, besides all his other transgressions, makes sense of the referenceslaterin the paragraphto “la vecchia,”the practitioner, and to a prostitute who also dabbles in magic.These matters,like some others in the “Instrutione,”were not pursued in the interrogations. This content downloaded from 147.253.216.44 on Tue, 16 Feb 2016 21:33:26 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Cohen / TrialsofArtemisiaGentileschi65 plightand how it mayhave shaped her work,we need a close and criticalreading of her tale. Let us firstreprisebrieflythe social and culturalenvironmentthat shaped Artemisia’sexperience.The eldestchild in a moderatelyprosperous,but motherless,family,she faced the stressesof young womanhood with littlesupport.She lived in a rough and tumble city,where the unpredictablebuffetings of dailylife subvertedthe moral imperativesof religionand honor and forcedcompromises. Women and men of thistime could not aspireto the same controlover their livesthataffluent, healthymodernpeople take as ideal or even as theirright.Early modern realitiesand expectationsdifferso markedlyfromour own thatit is hard forus to know theirpsychologicalimpact.When Artemisiawas raped,therefore, she maywell have feltemotionswe would recognizeas fear,shame,anger,or guilt. But the way she experienced,read,and respondedto thesefeelingswould follow fromher local context.Specifically, Artemisialived in a culturaluniversethatcast her body as less bounded and less gendered than modern ideology would constructit. Artemisialikelyunderstoodher body as only weaklybound to her self.Like most earlymodern people, she probablyheld some versionof the old Christianized Platonic view that distinguishedbetween the higher,eternal soul and the lesser,mortal,materialbody. Quoting the eighteenth-centurywriterLaurence Sterne,who spoke of “men cloathed with bodies,” the medical historianRoy Porter assertsthat this phrase characterizespremodern thought,”in a formula which preservesthe traditionaldualismand leaves the body somehow secondary and almostaccidental.Sternedoes not saythatmen aretheirbodies,in the way in which today’sfeministscan speak of OtirBodies,OtirSelves.”71Furthermore,this weaker identificationwith the body accompanied a less clear perception of its boundaries.Early modern mentalityrecognized closure and openness as traitsof the body and worried about itspermeability. Still,in seventeenth-century thought these attributesdid not link integrallyto the psyche.Bodies needed controland protection,but the usual means were oftenless internalthan external.72Because it was the body did not have sharplydelineatedand enforceablenaturalfrontiers, necessaryto defendit with various social and politicalarrangements, oftenplaced in the hands of otherpeople. NeitherArtemisianor her familynor her assailant was likelyto have conceived of themselveswith the kind of corporal essentialism familiarto modern minds.Artemisiaspoke of her body duringthe trial,but as the materialupon which a sociallysignificant offensehad been coninitted.More than the internal,privatemeanings,the externalones troubledher. 71Roy Porter,”History of the Body,” in New Perspectives Ofl HistoricalW4ritinig, ed. Peter Burke (UniversityPark:PennsylvaniaState UniversityPress,1991), 207. 72JoanCadden, MeariingsofSex Difference in theMfiddle Ages (Cambridge: Cam-ibridgeUniversity Press, 1993), 177-80; Peter Stallybrass,”PatriarchalTerritories:The Body Enclosed,” in Reivritingthe Renaissance, ed. MargaretFerguson,et al. (Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press,1986), 126-27. This content downloaded from 147.253.216.44 on Tue, 16 Feb 2016 21:33:26 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 66 Sixteenth CenturyJournal XXXI/1 (2000) In parallel,seventeenth-century mentalityalso understoodgender differently than the twentieth.As the premodernbody was less closely identifiedwith the self,so it was less centralto the constructionof gender.Sited chieflyin the mind, gender differencewas enacted in social and institutionallife.By God’s will and males’ more reasonablenature,men dominatedwomen in myriadsettings:political, legal,familial,intellectual.Most writersof the time regardedthissuperiority as true,right,and useful.The body,thatless worthydimension of humanity,was less significantforgender ordering.In his commentsquoted above, Porterelides male and female in his choice of a contrastingmodern example; ironically,this slippage may not be good late-twentieth-century politics,but does accurately mirrorearlymodern thinking. While severalnotions of genderingbodies were in circulation,one model, widely disseminatedin the earlyseventeenthcentury,recognizedsubstantialsimilaritiesbetweenmale and femaleanatomies.Women’sbodies were in largepartless perfectversionsof men’s.73Differenceswere local and limited,Aristotelianaccidents.Consequently,men and women were alike activelysexual beings. If anyhad the more voracious appetites.74 thing,females,with theirlesser rationality, Perhapsyet shadowed by nineteenth-centuryobscurantismabout sex, we often stillmislead ourselves thatwomen of old were sexually ignorant,ashamed,and passive. Certainly for them sex was highly charged,dangerous,and hedged by But in thesemattersearlymodernwomen were not necesmanyethicalstrictures. sarilyhelpless,prudish,or silent.Roman women in court, for example, spoke In thisrespectArtemisiawas not about theirbodies and sexualityquite directly.75 exceptional. For earlymodern culture,how would male sexual violence have signified? Where sexualitywas a common traitof men and women, the modern paradigm thatconstructsa moralizedoppositionbetween bestialmale aggressorand unsul73Londa Schiebinger,The Mind Has No Sex (Cambridge: Harvard UniversityPress,1989), 16165.Jacqueline Murray,”Agnolo Firenzuolo on Female Sexualityand Women’s Equality,”SixteenthCensbuilt into elite turyJournal 22 (1991): 199-213, illustratesthe complexitiesand variable interpretations men s views of female sexuality.It is hard to know how this material filtereddown and mixed with other,less canonical beliefs in the minds of little-educated women; a rare example is Herman C. Roodenburg, “The Autobiographyof Isabella de Moerloose: Sex, Childrearing,and Popular Belief in Seventeenth-CenturyHolland,”JournalofSocialHistory18 (1985), 530-31. 74Michael Rocke, “Gender and Sexual Culture in Renaissance Italy,”in Genderand Societyin RenaissanceItalyed.JudithC. Brown and Robert C. Davis (NewYork: Longman, 1998), 151-56. 75Cohen, “No LongerVirgins.”The rhetoricavailable for speaking about sex and, in particular, rape varies by cultureand gender; see the introductionto Lynn Higgins and Brenda Silver,eds., Rape and Representation(NewYork: Columbia University Press, 1991). Discussing seventeenth-century England,Walker,”Reading Rape,” 7-10, commentsastutelyon the risksfor raped women of the language of sexual agency; a rhetoricof activitycould have been read as complicity,even when sex was helping men to not consensual.In earlymodern Italy,too, some turnsof speech blurredresponsibility, linked exculpate themselves.For example, one commonplace, standardin Roman judicial testimony, intimacyand violence; thuspeople spoke of men seeking coitus by any means,”per forzao per amore.” In thislanguage force elided readilyinto love, and a woman’s resistancewas discounted as a mere prelude to alliance.ForVenetianexamples,see Ruggiero, BoundariesofEros,31-32. This content downloaded from 147.253.216.44 on Tue, 16 Feb 2016 21:33:26 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Cohen / TrialsofArtemisia Gentileschi67 lied femalevictimworkedless well.Wheresexualitywas not read as a principalsite for defininggender differenceand enforcinghierarchy,rape did not ramifyas For the latterit has become a central widely as it does forsome modern feminists. metaphorof genderoppressionin a worldwhere othersupportsto hierarchyhave lost legitimacy.For premodernEuropeans,who accepted pervasivemale domithe crime had less resonance.What the nance as a principle of earthlyauthority, modern world calls rape was for the early modern Italy a number of legal and social offenses.As a rule, however,nonconsensual sex was taken seriously only where,usuallyas defloration,it attaintedthe interestsof familiesthatcounted. It evoked grave responseonly where social hierarchywas offended.Most rape was simplya naturalexpressionof a reigningmale dominance. If forseventeenth-century Europeansthe body did not stronglymarkthe self, otherattributesdid. In the debate over the evolution of the “individual”into the protagonistofWestern culturalexperience,commentatorson the earlymodern world have put forwarda pair of ideas usefulhere.Firstis the model, expounded by Natalie Davis, of personal identityas composed of several elements,among which the external,or sociallyascribed,weighed more heavilythan the internal, or emotionallygenerated.76In an inversionof the modern priorityon the individual and psychological as the core of self,sixteenth-centurypeople much Belonging to groups family, guild,conattendedto the public and performative. fraternity, and so on and sharingin collectivereputationsmuch definedidentity and shaped self-esteem.The second scholarlycontribution,thatcombines helpfullywith the first,is Stephen Greenblatt’sconcept of “self-fashioning.77His thesiscontends that,distinctively, during the Renaissance, writers,in particular, began to create images of their”selves.”The argumentlinks the Burckhardtian view that these authors recognized that they had individual identitieswith the postmodernnotion thatthesewere subjectto rhetoricalconstruction.While”selffashioning”emergedfromthe studyof high-cultureliterarytexts,it has servedthe analysisof more informal”life-writing”as well. Trial recordsare among the less canonical documentsthatyield fruitwith thisapproach.78From thisperspective earlymodernpeople of manysortsappearnot only to have a consciousnessof self, but also to make and remake images of that self.Linking the two interpretive where readArtemisia’stestimonyas a “self-fashioning,” models,we can profitably she focuseson her public identityembedded in reputationand relationshipswith others. In constructingfor the court an image of herself,Artemisiahighlightsher social identity,particularlyher honor. Bearing legal witness must have been a double-edged experience.While fraughtwith anxiety,shame,and later,the pain 76Natalie Z. Davis, “Boundaries and the Sense of Self in Sixteenth-CenturyFrance,”in RecoriIndividiualismii, ed.Thomas Heller, et al. (Stanford:StanfordUniversityPress,1986), 53-63. striucting More to Shakespeare(Chicago: University Fromn 77Stephen Greenblatt,RenaissanceSe~f-Fashioning: of Chicago Press,1980). 78Cohen, “Court Testimony,”87-90. This content downloaded from 147.253.216.44 on Tue, 16 Feb 2016 21:33:26 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 68 SixteenthCentury JournalXXXI/1 (2000) of torture,testifying stillallowed her to work towardrestoringher reputation.Furthermore,even in thisuneasysetting,the trialallowed her to constructforan official audience her versionof what had happened and what partshe had played;this exercisemay have contributedto her subjectiveresolutionof the affair. The stipulations of the law,the conventionsof legal rhetoric,and the micropoliticsof the moment alike constrainedhow Artemisia,like any witnessin a trial,could express herself.Formulaic language mustnot be read,out of context,as the candid outpouring of emotion. Nevertheless, despite external forces,testimonymay,in structure, style,and content,also bear a personalstamp.Artemisia’sdepositionsare a rare,firsthand account of troubledfamilialand sexual experience;read carefully, theyare the best antidoteto an anachronisticimage of rape.As Artemisiaspeaks, she adopts a postureof self-assertion strikingfora young woman in her situation. The persistenttheme of her self-portrait is to identifyherselfwith her honor,her public name as a respectablewoman,whom manyothers,includingher guardians, have betrayed.More thanher bodily or psychologicalintegrity, it is her social persona thathas been violated.Thatis the focus of her campaignforremedy. When in the spring of 1612 Artemisia addressed the court, how did she choose her words? She was then eighteen,a young adult by the standardsof the time,accustomed to the company of her father’speers and emergingas a painter in her own right.As a woman whose chastityhad been impugned, the law deemed her credibilitysuspect.Yetmuch depended on it; in thislightshe was as much on trial as Tassi.At stakewere the vindicationof her honor and a prompt marriage that would set thingsright.Artemisiaspeaks twice in court: first,ten monthsafterthe rape,in March,promptedby the magistrates, she tellsher story; then,in May,she appeared again once, restatingwith a few added detailsher earlier testimony,confrontingTassi, and undergoing the torturethat verifiedher words.79Presentingherselfin much the same way both times,she speaks indirectlyto severalaudiences besides those present.Artemisia’saccount mustbe read as part of an ongoing,several-sidednegotiationbetween herself,her father, Tassi, and theirlargerRoman community. Artemisiarespondsto the challenge of testifying with energyand poise. She but ratheras activeand self-possessed. presentsherselfnot as passiveor distraught, The tacticsof testimonydemand an account of her relationshipwithAgostinothat while at the crediblytraceshis progressionfromfamilyfriendto thuggishtraitor, same time showinghis victimto have behaved virtuouslythroughout.Artemisia’s narrativefallsinto three stages and relatestheir encounters before,during,and afterthe rape;in each episode she defendsher public reputation. In her storyof the timebeforethe rape,Arternisia portraysherselfas the honorable maiden,waryof threatsto her reputationand activein its defense.80In this way she counters anticipatedslandersfromthe defendant,but also puts forward 79Garrard,appendix B, 413-18, 460-64. 80Garrard,appendix B, 414-15. This content downloaded from 147.253.216.44 on Tue, 16 Feb 2016 21:33:26 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Cohen / TrialsofArtemisia Gentileschi69 the image by which she wishes to be known. She understandsfemalegood conduct to requireneitherdocilitynor rigorousseclusion.She acknowledgestraveling occasionallyabout the cityto visitchurchesand view works of art.She is accustomed to talking,even bantering,with men at her house,but only when seemly. She is keen to observe the behavioral proprietiesas she understandsthem. For example,she refuseda male visitorwith a messagethat”It is not done to talkwith unmarriedwomen in the evening.”81When guestsspoke suggestively, she rebuked them sharply.The provocative Quorli received her sharpestbarbs.To Tassi she respondedwith more reservethan rancor.While her testimonyevinces no attraction to Agostino, nor love, Artemisia depicts him as initiallya trustedfamily friend.82Sensitiveto verbalslights,she firstagreed to speak with him because,she said, he knew of a servantwho had been defamingher in the streets.Later,his attentions grew more high-handed and annoying.83 She tried to restrainhis impetuosity, but did not rejecthis courtship.As a colleague of her father’sand as a visitor endorsed by her chaperon,Agostino appeared, afterall, in the guise of potentialbridegroom,a commoditytoo valuableto be dismissedlightly. For the magistrates, the account of the rape itselfwas the crux of the trial.84 Artemisiais pressedto accommodate her Here, like othervictimsof defloration, storyto the parentalsuitthatsoughtto redeemlost assets,both materialand social. Her tale also had to meet the evidentiaryrequirementsforstuprini. To prove the crime,she had to demonstrateher previousvirginityand her refusalof consentto its sacrifice.The formerdemanded a brokenhymen,corroboratedby a midwife’s examination,and characterwitnessesto an unsulliedreputation.In Artemisia’scase the physicalproofis inconclusive:first, because,she said,she had been menstruating at the time of the assault;and second,because the manymonthsbetween rape and trialhad obscuredanysignsof freshinjury.85Despite the weaknessof thisevidence, the court,generallysympatheticto the Gentileschicase, did not belabor the issue of her good name.The judges declined to follow up on recitalsbyTassi and his supportersof manyrumorsabout Artemisia’spromiscuity. Artemisia’sdemonstrationof her refusalto consent also fitthe legally prescribedpattern.In her initialtestimony, she tellsa deflorationtale familiarto magistratesin which sociabilitypassed suddenlyinto violence.86During an afternoon visit,aftersendingTuzia offto her own quarters,Tassi chatted and flirtedwith 81Garrard,appendix B, 414-15. 82Occasionallyin the trial,words about love are attributedto Artemisia’sdealingswithAgostino: Garrard,appendix B, 416, 481.These, combined with her enduring willingnessto marrythe faithless Tassi,have suggestedto some thatshe must have been in love with hills.Maybe so, but the trial does not show her affections, and, like Lapierre,we make fictionwhen using them to explain her behavior. References to her “loving” conduct had other senses in context and her readinessto wed arose from her preeminentcommitmentto her honor; see below. 830ne example was the giftof a “torchina” refusedby Artemisia; the word probably means a “turquoise” or an object with thatcolor (not the “twist”in Garrard,appendix B, 461). 84Garrard,appendix B, 416 85Garrard,appendix B, 416, 418. 86Cohen, “No LongerVirgins,”175-76. This content downloaded from 147.253.216.44 on Tue, 16 Feb 2016 21:33:26 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 70 SixteenthCenturyJournal XXXI/1 (2000) Artemisiain the workroom of the family’sapartment.Claiming restlessness, he invitedthe girlto strollabout the room.Then, afterseveralturns,arrivingat the door of the adjacentbedroom,he abruptlypushed her in and locked the door.87 with a … he shoved me onto the edge of the bed, forcingme [dandonri] hand on my chest,he put a knee between my thighsso thatI could not close them,and havingliftedmyskirts it took him a greateffortto raise them he placed his hand with a handkerchiefover my throat and mouth so that I would not cry out, and he let go of my hands which beforehe had held with his otherhand,he havingbeforeplaced both his knees between my legs,and pointinghis penis at my vagina he began to push and he put it in inside so thatI feltit burningstronglyand giving me greatpain,thatbecause of the gag thathe held at my mouth I could I triedto screamas best I could, callingTuzia. not cryout; nevertheless Artemisiaportraysherselfas physicallyoverwhelmed,hurting,and strugglingto resist.Thispartof the account is likelyto resonatein modern earsas a heartfelt cry of distress.Note, at the same time,the care with which the young woman catalogues the physicaldetailsof the assaultto meet the criteriaof the law.Possiblythe testimonyspeaksin more than one register;possibly,it is both authenticallyemotional and legallycalculated.In context,we can be sure it was designed to convince the judges about a crime; we have to be more cautious about assigning psychologicalmeaning. ears more dramatic,were the Less routine,and thus to seventeenth-century detailsArtemisianext added about her resistance.She did not simplyrefuseconsent;she foughtback,”I scratchedhis face and pulled his hairand beforehe penetratedme again I graspedhis penis so tightthatI even removeda piece of flesh.”88 The rhetoricis graphic and not conventional,but we must rememberthat this, like everythingelse in trialtestimony, is a self-interested reconstructionand not necessarilyliteraltruth.Whether or not it reproducesher behavior exactly,the statementdoes show Artemisiaclaimingin retrospectan unusuallyaggressiveposture of opposition.Her storyof retaliationcontinues,describingwhat happened once she was freedofTassi’sweight.She immediatelyfetcheda knifeshe knew to be in a drawerclose by and threatenedAgostino,sayingthatshe would killhim for dishonoringher.He then tauntedher by opening hisjacket to inviteher attack. She stabbed;he parried.89Otherwise,she avers,she would have killedhim. In any case she did manage to drawblood. Artenmisia’s account thusemphasizesher active deploymentof the moves of honor culture.She had not only resistedas the law thispassage to indicate the granmmatical ambiguitiesin the Italian.While the 871 have retranslated readingin Garrardis quite plausible,even punctuationcreatesinterpretation. 88Garrard,appendix B, 416. as 89ConcerningArteniisia’suse of the knife,the Italian”tirare”here has oftenbeen mistranslated, in Garrard,appendix B, as “to throw”or “to fling.” This content downloaded from 147.253.216.44 on Tue, 16 Feb 2016 21:33:26 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Cohen / TrialsofArtemisia Gentileschi71 required, but also, more forcefully, had sought revenge and had succeeded in markingher opponent on his face,genitals,and chest.90 Suddenly,in the next sentence,as the narrativeentersits thirdstage,Artemisia’stone shiftssignificantly. As soon as Tassi offereda means to repairher damaged honor,her rhetoricmoves fromviolent revengeto compliance.91As the young woman tearfully bewailed her injury,Agostino soughtto pacifyher by takingher hand and promisingto marryher,”as soon as I get out of the labyrinthI am in.”92 So, saidArtemisia,”with thisgood promiseI feltcalmer.”The same sentencewent on, as if for her a continuing thought,that she had sex with him many times thereafter, “amorevolmente.”She meant not so much “lovingly” as “willingly,” havingaccepted the betrothalcreatedby the promiseof marriagelinkedto coitus. The abrupt rhetoricaljump fromvengefulrage to wifelydocility rings oddly, especiallywhere narrativetime and space do not alter.93Psychologically,such a sudden metamorphosisseems implausible.But the main theme of thisstory,told long afterthe event,is not bruisedemotions,but the defenseof honor.In reputathe situation,and a single-mindedquest tion’sterms,Tassi’s promisesdid transform forsocial respectdemanded of the testimony’s Artemisiaa parallelreorientation. Whether or not her earlier acts and feelings conformed exactly to the trial For a year account,her readinessto marryher assailantwas promptand persistent. Artemisiacontinuedto regardTassi as her betrothed,as long as she believedthathe was eligible.94She would not,however,as Agostinobegged her to fromjail, withdraw her claimsthathe had defloweredher.95She would wed the rapist,but she would not sacrificeher good name or her credibilityby agreeingthatsomeone else had takenher virginityafterall.Thus, in both language and behavior,Artemisia stuck to the course that she hoped would best secure her honorable,public identity. Artemisia’sexperiencesaroundthe rape gave her good reasonto be angryand severaltargetsforher sense of betrayal. Tassi,clearly,had savagedher preciousreputation. In what other ways she understood her injury the documents do not show clearly.Aside fromdescribingvengefulmomentsjust afterthe assault,Arte90For the links between dishonor and physicalmarksand scars,especiallyto the face,see Staltuta almae hrbis Romae (Rome: In aedibus Populi Romani, 1580), 113. 91Garrard,appendix B, 416 92Garrard,appendix B, 416. 93The Roman systemfortellingtime has sown confusionabout the durationof the assault.Early modern Romans counted fromsunset by hours one to twenty-four,or fromsunset and sunrise by hours one to twelve; thus,with the seasons, the length of day and night hours shifted.See Maurice Century(London: George Allen & Unwin, 1968), Andrieux,Daily Life in Papal Rome in theEighteenth 81. According to Artemisia,Agostino arrivedat her house some time afterthe late middaymeal and the episode continued until “23 hore” or one hour before sunset,or, in May, early evening (not eleven o’clock at night):Garrard,appendix B, 460. 94Garrard,appendix B, 416, 464, 467. In early May she made an unusual visit to Tassi in jail, hoping stillto secure the marriage;some days later,by means not clear,she came to believe thatTassi’s wife was stillalive. 95Garrard,appendix B, 467-68, 469-70. This content downloaded from 147.253.216.44 on Tue, 16 Feb 2016 21:33:26 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 72 Sixteenth CenturyJournal XXXI/1 (2000) misia never expressesrage at Agostino.There are two possible explanations:first, she had to protectthe credibilityof a marriagebetween them,and second, she mightalmosthave expectedsuch behaviorfroma man like him.While Orazio had stronggroundsforfeelingoffendedby his colleague and friend,withinthe mores of theirworldArtemisialacked much claim on his good conduct. In contrast,two otherpeople on whom Artemisiashould have been able to relyhad indeed betrayedher: Orazio, her parent,and Tuzia, her chaperon.Artemisia had several reasons to be angrywith her father.96Early on, he may have appearedneglectfulof his paternaldutiesto protecther and to finda suitablehusband. Then, when she was raped, he had not responded promptlyor ardently. And, when his more cautious attemptsat a resolutionhad failed,he had chosen, and perhapsforreasonsmore of his own interestthanhers,to expose his daughter to public scrutinyafterall. Nevertheless,whateverArtemisiamay have feltabout Orazio’s conduct,ifshe wantedthe trialto succeed,she had to adjusther stanceto fitthe predicamentas set out in her father’spetition.97Her theme is the family’s honor, and she shiftsblame for its injury onto their should-be allies,Tassi and Tuzia. Implicitly, however,Artemisia’saccount of her vengefulattackon Agostino afterthe rape castsdubious lighton Orazio’s tepid reactions.In honor’sterms,she constructsherselfas the betterman thanhe was. Her sense of betrayalalso focuses on the companion,Tuzia. Artemisia’sfirsttestimonypointsnot atTassi,but indeed atTuzia.The recentarrestof the older woman probablywas in Artemisia’smind at the time of her interrogation.Yet her insistenceon layinga share of guilt on the chaperon,where it had littlestrategicuse, may have betokened real pain.98This breachof solidaritybetween women perhapshurtthe motherlessgirlmore deeply thanthe more predictablyvolatilebehaviorof men. If we are to see in Artemisia’s paintinga genderedresponseto thosewho had wrongedher,an unnuancedvision of male/femaleoppositionseems too simple. While in some respectsdisappointingforthe Gentileschis,the conclusion of the trialdid restoreArtemisia’sreputation.Though soon releasedand neverpunished,despitelaterefforts by his enemies,Tassiat least was sentenced.His conviction for stuprumexonerated Artemisia.It formallyconfirmed that,despite the rumors,she had been chasteprior to the assaultand was not morallyresponsible forher loss of virginity. This resolutionto the conflictdid not, however,deliver the marriage to Tassi that would have validated the rape and the subsequent “betrothal.”Negotiationstowarda wedding had continuedinto May,but at some case, if point the Gentileschishad relinquishedthatgoal. Normally,in a stuprurn 96Conflictual,thoughloving,relationsbetween Orazio and Arternisiaare centralto Lapierre’sfictionalized narrative. 97Artemnisia, in her second testimony, assertsthat her fatherprovided for her; probably here she means to answerTassi’sslanderingOrazio as a haplessparent:Garrard,appendix B, 463. 98Garrard,Arteiimisia Geistileschi, 21, comments on thisbond and its betrayal.The author suggests thata female solidarityexpressedin theJudithpicturesmightreflectArtemisia’snostalgiafora friendship lost.Might she not as likelyhave evoked anger or distrustof otherwomen? This content downloaded from 147.253.216.44 on Tue, 16 Feb 2016 21:33:26 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Cohen / TrialsofArtemisia Gentileschi73 marriagewas impossible,the victim’sfamilysoughtas compensationa dowry to fundanothermatch.There is no evidence thatTassi everofferedor produced such monies; ifhe had, the trialmighthave ended much sooner.99Orazio thus earned a modicum of revenge,but not the more substantialremedieshe likelysought.He did findan alternative, an acceptable,if lusterlessspouse forArtemisiain the gobetween Stiattesi’syoungerbrother,Pierantonio.While negotiationsforthisalliance musthave occurredbeforethe court issueditssentence,itsproclamationevidentlycleared the way for the wedding two days later.100The husband was no greatcatch;neitherhis personalnor his financialresourcesappearto have provided much sustenancein the next years.Maybe withoutthe trialArtemisiawould have done better,though we should not overestimatethe market.All in all, the affair ended with her respectability confirmed.In the public forumshe was set to get on with her life. The impact of the whole chain of eventson Artemisia’spsyche,her sense of self,and her work is more difficultto assess.Recent art historicalinterpretation has been struck by the strengthof her female figures,the forcefulnessof her women’s resistanceto men and,sometimes,the generalbodilinessin her painting. Explanationsof theseachievementsoftencite the rape,as ifthe assaulttransformed her consciousness;thereafter, she musthave understoodwomen as definedgenerically by theirsexual vulnerabilityto a male enemy and as empowered to resist. This readingappealsstronglyto feminists in searchof theirforemothers. But could this ratherbroad and abstractformulationbe conceived by an isolated young Roman woman who said she read poorly?101I doubt that eitheruniversalpsychologyor idiosyncratic brilliancewould spontaneouslyhave givenArtemisiasuch an insight.Culture had to intervene.Garrardhas worked to situate the gender consciousnessof the painterin the intellectualenvironmentof earlymodern feminism.102Later in lifeArtemisia,particularlythroughcontact with the courts of northernEurope, may have encountered some of these ideas; nevertheless,her access to them in 1612 or 1614 seems unlikely.Furthermore, most earlymodern feministwritingsought to defendwomen fromclaims of moral and intellectual weaknessand pointed out theirsocial and educational disadvantages. The control of the body and,in particular, sexual violence scarcelyfiguredin the discussion.103 Where rape did featurein Renaissance commentary, it enteredless the domain of 99Probablyhe lacked such a chunk of capital; in testimonyhe claimed that he earned well, but had no savings;Garrard,appendix B, 440. Or Tassi hoped to escape his obligationsaltogether. 100No contract has been found; dowry arrangements remain unknown. Pierantonio owed Orazio money,and these debtsmay have enteredinto the nuptialexchange: Lapierre,”Annexes,”462. 101Garrard, appendix B, 463; see also 478. 102Garrard,Artemisia Gentileschi, 141-71. 103ConstanceJordan,RenaissanceFemninism (Ithaca: Cornell UniversityPress,1990), 8-9, 11-21. The medical literaturehad littleimpact on the querelledesfemnnes. Other kinds of sources also expressa culture of the body; see the recent essay collection using literarytexts,The Body in Parts:Fantasiesof Corporealityin Early Modern Europe,ed. David Hillman and Carla Mazzio (New York: Routledge, 1997). Neither did thesewritingsimpinge much on earlymodern discussionof gender relations. This content downloaded from 147.253.216.44 on Tue, 16 Feb 2016 21:33:26 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 74 Sixteenth CenturyJournal XXXI/1 (2000) the physicaland psychological than the realm of the moral and social.104Thus, while corporal experiencesno doubt shaped the personalitiesof individualearly modern women, theircultureofferedlittlewith which to understandthe links between theirbodies and theirplace in society.IfArtemisiadid create,more or less consciously, “feminist”images thatdraw on the cultureof her age, theymusthave had theirrootsin a lot more thanTassi’sassaultand its confusedand problematic aftermath.Yetthe sources for such an understandingin the mind of the young paintercontinueto elude us. ArtemisiaGentileschiwas a strongwoman. She paintedsome stunningimages of powerfulwomen. In a field where few women survivedas professionals,she built a respectablecareer,combining,as all successfulartistshad to,skillsin handling the brush and in cajoling patrons.She raised at least one child as a single mother.Both on canvas and in the marketplaceof social relations,she prospered because,using the tools,resources,and conventionsof her world,she could negoShe had to learn these skillsearly tiate arrangementsthatservedher interests.105 on. At the age of seventeen, she was emerging as a professional painter and required a husband.To a modern feministthese two passages into professional autonomyand into marriagemay appear to conflictsociallyand psychologically. For a seventeenth-century woman with different expectations,the tension may have been less. In any case, these were contradictionsthat had to be absorbed. While in pursuitof thesegoals,and in partas a resultof them,Artemisiahad suffereda sexual assault.Her attackerwas a man with tangled connections to her The rape and the latertrialwere deeply stressful familyand theircircle of artists. episodesmarkinga criticalperiod in Artemisia’slife.But the eventsthemselvesand the young woman’s responseto themwere part of a largerwhole, fullof ambiguities.In thatsettingshe chose properlyto focus on the defenseof her good name, importantforher maritaland her professionalfuture. This strategydepended not on conformityto moral absolutes,but on compromiseand negotiation.She had to relyon herself, because those responsibleforher had defaulted. The Tassi episode was significantforArtemisia’sdevelopment,but it did not defineher life.It may have stimulateda nascentfeministconsciousness;it certainly refinedand maturedher essentialcoping skills.Strongwomen deserverecognition but also for not onlyforpublic achievementsand flamboyant gesturesof resistance, astutereadingof circumstances, deftdeploymentof resources,and flexiblemaking the best of what theyface. Heroines practice not only virile confrontation, but also womanlyfinesse.To understandand do justice to Artemisiaand her sisterart104Christinede Pizan, Book of theCity ofLadies,trans.Earl Richards (NewYork: Persea Books, 1982), 160-64, rejectsthe male suggestionthatwomen “want to be raped” (putativelyfor the physical pleasure of sex) by citinga numberof classicalexamples of strongfemaleresistancein defenseof moral in her integrityand honor. In one of Christine’sexamples the Queen of the Galatians,like Artenmisia testimony, seeks revengeby stabbingher assailant. 105Cropper,”Artemisia Gentileschi,”216-17, in her conclusion also emphasizes the painter’s practicalskillsof coping and negotiation. This content downloaded from 147.253.216.44 on Tue, 16 Feb 2016 21:33:26 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Cohen / TrialsofArtemvisia Gentileschi75 ists,we need to explore further,especially into mattersof education not only technical training,but also broader culturalknowledge and of social and familialinteraction.Wherethereare documents,as in the case of Gentileschi,we need to read them carefullyand in context.Where sources fail,we mustlook to fillin the gaps with models of experience thatfitthe real,not the romanticized, complexityof thesewomen’slives. This content downloaded from 147.253.216.44 on Tue, 16 Feb 2016 21:33:26 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Formulate 10 discussion questions that cover the whole text. Your questions should be based on the text, so put the page number(s) in parenthesis to indicate which portion of the text each question …
Purchase answer to see full attachment