Essay Sample on Renaissance Women

The women were denied political rights and were considered inferior to their husbands. Renaissance women were denied education because it was considered unnecessary for a lady. As this may be the Renaissance still challenged the traditional customs of the Middle Ages, women were still limited to the roles of nuns, wives, servants, and courtesans, however, literacy slowly spread amongst upper-class women in Italy while Some lower-class women were able to obtain their own education from their fathers or husbands.

Even though it wasn't expected of women, some of them worked with or for a male figure in their life. The peasant women worked in the fields with their husbands and while the wives of merchants and shopkeepers helped run their husbands' businesses. Women who did not marry were not allowed to live independently,instead, they lived in the home of their male relatives or joined a monastery. Some wealthy women of this era were able to break the form of submission to at least gain fame, if not independence. 

One of these women was Suor Plautilla Nelli who was the first known female painter from Florence, Italy. Born into a wealthy cloth merchant family, she became a nun at the young age 14, joining Santa Caterina da Siena convent . The monastery was run by the Dominican friars of San Marco, an order led by Savonarola, the fanatical monk whose barriers to greed and luxury nearly destroyed Florence. Savonarola advised religious women to create devotional paintings and drawings to avoid laziness. As a result, the monastery has become a kind of center for nun artists. While Plautilla Nelli studied with a Dominican brother, she was largely self-taught. She made great murals, glasses and canvases, remarkable for the emotions and compassion she was able to convey in her paintings. She even painted a Great Supper and proudly signed it, adding: 'Pray for the painteress 

Another well known woman from Italy was Sofonisba Anguissola, a painter that was born in Cremona and came from a poor noble family. When she was fourteen years old she was sent to the Lombard school to study with Bernardino Campi, a well respected painter.She later became famous for her realistic paintings and family portraits. In 1559, King Philip II of Spain invited her to Madrid as a painter and companion for his wife Isabella. When Anguissola finally returned she built an art school in Genoa.

Renaissance life for women was good but also unpleasant, as time progressed women broke free of the shackles of the society and men. Even though it was hard to be independent some women still managed to obtain notability and fame. Women mostly got famous because they were writers, painters or models in paintings such as Mona Lisa. The women that were well-known during the Italian renaissance are still being kept alive in our history books and will be for the rest of time.