We the Italians December 28, 2014 - 50 | Page 36

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# 50 • DECEMBER 28 , 2014

# 50 • DECEMBER 28 , 2014

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ITALIAN ART:
CECILIA GALLERANI
blic of Venice, which depicts a no longer young
woman with the attributes of the Magdalene.
It is Cecilia Gallerani, who in 1492 married
Count Ludovico Carminati Sir of San Giovanni
in Croce, a village between Cremona and Mantua, where he had a residence-castle known
nowadays as Villa Medici del Vascello. But why
the name of Cecilia Gallerani is known and
famous for both her contemporaries and us in
the twenty-first century?

I

n this article we make a turnaround and
start from the United States, more precisely
from a framework that is part of the permanent collection of the Sarah Campbell Blaffer
Foundation at the Museum of Fine Arts in
Houston, TX. It is a painting by Bartolomeo
Veneto, a painter active since the beginning
of the sixteenth century throughout the Po
valley and in the lands owned by the Repu-

A the age of 15 Cecilia Gallerani was the favorite, lover and beloved mistress of Ludovico il
Moro. When he married Beatrice d'Este, Cecilia
was given the title of Countess of Saronno and
removed from the court of Milan together with
a son recognized by Ludovico named Caesar,
born in 1491. She is the character of one of
the most famous paintings in art history: "Lady
with an Ermine" by Leonardo da Vinci, who
portrays Cecilia in an apparently simple but
iconographic construction, which instead hides
a complex iconological meaning.
The choice of the ermine is not a random fact,
for three reasons. The first is a historical reason: in 1486 Ludovico il Moro received the
insignia of the Order of the Ermine by the King
of Naples Ferrante of Aragon. The second one
is etymological and iconographical: the greek
word for ermine is “galée”, a clear reference
to the named “Gallerani” who in the painting

holds in her arms the animal indicating chastity and purity. A third reason is apotropaic and
traditional: the ermine is a mustelid or as it was
then called a "mustela", which at the time was
being embalmed or it was used (only the head)
to be put on a leash as a lucky charm for pregnant women. Mustelids use to enter the poultry houses hoarding eggs and keeping them at
bay was a symbol of good luck for the baby: so
this explains why among all mustelids an ermine
was chosen, not a weasel or a marten.
Combining all these data, we can date Leonardo’s painting among 1486 and 1491, when
Cecilia was between thirteen and eighteen. The
painting now in Houston, though, was created
in the 20s of the sixteenth century, giving us a
very rare thing in the history of art: a portrait of
a 40 years old woman, widow and therefore as
penitent as Magdalene. It was not uncommon
for the ladies of that time, if widowed later in life,
to choose the monastery or to be portrayed with
symbols of sobriety and penance.
In following the aging of Cecilia we also have
a third representation in a painting produced
around 1515 and exhibited in the church of San
Zavedro, also in San Giovanni in Croce, where
the client who asked to be portrayed is depicted
resembling Cecilia Gallerani, who at that time
was a noblewoman very famous in those places.
Three portraits regarding adolescence, youth
and mature age of a woman who did not belong
to a royal family, but who had yet more power
over Milan than any other woman during the
Renaissance.

BY ENRICO DE IULIS

IMAGES © http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Veneto_0015.jpg, http://commons.wikimedia.
org/wiki/File:Leonardo_da_Vinci_-_Portrait_of_Cecilia_Gallerani_(Lady_with_an_Ermine)_-_
WGA12698.jpg, http://www.cremonaoggi.it/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Dama-dellErmellino-Evidenza.jpg

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