First published in 1953, Artemisia is a classic of 20th century Italian literature. From its first publication in 1953, Artemisia, a novel about Artemisia Gentileschi, an iconic 17th-century painter, by Anna Banti, a brilliant Italian art historian, established itself as a feminist masterpiece.
Like Penelope Fitzgerald's The Blue Flower and Marguerite Yourcenar's Memoirs of Hadrian, Artemisia is a book about the process of artistic creation. Much in Gentileschi's life marked her out as a victim rape at the age of 18, a forced marriage to a man she did not love and, a powerful, patriarchal father, Orazio Gentileschi, who failed to value her artistic genius.
