★A masterful essay combining history and art.

In the late seventeenth century, there were entire rooms in noble buildings that were dedicated to collecting portraits of “famous women” from the time, almost as if cataloging them. Contemporary ladies, influential characters at court, or legendary beauties whose fame spread quickly across Europe’s aristocracy. Wives of princes and future mothers of princes and cardinals, crucial links in political alliances, and irreplaceable pieces in complex family strategies. Famous for their beauty, often at the source of uncontrollable passions and tragic events. These portraits, known as “Le belle” (the beauties), were popular among art collections in Italy, decorating the walls in the homes of noble families like Chigi, Colonna, Odescalchi, Gonzaga, Farnese, Borghese, and throughout Europe. A trend that dates back to ancient times that provides through its evolution a new perspective to explore the role of women in history.

Francesca Cappelletti is an art historian and director of Galleria Borghese. She studied in Rome, at the Warburg Institute in London, at the Collège de France in Paris, and then taught art history courses on modern art and European art in Italian universities, most recently as a tenured professor at the University of Ferrara. She spent years studying Italian art collections from the Renaissance to the nineteenth century. She is the author of several essays and articles, and her work contributed to recovering The Taking of Christ, a Caravaggio painting that is currently at the National Gallery in Dublin. She participated in organizing and creating the catalogs for exhibitions around Italy and abroad. She also collaborated with the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles and was part of the Superior Council of Cultural Affairs at the Italian Ministry of Culture, where she was vice president from 2014 to 2018.