Sunday, September 25, 2022

Women's News From the 1500s Virginia Dare, Pocahontas, Maddalena Casulana, and The Mona Lisa Painting

 

1.       November 26, 1504Queen Isabella I dies. She is 53 years old. Her successor is another woman, her daughter, Joanna of Castile, also known as Joanna the Mad or in Spanish, Juana la Loca. She will reign until 1555.

 

2.          1517 - It is accepted opinion that Leonardo da Vinci finished the Mona Lisa painting in the year 1517. History tells us the portrait of Mona Lisa is the result of Leonardo being commissioned by the patriarch of the Gherardini family that lived in Florence, Italy. Lisa del Gherardini married Francesco del Giocondo in 1495. Her husband paid Leonardo to paint the portrait of his wife, Lisa. Lisa died circa 1551 at age 70-72 The Italian name for the painting, originally, was called La Gioconda.

 

 

3.       1568 - Maddalena Casulana, an Italian song writer who lived in Florence, Italy between the years 1544 and 1590 published her first book of madrigals in 1568. Making her THE FIRST WOMAN to have her music published. A total of 66 of her madrigals survive.

Here is an article I found in The Winnipeg Tribune, Canada dated Sept 27, 1919 that mentions Maddalena Casulana: With the development of *contrapuntal music, women composers of higher position began to appear. In the 1500s they were to be found in many countries. Italy offered Maddalena Casulana, Vittoria Alcotti, Francesca Caccini (daughter of the operatic pioneer, Cornelia Calegari Catterina Assandra, and several others who composed motets, madrigals and finally operas. France boasted of Clementine de Bourges, a really gifted composer. The unfortunate Mary, Queen of Scots showed the influence of French models in some of her songs, which were successful in their day. Madelka Bariona was a German composer of the same period. Another remarkably gifted woman was Bernada de Lacerda, of Portugal, to whom Philip II wished to entrust the education of his children.

   From that time to the present the list of women composers is fairly continuous. The change from counterpoint to the harmonic style found the women ready to meet the new conditions, Francesca Caccini and others in Italy composing operas as well as madrigals. France, too, soon became a home of opera, and Elizabeth Claude de la Guerre won some success in this field, earning the respect of Louis XIV.” ~ The Winnipeg Tribune, Canada

  

4.        1587 - Virginia Dare is reportedly the first white English child born in the Americas when she was born in Roanoke, Virginia in the year 1587. 

 

5.       1595 - Pocahontas, assumed to be born in the Tidewater region of Virginia was born circa 1595 within the Powhatan Indian Tribe.


This is an excerpt from the book, "Women's History: Trivia, Firsts, & Musings by Paula C. Henderson https://amzn.to/3C2WWN2

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