Unknown women memorialised: portrait medals in Renaissance Italy

肖像奖章从15世纪到17世纪非常流行，是意大利文艺复兴时期最被忽视的艺术形式之一，尽管它幸存了大量，并具有相当大的潜力来促进我们对那个时期的文化、社会和价值观的理解。16/34在这组已经被忽视的物品中，有一堆奖章几乎完全被忽视了--那些是文艺复兴时期意大利当地中产阶级妇女的奖章。通过将这些奖牌放在历史的背景下，本研究项目将试图了解它们与性别、名望和个性的功能和意义。预计该研究项目将证明，这些肖像奖牌不仅描绘了理想化的美丽女性(Belle Donne)，还描绘了因个人优点和美德而受到纪念的真实个人。因此，这些文物提供了一个独特的机会，可以照亮那些原本可能会迷失在历史中的女性，并由此允许在钱币学、艺术史和博物馆收藏品中对性别有更微妙的理解。自我攻读硕士学位(2016-2018)以来，女性和性别一直是我选择的学术研究方向。在伦敦国王学院(King‘s College London)的一个校际模块中，我写了一篇关于乔瓦尼·博卡西奥(Giovanni Boccaccio)《论著名女性》最后一章的文章，认为博卡西奥在那不勒斯女王约翰娜一世(Queen Johanna I)身上认识到了高尚统治者的典范。我的硕士论文《模糊的性别和做出决定：曼图亚的伊莎贝拉·德埃斯特和玛切萨的案例》，将性别作为一个分析范畴来考察伊莎贝拉做出的一系列选择，将她参与领导和治理的能力与博卡西奥的人文主义文本联系起来。我的研究是跨学科的，将书面文件和物质文化--包括肖像奖牌--纳入我的论点。关于我的古地理和密码学技能，请参阅第四节。在开始探索肖像奖章作为重要历史来源的潜力后，我收到了英国货币学会的奖学金，以支持在大英博物馆的安置。在硬币和奖牌部，我通过对博物馆收藏的大量意大利铅肖像奖牌进行成像，获得了处理奖牌的直接经验，包括我的项目所基于的那些奖牌。我还从设计、准备和实施三个方面为该部门的展览《英国的移民奖章获得者》提供了支持。我的意大利语知识接近中等水平，我继续每周上一节课。

Portrait medals, highly fashionable from the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries, are one of the most overlooked art forms of the Italian Renaissance despite surviving in large quantities and possessing considerable potential for advancing our understanding of the culture, society and values of the period.16 / 34Within this already underexplored group of objects are a body of medals which have been almost entirely neglected - those of the local, middle-class women of Renaissance Italy. By placing these medals in an historical context, this research project will seek to understand their function and meaning in relation to gender, fame and individuality. It is anticipated that the research project will demonstrate that these portrait medals do not just depict idealised, beautiful women (belle donne), but actual individuals who were commemorated because of their own personal merit and virtue. These objects provide, then, a unique opportunity to illuminate those women who might otherwise have been lost to history and, with it, allow a more nuanced understanding of gender in numismatics, art history and museum collections alike. Women and gender has been my chosen line of academic enquiry since my MA (2016-2018). For an intercollegiate module at King's College London, I wrote an essay on the final chapter of Giovanni Boccaccio's 'On Famous Women', arguing that Boccaccio realised in Queen Johanna I of Naples the model of a virtuous ruler. My MA dissertation, 'Blurring Genders and Making Decisions: The Case of Isabella d'Este, Marchesa of Mantua', used gender as an analytical category to examine a series of choices made by Isabella, contextualising her ability to participate in leadership and governance against humanist texts in the vein of Boccaccio. My research was interdisciplinary, incorporating both written documentation and material culture - including portrait medals - into my argument. On my palaeographical and codicological skills, refer to section four. Having begun to explore the potential of portrait medals as important historical sources, I received a British Numismatic Society bursary to support a placement at The British Museum. Within the Department of Coins and Medals, I gained direct experience of handling medals, including those which my project is based upon, by imaging a large body of the museum's collection of Italian lead portrait medals. I also provided support for the department's exhibition 'Witnesses - émigré medallists in Britain', from design, preparation and implementation. My knowledge of Italian is nearing an intermediate level and I continue to have lessons on a weekly basis.