Unknown women memorialised: portrait medals in Renaissance Italy

肖像奖牌，从十五世纪到十七世纪非常时尚，是意大利文艺复兴时期最被忽视的艺术形式之一，尽管大量幸存下来，并具有相当大的潜力，以促进我们对文化的理解，16/34在这组已经探索不足的物品中，有一个几乎完全被忽视的奖章-文艺复兴时期意大利的中产阶级妇女。通过将这些奖章置于历史背景中，本研究项目将试图了解它们与性别、名誉和个性有关的功能和意义。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（贝儿donne），而且还描绘了因其个人优点和美德而被纪念的实际个人。因此，这些物品提供了一个独特的机会，可以照亮那些否则可能已经消失在历史中的女性，并由此在钱币学，艺术史和博物馆收藏中对性别有更细致的理解。妇女和性别一直是我选择的学术调查线，因为我的马（2016-2018）。在伦敦国王学院的一个校际模块中，我写了一篇关于乔瓦尼·薄伽丘《论著名的女人》最后一章的文章，认为薄伽丘在那不勒斯的约翰娜女王身上实现了一个有道德的统治者的典范。我的硕士论文，“模糊性别和决策：伊莎贝拉德埃斯特的情况下，曼图亚的玛切萨”，使用性别作为一个分析类别，以检查伊莎贝拉所作的一系列选择，她的能力，参与领导和治理对人文主义文本的薄伽丘静脉。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。关于我的古地理学和编纂学技巧，请参阅第四部分。在开始探索肖像奖章作为重要历史来源的潜力后，我获得了英国钱币学会的奖学金，以支持在大英博物馆的安置。在硬币和奖章部门，我获得了处理奖章的直接经验，包括我的项目所基于的那些，通过对博物馆收藏的大量意大利铅肖像奖章进行成像。我还为该部的展览“见证人-英国移民奖章获得者”提供了设计、筹备和实施方面的支持。我的意大利语知识接近中级水平，我继续每周上课。

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.