Lucia Albani Avogadro

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Lucia Albani Avogadro
Giovanni Battista Moroni, Portrait of a Lady, perhaps Contessa Lucia Albani Avogadro ('La Dama in Rosso')
Born1534
Bergamo, Italy
Died1568
Brescia, Italy
NationalityItalian

Lucia Albani Avogadro (Bergamo, 1534 – Brescia, 1568) was an Italian poet, member of the Albani family.

Biography[edit]

Born Lucia Albani in Bergamo, she had four brothers and two sisters, and was the daughter of Giovanni Gerolamo Albani – a jurisconsult, cardinal and governor of Bagnoregio[1] – and Laura Longhi, herself the niece of Abbondio Longhi, secretary to Bartolomeo Colleoni.[2]

Lucia married Faustino Avogadro, a member of the Brescian nobility,[3] at the age of sixteen and settled in that city: well versed in letters, she was a member of the Accademia degli Occulti in Brescia[4] and wrote Rime which was published in Venice in 1553.

She was involved in a dramatic family feud with the Brembati family, which led to the murder of Achille Brembati in 1563 in the church of Santa Maria Maggiore in Bergamo, resulting in the arrest of her brothers and father, and the exile of her husband to Ferrara, who was considered to be part of the plot. The young woman followed her husband into exile, but he died suddenly in 1564 after falling drunk from a balcony. She returned to Brescia where she died of tuberculosis, like her mother, in 1568.[5]

Her sonnets were also appreciated by Girolamo Ruscelli who published two sonnets in his Rime di diversi eccellenti autori bresciani.[6] Giovanni Battista Moroni depicted her in the famous painting Dama in Rosso.[7]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Miranda, Salvador. "ALBANI, Gian Girolamo (1504-1591)". The Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church. Florida International University Libraries. OCLC 53276621.
  2. ^ Bugatti, Stefania (2017-04-24). "Lucia Albani: grande artista, grande donna!". Lo Sbuffo (in Italian). Retrieved 2022-01-30.
  3. ^ "Faustino Avogadro, called Il Cavaliere dal Piede Ferito (The Knight with the Wounded Foot)". www.frick.org. Retrieved 2022-01-30.
  4. ^ Amati, Giacinto (1828). Ricerche storico-critico-scientifiche sulle origini, scoparte, invenzioni e parfezionamenti fatti nelle lettere, nelle arti e nelle scienze, con alcuni tratti biografici della vita dei più distinti autori nelle medesime (in Italian). Giovanni Pirotta. p. 377.
  5. ^ Selmi, Elisabetta (2008). "Le stanze segrete" (PDF). Fondazione civiltà Bresciana: 183–200. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2017-04-24.
  6. ^ Sampieri, Valerio. "Poesie di Lucia Albani". Retrieved 2022-01-30.
  7. ^ "Lucia Albani Avogadro, called La Dama in Rosso (The Lady in Red)". www.frick.org. Retrieved 2022-01-30.