Of the Barony: Anna Banti and the Time of Decision

Abstract

Anna Banti, who died in 1980, was for many years an editor at Paragone, the prestigious journal of literary and art criticism. Though she set out to have a career as an art historian, as the student and young wife of Roberto Longhi, her major accomplishments were as a writer of historical fiction. In her famous novel, Artemisia, about the social ostracism of a 17th century painter, Artemisia Gentileschi, who was raped and then labeled a prostitute, Banti funneled her art historical passion into a compelling depiction of the interiority of this victim of a masculine baronial order. Artemisia stands as a vivid