The love letters Artemisia Gentileschi from Florence to London

FLORENCE - Four love letters, which also reveal a sometimes murky story, of beautiful painting, of money and power. Artemisia Gentileschi wrote them to her twenty-year-old lover, Francesco Maria Maringhi, a rich scion of an ancient family of the Florentine aristocracy. The prose is incorrect but profound, ungrammatical but cultured: the letters mention Petrarch and Ariosto, Ovid, Michelangelo and Tasso.
The four letters are kept in the Frescobaldi Archive, a noble Florentine family who, after restoration, presented them in Florence before they leave for London for the largest ever exhibition on Artemisia in the UK.
They will be exhibited from 4 April to 26 July at the National Gallery together with the works of the painter married to Pierantonio Stiattesi, also the author of 14 writings addressed to Maringhi, some found in the Frescobaldi Archive, and one of which will always be exhibited in London.
Tiziana Frescobaldi, president of Compagnia de 'Frescobaldi and artistic director of the Artisti per Frescobaldi project, biennial award, delivered the precious letters to Letizia Treves, James and Sarah Sassoon curator of Italian, Spanish and French paintings of the 17th century at the National Gallery. of contemporary art born in 2012 which for years has promoted culture and art also in the wine world.
The letters to Francesco Maria Maringhi, who was administrator of the assets of the Frescobaldi family, were found in 2011 by Professor Francesco Solinas during his studies in the Archive of the noble Florentine family: "They represent - explains Tiziana Frescobaldi - unique documents of their kind to enter the private and psychological life of this great Italian artist ". And for the Frescobaldi family "it is a great honor to be a supporter of the most illustrious painter of the Baroque age, during her Florentine period, and to have kept these precious letters". (HANDLE).