Sarah Dunant

The First Lady of the Renaissance: The Monstrous Marchesa of Mantua

An illustrated lecture on the life and exploits of Isabella D ‘ESTE 

In an age where women had little public power, Isabella d’Este (1474 – 1539) stands out as a formidable figure. She was born into one of Italy’s most illustrious dynasties and married into another. Her husband , Francesco Gonzaga, was a warrior and a philanderer, but their partnership – she ran the state while he was away fighting – lasted over a quarter of a century, during which time she became the greatest female patron and art collector of the Italian renaissance. Her taste, both in art and fashion, her appetite for everything – particularly shopping and food, along with her strong-minded personality make her a great subject for a novel. But getting under her skin means accessing an extraordinary archive of letters which she left (thirty-three thousand of them) as well as walking in her footsteps through the fortresses and palaces of Ferrara and Mantua. This lecture will also give you some idea of both the pain and pleasure of that process. Getting history right is not an easy business.

Bio

Born and brought up in London, Sarah studied history at Newnham College, Cambridge from where she went on to become a writer, broadcaster, teacher and critic.

She has written thirteen novels, four of which have been short listed for awards and edited two books of essays. For many years she worked for the BBC in radio and television, including BBC 2 TV’s arts programme, The Late Show and Radio 3’s Nightwaves and Radio 4’s A Point of View.

A founding vice patron of the Women Prize for fiction in the UK, she has sat on the editorial board of the Royal Academy magazine and reviewed for, among others, The Times, The Literary Review, The Guardian and the New York Times

An accredited fine art lecturer with THE ARTS SOCIETY, she taught renaissance studies at Washington University, St Louis and creative writing at University of Oxford Brookes from where, in 2016, she was awarded an honorary doctorate for services to higher education and literature.



Having cut her teeth writing thrillers, in 2000 she moved back to her first love, history and the Italian renaissance, writing a trilogy of novels on women, which drew on new historical scholarship and became international best sellers, translated into thirty languages.