A Feminine Touch - The Excellence of Engravers, Painters, and Women Writers between the 16th and 19th Centuries

Arezzo, August 9, 2025 – Artists, painters, historians, and scientists, a vast array of women embodying feminine excellence, some very famous in their time, yet almost invisible in literature and traditional art historiography. The exhibition " Feminine Touch - The Excellence of Engravers, Painters, and Women Writers between the 16th and 19th Centuries" reconstructs a journey of discovery and rediscovery of these exceptional figures who challenged silence, transforming it into a sign .

The exhibition, inaugurated at the end of July at Poppi Castle, will remain open until September 28. The curators, Don Claudio Ubaldo Cortoni, Camaldoli librarian and archivist and professor of History of Theology at the Angelicum in Rome, and art historian Alessandra Baroni, spoke at the presentation moderated by Alessia Busi of the Municipality of Poppi. The exhibition, which enjoys the patronage and support of the Tuscany Region and the Municipality of Poppi, and the collaboration of the Camaldoli Community, was also organized by Camaldoli Cultura and the publisher Mazzafirra. Prints, paintings, engravings, illustrations, and documents are presented in two exhibition venues: the prints and paintings at the Castello dei Conti Guidi in Poppi, and the unpublished documents at the Library of the Camaldoli Convent. The exceptional corpus of engravings on paper and silk, the largely unpublished paintings, and the precious archival documents, many of which are exhibited for the first time, compose a coral fresco that restores the voice and face of a multitude of women, protagonists of the cultural life of their time. From Sister Isabella Piccini to Lavinia Fontana, from Elena Piscopia Cornaro to Ada Negri.