2021-01-27
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Ladies prefer stoats
Even young and unmarried Italian girls prefer the glorious fur-bearing animals of the marten family. Moreover, glamorous fashion is inherent not only to modern style fans. In the Middle Ages, it turns out, the beautiful half also loved fluffy milota.
This was told on his canvas by a medieval genius, a connoisseur of the human body and soul, unique and mysterious Leonardo da Vinci, whose brush belongs to the famous painting 'The Lady with the Ermine'.
In the center of the artist's attention was the young Cecilia Gallerani - 'a woman, a girl, a spotrsmenka-Komsomolka', personifying the typical fate of a woman of the Middle Ages. At the age of 10, as befits a girl from a noble family, she was engaged, but the marriage did not take place, and at the age of 14 she was sent to a monastery.
It is unlikely that the purpose of her noble seclusion was prayer and penance, since it was there that Cecilia met the noble Duke of Milan, a connoisseur of grace and feminine beauty, Ludovico Sforzo. They began an affair, and Gallerani managed to get pregnant. And all would be fine (Medieval Italy welcomed early motherhood), but Sforzo was engaged and had to conclude a dynastic marriage with Beatrice d'Este, the daughter of the Duke of Ferrara.
But the hottest 'Santa Barbara' starts next. After the wedding with Beatrice, which took place in January 1491, in May Cecilia gives birth to Louis ' first child-an illegitimate baystryuk Cesare. With an illegitimate child, she is at court in Milan.
It is logical that for a monogamous Italy to share a husband with a mistress was absolutely unacceptable. The court grumbles, the wife grumbles, so Ludovico Sforzo, giving his mistress land in Saronno and the luxurious castle of Carmagnola (that is, providing her with a dowry), marries Cecilia to an impoverished count friend. Ludovico takes the child for himself.
We must pay tribute to the heroine of the portrait (da Vinci, if only someone will not paint) - she managed to establish good relations with the wife of Ludovic Sforzo and her family. And not in vain, for the ways of the Lord are inscrutable. In her marriage, she became a mother four more times, giving birth to four sons to her legal spouse. However, the fate of Cecilia did not become the usual Kinder-Kuche-Kirche for medieval ladies. She was famous for her erudition, was one of the first in Europe to run a literary salon, and wrote and recited poems in Italian and Latin.
In 1499, the French king Louis XII captures Milan. On the side of Sforzo, Swiss mercenaries are fighting, who, in exchange for the promised unhindered return home by the French, give them their employer. Ludovico Sforzo was put in a massive and impregnable castle on the Loire River, where he spent his last days (and this is no less than 8 years of life).
Leonardo da Vinci was personally acquainted with Cecilia Gallerani. At one time, he was in the service of the Duke of Sforzo as an architect and engineer. The great master captured and transmitted the image of the count's beloved with an ermine in her hands. Thus giving the viewer an allusion to the duke, whose nickname - 'ermine' (Greek: GALE) - is associated with the surname Gallerani.
The painting 'The Lady with the Ermine' today has the status of the most valuable work of art stored in Poland. The painting is in the collection of the Czartoryski Museum in Krakow. The 'Lady' was purchased by Prince Adam Jerzy Czartoryski in Italy and brought to Poland for his mother in 1800.
and also on coins of Niue, Cameroon, and the Solomon Islands.
Amazing stories of human lives are stored on the canvases of great artists, as well as on stamps, coins, postcards and banknotes. Only a real, enthusiastic enthusiast can read them, which are art collectors, philatelists, numismatists, bonists, philocartists. To help them, the program HOBBYKEEPER ONLINE, the functionality of which allows you to organize existing information, find and add new information, as well as keep records and statistics of transactions, share links with colleagues, edit and make relevant changes to your personal archive. Private access to the collection is available from any mobile device 24/7.
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