NATHAN, SIGNORA LILIAH ASCOLI. Rome.

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NEGRO, TERESA. Born in Turin, where she resides.  She has made a study of antique pottery and has been successful in its imitation.  Her vases and amphorae have been frequently exhibited and are praised by connoisseurs and critics.  At the Italian National Exposition, 1880, she exhibited a terra-cotta reproduction of a classic design, painted in oils; also a wooden dish which resembled an antique ceramic.

NELLI, PLAUTILLA. There is a curious fact connected with two women artists of Florence in the middle of the sixteenth century.  In that city of pageants—­where Ghirlandajo saw, in the streets, in churches, and on various ceremonial occasions, the beautiful women with whom he still makes us acquainted—­these ladies, daughters of noble Florentine families, were nuns.

No Shakespearean dissector has, to my knowledge, affirmed that Hamlet’s advice to Ophelia, “Get thee to a nunnery,” and his assertion, “I have heard of your paintings, too,” prove that Ophelia was an artist and a nunnery a favorable place in which to set up a studio.  Yet I think I could make this assumption as convincing as many that have been “proved” by the post obitum atomizers of the great poet’s every word.

But we have not far to seek for the reasons which led Plautilla Nelli and Maria Maddalena de’ Pazzi to choose the conventual life.  The subjects of their pictures prove that their thoughts were fixed on a life quite out of tune with that which surrounded them in their homes.  If they pictured rich draperies and rare gems, it was but to adorn with them the Blessed Virgin Mother and the holy saints, in token of their belief that all of pomp and value in this life can but faintly symbolize the glory of the life to come.

Plautilla Nelli, born in Florence in 1523, entered the convent of St. Catherine of Siena, in her native city, and in time became its abbess.  Patiently, with earnest prayer, she studied and copied the works of Fra Bartolommeo and Andrea del Sarto, until she was able to paint an original “Adoration of the Magi” of such excellence as to secure her a place among the painters of Florence.

Many of her pictures remained in her convent, but she also painted a “Madonna Surrounded by Saints” for the choir of Santa Lucia at Pistoja.  There are pictures attributed to Plautilla Nelli in Berlin—­notably the “Visit of Martha to Christ,”—­which are characterized by the earnestness, purity, and grace of her beloved Fra Bartolommeo.  Her “Adoration of the Wise Men” is at Parma; the “Descent from the Cross” in Florence; the “Last Supper” in the church of Santa Maria Novella, Florence.

There are traditions of her success as a teacher of painting in her convent, but of this we have no exact knowledge such as we have of the work of the “Suor Plautilla,” the name by which she came to be known in all Italy.