by Anna Banti

Artemisia is the second novel written by Anna Banti (literary pseudonym of Lucia Lopresti), who was born in Florence in 1895. Her parents soon moved to Rome, where Banti attended school. After she graduated from the University of Rome with a degree in art history, she married Roberto Longhi, a professor at the University. As his fame as an art historian grew, Banti felt compelled to abandon her own ambitions in that field, and acting on her husband’s suggestion, began what was to become her long and successful literary career. Banti had already mastered the art of describing the forms and colors of the plastic arts and only a slight shift of emphasis was necessary to describe the mental landscapes, scenes, and faces so integral to fiction. These pictorial skills, along with her fertile imagination and lifelong interest in storytelling, coalesced into a distinctive writing...