Onorata Rodiani : Warrior Paintress

Onorata Rodiani, a painter turned mercenary and 15th c “young virtuoso”.

Scholars like those at the Brooklyn Museum, call her story a  “semi-legend”, in the sense that it is hard to separate fact from fiction. 

Yet, recently it has still had great resonance, as Onorata has been dubbed the  “Joan of Arc of Castelleone”.

Onorata Rodiani was born in 1403 and died in 1452 both in Castelleone near Cremona, Italy, but what transpired between those two events is somewhat astonishing.

 The first to speak of her was Don Clemente Fiammeni or “Fiammeno”  in his  Historia di Castelleone, 1630.

Found in his work, are many interesting details of the history and politics of cities in the Lombardy region of Italy.

Though, not everything read therein was planned.

And “she killed one of its courtiers with a knife for a not very honest act,” writes Fiammeni -a rape attempt that ended badly for the rapist.

Onorata’s trouble begins under highly unusual circumstances.

In 1354 the town was conquered by the Duchy of Milan, but, between 1420 and 1424, the years in which our story begins, it was entrusted to the Marquis Cabrino or Gabrino Fondulo.

We know Onorata is an Italian paintress considered a  “young virtuoso” when she kills a courtier in Cremona, Italy.

He is Prince of Cremona  (after exterminating the males of the Cavalvabò family), Count of Soncino, and Imperial Vicar, as well as a fierce and murderous military leader.

 Cabrino Fondulo, Prince of Cremona receives his baptism in the blood of battle, by the sword, at the age of 16.

Together Cabrino and his brother conspire with the enemies of Prince  Gian Galeazzo Visconti, but he is arrested and is placed under house arrest in Mantua.

Yet, after the death of Prince Galeazzo, he is able to escape with the help of Cavalcabò military support.

Cabrino excels as a military leader through bloody massacres.

But as Cavalcabòs military becomes weak, Cabrino switches sides spectacularly.

He invites former “friends” to a banquet of reconciliation in Maccastorna Castle and murders them in the night.

 The castle is still excellently preserved except for a few additions in the late Renaissance and Baroque periods, is still called “Castello Dei Settanta Fantasmi” (“The Castle of the 70 Ghosts”) in memory of this bloody banquet.

In the following chaos, Cabrino manages to win over the villagers of Cremona.

He then allies himself with Florence in exchange for a thousand horsemen. He holds bloody battles among his adversaries.

Then he consolidates his self-proclaimed title as Prince of Cremona.

His reign is short and unpleasant, as he loses his head at age 55.

But when he is at the height of his power, our story begins.

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Our heroine, Onorata Rodiani is a favorite maid of honor to Pomina Cabrulette Fondulo , Cabrino’s wife.

Unusual for the time, although she is a woman, Cabrino Fondulo, Marquis of Castelleone, commissions Onorata to paint a fresco in his palace.

After, Cabrino retires to be Marquis of Castelleone, in consequence of his cession of Cremona, to the Duke of Milan.

 He commissions Onorata to decorate a wall of his palace in Maccastorna (the castle mentioned above in the plain of the Po river) with a heroic fresco.

In this lucrative assignment, she should not be bothered by the shouting of the tortured, because Cabrino uses the castle deep in his territory to keep and execute the prisoners.

 Cabrino, has just appointed, a young squire to serve as bracciére, or “gentleman butler” to the Marchioness.

This squire is brought into almost constant interaction with Onorata and has become smitten with her charms.

However, she is not conscious of his passion, which he has never disclosed in an open or honorable manner.

The Marchioness’s apartments in the castle are undergoing repair, Onorata, who was an artist happens to offer her services to paint the vault of Pomina’s chamber, which is accepted.

Onorata has scaffolding placed in the apartment, where she sits the greater part of the day busy at work, and remote from the rest of the family.

She has only a young boy with her to grind her colors.

The amorous squire thinks of taking advantage of this circumstance.

One day, he first scopes out the place.

Then he goes to the outer rooms, where the masons are at work, and asks the master to send the boy out on an errand.

After that,  the squire goes softly to the apartment where Onorata is busy at the moment painting a Cupid on the ceiling.

To the astonishment of Onorata, she turns around and sees him on the scaffolding by her side, this soon gives way to indignation, when he explains to her the reason for his intrusion.

She asks him to leave but is disregarded.  She calls loudly for assistance but is informed, no one is near enough to hear or help.

Still, he continues to harass the painteress with his sexual advances.

Since she does not want to and is not willing, he becomes irate.  He has not counted on the young woman’s resistance.

She collects; all, her strength, and struggled to get away, but the villain throws off the mask, and proceeds to open violence.

Onorata perceiving near her the compasses she uses for drawing snatches them up, as a last desperate resource.

  She stabs them into the squire’s neck, perforating his throat.

Others say

She grabs a palette knife that is used to apply layers of paint on the wall and stabs it in his neck.

Either way, so much red is not planned and the rapist can no longer be helped.

He instantly falls writhing in his own blood.

Onorata decides not to wait for the usual actions of Prince Cabrino. She aims to escape his anger instead.

 She hurries down the steps of the scaffolding, terrified at what she had done, leaves the fatal apartments, and goes straight to her nurse.

She tells the nurse everything, then disguises herself as a man, and mounts a horse- immediately escaped out of Cabrino’s territory.

She flees into the  night, abandoning her family and town and declaring:

“it is better to live honored outside the homeland than dishonored in it”.

After the squire is found dead, an inquest is instituted by Cabrino, yet the truth of the situation is evident.

Onorata is declared innocent, and invited to return home.

However, she is already far away.

For a long time, she gives no tidings of herself, until 30 years later, when she returns to her native country in warlike attire.

She is found dead in the field of battle.

That is, she lived and dressed as a man and made a career as a military officer, under General Lampugnani.

His army are mainly mercenaries from all over the world.

Onorata initially kept her disguise as a man and became a mercenary himself in the cavalry.

She earned the respect of the men with her skill in arms and her tactical genius.

Her career as a mercenary leader (Condottieri) culminated in her appointment as captain (Capitano) in the service of Corrado Sforza, the brother of the Prince of Milan Francesio Sforza who came to the aid of Castallone when besieged by the Venetians

“whereby the usual value was carried, and the siege was raised, but Ornata was wounded to death”.

She was then carried inside the walls of Castelleone and recognized “with great amazement”, she died shortly after, saying:

“honored I lived, honored I die”.

According to Don Clemente, she was buried in her parish on 20 August 1452.

The semi-legend always says that the nineteen-year-old and unfailingly beautiful Onorata (Honored)  entered the palace as a companion for the wife of the feudal lord, Pominia.

The young molester caught her alone. He attacked her, she defended herself.

 Although Fiammeni speaks of a knife, the legend tells of a compass stuck in the throat.

Then the escape.

Arriving at the home of the old nurse, Onorata decided to dress like a man and, after leaving a letter of confession for the marquise, she left on horseback, making her tracks lose.

We know of Cabrino’s anger, of his forgiveness. Of the fact that Onorata did not know.

Fate waited only 2 years until the Marquis was deceived in Cremona by Oldrado Lampugnani, minister and trusted man of Filippo Maria Visconti.

Cabrino was sentenced to death and immediately and beheaded on the Piazza dei Mercanti.

In the army of Lampugnani, also Onrata was honored under a false name and false clothes.

 Over the years, the girl seems to have won the rank of captain.

Then, in August 1452 or 1453, the battle to free Castelleone from the siege of the Venetians (the semi-legend says ) just below the Torrazzo, which was about to fall into the Venetian hand, Onorata was hit by a slash.

 When they pulled her out of the fray and removed her armor, her companions, who had known her for many years and had shared battles and bivouacs (temporary camps used by soldiers)  with her, discovered that she was a woman.

The battle took place between 16 and 17 August: the funeral was soon after. The year, on the other hand, is not so certain: it could be 1452, when Francesco Sforza takes power in Milan.

.Or the following, 1453, which saw new and always similar clashes, with continuous and confusing changes in the front.

La Pace di Lodi, which ended the  fluctuating conflict between Milan and Venice, dates back to 1454.

However, nothing remains of the painter Onorata, or almost nothing.

Although several tables have been attributed to her and she is also assigned the frescoes in the house of Don Lodovico Mondini, a priest of Castelleone who lived in ia Beato Realino 13.

The priest also wrote about her in 1880.

In today’s Palazzo Galeotti-Vertua the remains of Fondulo’s residence have been recognized and, during a restoration, a fresco of the Virgin and Child has surfaced and on the sides, San Sebastiano and San Cristoforo, which perhaps can be attributed to her.

The fresco of the second half of the fifteenth century is located on a wall of the hall on the first floor of Palazzo Galeotti Vertua represents the Madonna enthroned between Saints Sebastian and Christopher.

The Madonna holds a pomegranate in her hand, full of both Christian and pagan symbolic meanings, while the Child Jesus has a coral necklace around his neck. Saints Sebastiano and Cristoforo were patron saints from the plague.

Traditionally, the “Giovanna d’Arco di Castelleone” was attributed to the legendary figure of the painter Onorata Rodiani, who would have painted it in 1423 when she lived at the court of Cabrino Fondulo, marquis of Castelleone, owner at the time of the palace.

She was also assigned a Saint Catherine, an oil on canvas, which is still in the parish church.

On the other hand, the legend of Onorata inspired some writers: for example, we speak of her in the drama I pattriotti di una terra Lombarda , by Romualdo Cappi (Venice 1873).

Onorata Rodiana is now a leader when it came to the position of women in painting.

Here, too, her fate paved the way for other women as a shining example.

Because if a cruel prince in the beginning of the 15th century paid tribute to a woman with such an order, then modernity should not be left behind (for example by Ernst Guhl in the article “Art-historical significance of women”, 1858).

 Women have almost fought for equality,

In art today, there is still a long way to go.. The honorable Rodiana can still inspire us in this pursuit.