Sarjeant Happenings: UK author Sarah Dunant to speak on Italian Renaissance women

Bestselling British author Sarah Dunant will present a lecture, The Second Sex: Art, politics and gender in the Italian Renaissance, via video link at the Sarjeant Gallery on August 27.

Te Whare o Rehua Sarjeant Gallery will present a richly illustrated lecture, The Second Sex: Art, politics and gender in the Italian Renaissance, delivered by bestselling British author Sarah Dunant on Wednesday, August 27, at 7pm.

A broadcaster, journalist and critic, Dunant is the author of an acclaimed series of historical novels, including the bestselling trilogy The Birth of Venus, Sacred Hearts and In the Company of the Courtesan, which explore women’s lives during the Renaissance.

Her most recent novel is The Marchesa which centres on the extraordinary life of Isabella d’Este, the first female art collector and patron of the Renaissance who was an exceptional correspondent, leaving 33,000 letters which Dunant accessed to write The Marchesa.

A Cambridge history graduate, Dunant has had a successful career in the media, presenting arts and culture programmes on the BBC, including the celebrated live arts and culture television show The Late Show and Night Waves, the arts and ideas radio discussion show.

But it was a trip to Florence which flipped the switch and led Dunant into a career as a novelist, writing about the Renaissance and particularly the lives of its women.

“I trained as a historian but I found history through being a young reader,” Dunant said.

“For a teenage girl, historical novels were intoxicating, sumptuous and dramatic, opening up a whole other world. When I went back as a novelist to look at the Renaissance, I was amazed by how much there was to study, precisely because other women historians had done so much work by then.

“And there is also a whole visual world to be explored as the art itself reveals exterior and interior settings, clothes, faces reflecting contemporary Italy. Look at enough Renaissance art and you find that you are looking at a slow-moving film of a whole era of history brought to life in front of your eyes.”

Te Whare o Rehua communications lead Jaki Arthur said the gallery was “absolutely delighted to be able to share the excitement of a really chunky lecture delivered by a compelling expert”.

“Sarah is a very engaging speaker and it’s a treat to have a lecturer of her calibre present at the gallery. I think the audience will be thrilled.”

Dunant said the lecture would take the audience into the past to look at what life was like for the women of the Renaissance – “to celebrate [and sometimes commiserate] the lives they led, and their contribution to this amazing time of history”.

“We can expect to enter nunneries [and there were a lot of them], meet women who were painting, studying, singing, composing, even commissioning art and architecture; to visit the houses of rich courtesans, whose ‘services’ included holding symposiums discussing philosophy and love, smart fashionable creatures who could play the lute, sing, and converse [and then go to bed] with the highest rungs of male society. Women who flirted with heretic religious thinkers. And women who ruled the state in the absence of their professional soldier husbands, often doing a better job.”

Before historical fiction, Dunant wrote several successful crime thriller novels, including Transgressions which saw her tour New Zealand in 1997 for the Listener Women’s Book Festival.

“It was a groundbreaking novel at the time. In Transgressions, I put my female protagonist in an unbelievably difficult situation and had her react to it – it ruffled a lot of feathers.”

The lecture will take place in the gallery’s event space with Dunant live on screen from her home in Gloucester, UK. She will be able to communicate with the audience and will take questions at the end.

“This is a rare opportunity for people in Whanganui to enjoy one of the UK‘s most compelling commentators,” Arthur said.

“This lecture will shine a light on the women of the Italian Renaissance, the art and patronage of that time. Prepare to be fascinated.”

Thanks to Paige’s Book Gallery, which is partnering with the gallery, Dunant’s bestselling trilogy will be on sale at the event and is in stock at the shop. The Marchesa is available via Amazon in hard copy and as a richly illustrated e-book.

There will be seating for up to 80. Tickets are $15 and light refreshments will be available. Book tickets at Te Whare o Rehua Sarjeant Gallery or online at shop.sarjeant.org.nz/collections/events or (06) 349 0506.