SCULTORI, Diana
Italian engraver, also known as Diana Mantovana. She came from a family of artists, her father, Giovanni Battista Mantovano, was a sculptor and engraver, who worked with Giulio Romano at the Palazzo del Tè in Mantua. The surname Scultori was assumed for her during the nineteenth century by art historians. Originally scholars recorded her name as Diana Ghisi based upon a mistaken relationship to the engraver Giorgio Ghisi. Diana most often signed her own work “Diana Mantuana” or “Diana Mantovana.”
She began her training in the art of engraving from her father and the artist Giulio Romano, who worked with him. As an artist, Scultori engraved religious and mythological subjects; the inspiration for many tracing back to Romano. Scultori received her first public recognition as an engraver in Giorgio Vasari’s second edition of Le Vite (1568). The biographer visited Mantua in 1566 and it is likely that her father arranged for the two to meet in order to advance her career. Scultori also met the architect, Francesco da Volterra (also known as Francesco Capriani) in 1565 when he moved to Mantua. The pair married soon thereafter and traveled to Rome by 1575.
In Rome, Scultori quickly set about the business of advancing her husband’s career as an architect. In 1575, the year of her first dated print, she received a Papal Privilege to make and market her own work. Privileges of this nature were rare, especially for women. Scultori’s active period as an artist ends in 1588, the date of her last known print. However, it can be assumed that she continued to reproduce her own prints and it is known that they were reproduced after her death.
In 1578, Scultori gave birth to a son, Giovanni Battista Capriani. Her husband died in 1594 and a few years later Scultori married another architect, Giulio Pelosi.
