I’ve just been into the bowels of my computer looking for visuals for Maria but then remembered it belongs to my photocopying days and all I have is on paper! So then I went googling and the results were, for me, revelatory.
First I found another blog on her which, when I read it, turned out to have been written by me. How memory loss is exacerbated by the blizzard of information technology!
http://heroinesoffantasy.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/guest-post-linda-proud.html
The only known images of Maria related to two medals, one struck for her brother, Angelo Poliziano, and one for his Pico della Mirandola. Because my images are on paper and filed away in a cobwebby corner, this is the one that has lodged in my mind, and made me think of her as somewhat frumpy.
The beauty of the internet is, of course, access to the treasures of knowledge. There are more surviving medals than I’d realised, and some of them in fine nick, which replaces the frumpiness with beauty.
This next one is obviously the main inspiration for Paulina’s doll. It shows Maria as young virgin (long hair down) on the obverse of the Three Graces motif used on the medal of Pico della Mirandola.
antonia monson
26 Jan 2017I love how she looks a sophisticated Florentine lady in the first medal and a natural young girl in the other. Wit and humour waiting to break through?! And so like her brother Angelo- which somehow brings both of them more to life. (In this medal he reminds me of Daniel Auteil,who might have played him rather well when young? )
I am so with you – there’s a magic about a puppet theatre unlike any other…..a stage for dreams, brought to life mysteriously easily on a small scale – worlds within worlds.
Karen Burch
27 Jan 2017So – when are you going to grant my deepest wish and write an entire book about her adventures while Tommaso was off hiding in England? 🙂