Arcangela Paladini

When Arcangela Paladini died in 1622, only twenty-three years old, the Grand Duchess of Tuscany had a marble tomb carved for her, complete with a sculpted bust, and set it in Santa Felicita, the Medici family's church beside the Vasari Corridor. Few artists so young were mourned so grandly.

She had reason to be favoured. Daughter of the painter Filippo Paladini, Arcangela learned painting from Jacopo Ligozzi, a court artist known for his precise studies of nature, and singing from Francesca Caccini, the leading woman composer of the Medici court. She performed before the grand-ducal family in Palazzo Pitti and enjoyed the protection of the grand duchesses Christine of Lorraine and Maria Maddalena of Austria.

In 1616 she married Jan Broomans, a Flemish tapestry-maker in Florence, and learned his craft so well that she became known as 'Arcangiola the embroiderer' as much as a singer and painter. Her self-portrait, painted around 1620, hangs today among the artists' self-portraits of the Uffizi.