The Education of Marie de' Medici

Marie de' Medici grew up in the Pitti Palace in Florence with little family around her. Her mother died when she was three and her father when she was 12, and she and her one surviving sister were brought up by a governess. Her schooling was serious all the same. She learned drawing from Jacopo Ligozzi, a painter at the Medici court, and she sang and played the lute. When Rubens painted that childhood for her Paris palace in the 1620s, he left out the governess and sent gods instead. Minerva, in her helmet, guides the girl's reading, a pose the Louvre compares to the young Virgin learning from Saint Anne. Mercury plunges down with his staff, a musician plays a large viol, and the Three Graces bring a wreath. Early guides disagree on whether the player is Apollo or Orpheus. At their feet lie a lute, a palette with brushes and a sculpted head that the museum identifies as Plato.