Fede Galizia

Fede Galizia (c. 1574– c.1630) was an Italian Renaissance painter, a pioneer of the still life genre.

Fede Gallizi, better known as Galizia, was born in Milan most likely sometime before 1578. Her father, Nunzio Galizia, also a painter of miniatures, had moved to Milan from Trento. Fede (whose name means "faith") learned to paint from him. By the age of twelve, she was sufficiently accomplished as an artist to be mentioned by Gian Paolo Lomazzo, a painter and art theorist friend of her father, who wrote, "[T]his girl dedicates herself to imitate the most extraordinary of our art."

At a young age, Galizia was already an established portrait painter handling many commissioned works. Perhaps it was her father's influence as a miniaturist that led to Galizia's attention to detail in her portraits. Her treatment of jewels and clothing made her a very desirable portrait painter. She was often commissioned to paint religious and secular themes as well. Several of her paintings based on the deuterocanonical story of Judith and Holofernes, a popular theme in art of the period, survive in private collections. Perhaps her earliest was Judith with the Head of Holofernes painted in 1596 which is now in Sarasota Florida at the Ringling Museum of Art. She also created miniatures and altarpieces for convents.

The style of her portraits derived from the naturalistic traditions of the Renaissance in Italy with a sharply realistic approach. Galizia's artistic skills of drawing and painting are evident in her Portrait of Paolo Morigia, a Jesuit scholar and one of her earliest patrons and supporters. Morigia, also a writer and historian, was very pleased with Galizia's work, and was portrayed in her 1596 Portrait of Paolo Morigia to be writing a poem about the picture Galizia was painting. She received several public commissions for altarpieces in Milanese churches; one of these was the Noli me tangere (1616; Milan, S Stefano), made for the altar of Santa Maria Maddalena Church.

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