Orsola Caccia

Maddalena Caccia
Born	Theodora Caccia c. 1596 Moncalvo, Italy
Died	c. 1676 Moncalvo, Italy
Nationality	Italian
Education	Guglielmo Caccia (father)
Known for	Painting
Notable work	“Birth of the Virgin, Still Life with Flowers, Fruit, Mushroom, Goldfinch, and Hoopoe, "St. Luke the Evangelist in the Studio"
Movement	Mannerism

Orsola Maddalena Caccia, born Theodora Caccia (1596–1676) was an Italian mannerist painter and Christian nun. She painted religious images, altarpieces, and still lifes.

The daughter of painter Guglielmo Caccia and Laura Olivia, she was baptized Theodora Orsola on December 4, 1596. In 1620, she entered the Ursuline convent of Bianzè, where she changed her name to Orsola Maddalena after she took her vows. Four of her sisters had already taken their vows there. Two years later, her other sister joined this convent, reuniting the six sisters together. At the time, Bianzé was a fortified outpost on the frontier between the lands of the Gonzaga, the dukes of Mantua and Monferrato, and the duchy of Savoy and was often in the path of these warring armies. To find a safer home for his daughters, Guglielmo requested and received permission to found the Ursuline convent at Moncalvo from the Bishop of Casale Monferrato, Monsignor Scipione Agnelli. He used his own money and made the houses he owned available to pay for this project. In 1625, Orsola and her sisters moved to the newly founded convent. Her father died a few months after the convent was established and left drawings, set squares, and other art tools for his daughters. Before his death, he had fostered painting as a vocation for the Ursulines of Moncalvo. Out of his six daughters and two sons, Orsola and her sister Francesca, who died at a young age, were his only two children to become painters. She was known as the leader of women in art when it comes to religious painting. Without her, nuns would not have been able to explore their artistic yet religious side. Later in her life, Orsola became the abbess of the convent. She outlived all of her sisters and devoted herself to painting until her death in 1676.

Sister Orsola began her career working as her father's assistant. She learned to paint by mixing the colored pigments for paint and depicting the secondary figures in her father's paintings. She was a prolific artist and the majority of her works are scattered across the many small localities in Monferrat. It is claimed that she painted the first recorded flower painting in Italy.

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