Artist

(b. ca. 1565, Roma, d. 1625, Roma)

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Details

Italian designer and illustrator. She is regarded as one of the most important lace designers of the Italian Renaissance. She was highly influential in the field for her work designing patterns and publishing guides. Parasole married the printmaker Leonardo Norsini, who took his wife's name after marriage due to the greater fame Parasole had as an artist. They had two sons. After the marriage they lived in Rome and collaborated on prints and publications and it is believed that she received some of her training from him. Parasole was the first lace designer to create and publish an instruction manual for upper class women from a woman's perspective. There are six known lace pattern books for which Parasole designed and cut patterns. Her woodcarvings were unique for her time period in that Parasole used a dark background for the designs. This was created by carving the lace design into the wood block rather than carving away everything but the lace. The overall effect was that the white lines of the lace against the dark background mirrored the delicate appearance of the actual fabric. There were also practical reasons for Parasole's carving technique. This process saved on labour time and increased the longevity of the wood block. The biographer Giovanni Baglione records in his Le Vite de Pittori (1642), that she died in 1625, and it is estimated that she was at least sixty at her death. //

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Category	Artists
Artists by letter	P
Artist nationality	Italian