Help Fund a Poetry Manuscript That Attempts to Create a Dialogue About Sexual Assault Through The Lens of Artemisia Gentileschi (1593-1653), A Woman Who Subverted Cultural Norms By Painting About Rape in the Early 1600s

Kaitlin Rizzo, an honors student in FSU's Department of English, seeks assistance in completing her honors thesis. She describes her project as follows:

"With your financial support, I will travel to Florence and Rome to trace the life of Baroque artist Artemisia Gentileschi, whose art took on her narrative of sexual assault in the early 1600s.

"From this journey, I will continue drafting my Honors Thesis: a series of poems about Artemisia’s life and art — which focuses heavily on opening a dialogue between contemporary and historic rape culture. This work is my attempt to orient myself in my historic culture as an Italian-American and, more importantly, my attempt to orient myself in a world where 1 in 6 women in America will be the survivors of rape or attempted rape.

"At the center of the collection is an extended poem about Artemisia’s most famous work, Judith Slaying Holofernes (located in Florence’s Uffizi Gallery Museum), where she portrayed herself as Judith and her rapist as Holofernes.

"The money provided by this fund will allow me to see where Artemisia lived during the first two decades of her life in Rome and will allow me to travel the city in which she enjoyed artistic success: Florence. As my plane ticket and incidental expenses have already been covered by FSU in support of this project, this money will go toward my housing (secured by Dr. Frank Nero, who heads FSU’s Florence program), intra-country travel, and overhead research costs.

"These donations will allow me to trace Artemisia’s path without the fear of incurring further student debt — and any support you can provide is greatly appreciated."