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Case file s1758 · Literature and art · 1665
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1665
Elisabetta Sirani: Self-portrait
Elisabetta Sirani. Elisabetta Sirani. Public domain, Wikimedia Commons.
Died
August 1665 (28 August in most sources)
Place
Bologna, Papal States · Italy
Field
painter · Visual art and architecture on the timeline
Legal tradition
Papal States criminal procedure · Royal and church law
Historical event
Counter-Reformation Bologna; Sirani's school for women painters
Religion
Elisabetta Sirani: Catholic (recorded as Catholicism on Wikidata; Catholic painters, Catholic women artists on Wikipedia)
Literature and artBodies, bones and burialsMurder and sudden deathEmpires and conquestItaly

Elisabetta Sirani died at 27 in Bologna in 1665; her father charged the maid with poisoning her and then withdrew the charge

Elisabetta Sirani ran her father's Bologna workshop from about 1654, after gout disabled Giovanni Andrea Sirani. Her portraits and teaching supported the household. She died in August 1665, aged 27, after severe stomach pain. Her father accused the maid, Lucia Tolomelli, of poisoning her, partly because Tolomelli had asked to leave the household days earlier. Tolomelli was tried. The body was reportedly exhumed for examination†. Giovanni Andrea Sirani withdrew the charges soon after the trial; accounts differ on whether a verdict of acquittal was entered†. Historians now favor a perforated ulcer with peritonitis. Her early biographer Carlo Cesare Malvasia wrote in 1678 that she died of lovesickness. Bologna held a public funeral with a catafalque, a life-size figure of her, orations and music. She was buried in San Domenico in the tomb of Guido Reni, her father's teacher. Her will and any estate papers are not cited in the sources found†. In 2026 her paintings hang in the Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna and museums abroad†.

What the law took from it

When one child supports a household, her early death leaves the family without income and looking for someone to blame.

Sources
  1. theflorentine.netPress
  2. finestresullarte.infoPress
  3. laphamsquarterly.orgPress
  4. Wikipedia (English)Encyclopedia

Cite as: celebrity.estate, “Elisabetta Sirani died at 27 in Bologna in 1665; her father charged the maid with poisoning her and then withdrew the charge,” story s1758, https://www.celebrity.estate/elisabetta-sirani-1665, updated 30 October 2026.

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Where this case sits

Literature and artBodies, bones and burialsMurder and sudden deathEmpires and conquestRoyal and church lawItaly