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September 16, 2022 17 mins

Holly and Tracy talk about the gossip surrounding two of Livinia Fontana Zappi's paintings. They also discuss the degree to which people ignored Imogene Rechtin's actual messaging about kissing when criticizing her campaign. 

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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class, a production
of I Heart Radio. Happy Friday, Everybody, I'm only frying
and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. Tracy, we talked about one
of many women artists who are on my list right now. Yeah,

(00:23):
I have a lot of artists on my list right now.
I hope I don't clog everybody's life with art, but
I have Benny Um. One thing I want to say
at the top is that there is a very cool thing.
We talked a lot about the National Gallery of Ireland
and their conservation project. They have some really really cool

(00:43):
write ups about the conservation project on their site, but
they also have a very cool thing, which is they
of course took before and after photos when they removed
that old yellow and varnish that shows the new fresh
color of it. Um, the old, new fresh color of it.
And they have a cool slider on their site so
you can look over the painting in its old and

(01:04):
new state, and it's just really beautiful because she really
get an appreciation for how much UH paintings change over
the years, just through time and oxidation and in this
case that varnish yellowing. So it's um, it's kind of fun.
I wanted to talk a little bit more about the
Gozzadini family portrait because there are some kind of gossipy

(01:27):
takes on it kind of the episode. So one, there
was a financial feud going on, and Laudomiam may have
wanted herself and her sister Geneva to appear in their
wedding regalia almost as a catalog, because at that point

(01:49):
she was in what had been a very long battle
was Genevra's husband, who was their father's executor, over money
that she believed she was owed, and part of that
was a count for all of the money her father
had spent on each of their weddings to make sure
they had beautiful and appropriate clothing, jewelry, et cetera. So
in some ways this is like the most beautiful ledger

(02:11):
you've ever seen, like, and also did you see those earrings?
And also you remember your wife's necklace and also that's mine. Wow.
This is only one of two Caddie takes on this
painting because the other one, as we mentioned in the episode,
Geneva was already dead at this time, so she would

(02:32):
have had no say in how she was portrayed. M
Laudomia looks way prettier than Schenever. This picture like way prettier.
Jenevera even has like a wisp of mustache. Like it
almost seems a little like she had instructed Lavinia to

(02:53):
paint her sister in a way that was purposely unflattering
and sister ugly connected to this whole you that was
going on over money and perhaps other deeper seated jealousy issues.
We don't know. It's just a fascinating thing that I
like to think about. Whenever you see, whether it be
something like this, a portrait or a written record from history,
you have to remember that there was baggage that went

(03:17):
into everything, just as there is with everything you know
we do today, anybody's doing today, there's there's always more
that's letting um. So that's interesting. I really really want
to talk about Mars and Venus though, Okay, I love
this painting one. I mean, it's beautifully rendered, but too

(03:38):
it makes me chuckle very hard because in it, like
you see Venus from behind, she's kind of seated. Mars
is also kind of in partial profile. He's also seated,
and he is cupping Venus's left butt cheek with his hand.
In a way that is to me the funniest thing

(04:00):
on the planet. Like I feel like a ten year
old kid. But I honestly the first time I saw
this painting and it continues to do it to me.
Tracy has just looked it up and seen it for
the first time, googled it. The most charming thing ever.
Right there, my goodness, just cut in his hand right
around her donk um, And it's so funny. There have

(04:20):
been interpretations of that painting over the years that Venus
is then looking back over her shoulder at him, and
some have interpreted her to be having an expression that
is displeased at this. I don't read it that way,
but I have the beholder right. It just is a
very funny, very familiar moment between two people who were
mythologically supposed to be lovers. So it's just funny to me,

(04:44):
like the you you described this to me earlier, and
I like I did not, I did not mentally envision
the posture that they are both in at all. It's
so good. But here's the other thing, right, we talked
a lot about how like there was debate over did

(05:05):
she use a nude model, and that would be scandalous.
This is such a unique pose. Either if she was
going from memory of what other women, like presumably in
her family, that she may have seen naked, would have
looked like, etcetera, or if she was even working from
other artists. This is such a unique pose that it's like, well,

(05:28):
then you're a genius of like reconfiguring the human body
in a very specific way, or you must have had
a model. It's yeah, cup. Brian and I, my husband
and I have been looking at this picture and laughing
with appreciation. We're not laughing at it in any kind
of derisive way. We both really like this painting. But

(05:49):
because of how how gentle and loving that gesture looks,
we do we just keep calling it the cup. And
so we will literally be sitting and eating dinner and
one of us will go coup and then we like
giggle of year olds for half an hour. Um, it's
so charming. I love it. I hope anybody who looks
at it finds it similarly charming. While also appreciating her

(06:09):
incredible skill, She's one that doesn't always get talked about enough,
in my opinion, in relation to Sophonis. Thank you. So
I love because she gets a lot of attention. She
was really amazing as well. Uh so I was glad
to spend some time with her this past week and
looking at this painting and giggling at cup Forever Forever

(06:42):
we talked about smooth. I had so many thoughts and
feelings about the whole thing. Yeah, me too. Um. It's
interesting because I definitely am much more I think, physically
affectionate with my friends than you are. Maybe, like I
definitely friends I will kiss on the lips and it's
not even a thing, um not me Yeah, yeah, which

(07:06):
is totally cool. I mean, everybody works differently, and I try,
because I am very naturally physically affectionate. I try to
always remember that not everyone is right, which is sometimes
hard because like when I see somebody that I know
and love, I want to just throw my arms around
them and sometimes give them a big smooch on the
cheek or do We didn't even talk about like European
traditions of things like or anything. Um, but yes, So

(07:30):
I try to remember that not everybody wants to be
hugged or kissed, so I will always do the are
you a hugger? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, I've done that before.
To the last time, UM, somebody tried to hug me,
and I was not prepared for it because this was
while we were in Italy and at that point you
still had to test negative for COVID to fly back

(07:53):
to the United States, and I was very focused on
my own health. Uh. And a person sort of came
for a hug. I was not prepared, and I think
I was probably more direct about that than I might
have been been in the middle of all of them.
You needed a hug, not button. I did. And I
So there are a couple of different contexts that I've

(08:15):
had very similar buttons. Uh. One is that for the
last while when I've when I've gone on the Jonathan
Colton Cruise in our little swag bags, have been these
buttons that are like, yes, I want to do a friendship, No,
I don't, and the one that's like asked something to
that effect. And I have definitely walked around the cruise

(08:36):
ship with a button on that says no, just because
I want to have some me time. Uh. And the
other is we have a group thing where a bunch
of us rent a big house for a long weekend,
and last year it was the first time we had
had it. After the pandemic started. Um, for a lot
of us, it was like our first big outing since

(08:59):
the pan I mix started and we had not really
been around. Uh so, Um, a friend of mine made
buttons just to basically be like, we were taking a
lot of steps to try to cut down the risk
of anybody getting COVID on the trip, but like we
just gave everybody the option of also having a button
to be kind of like I would like a little
more personal space, please makes sense? Um. One thing we

(09:25):
there were several things that we didn't talk about in
this episode, including like other there were other advocates of
not kissing that we're kind of similar to the model
of Imogene wrecked in before she did. They're including a
woman from Atlanta who I might do as a an
episode because she also did a lot of criminal justice

(09:48):
reform work, which is the more interesting part of her
story in my opinion. Um. But what's really really fascinating
to me too is that that nine eight battle in
the press that we talked about that happened before Imagine's crusade. Um,
it's a little bit drincky because sometimes it played out

(10:08):
of order because as you know, right, like different newspapers
would pick up the stories at different times. Sometimes, you know,
they would be weeks behind each other, and so there
were instances where papers like in the same city, we're
printing the arguments kind of out of order. And I'm
wonder if if, um, you know, contemporary readers of it

(10:31):
were just accustomed to that happening, or if they were like,
what is this guy? Who is this Clara woman he's
yelling about? I know what's going on here? Um, which
also kind of comes up as a question in that
whole one thousand members, five thousand members imaging not always
being super transparent about where she goes. Right, Yeah, some

(10:55):
of the things she was saying reminds me of tweets
that I have seen in recent memory that are like
I'm on the bus and four people clearly have monkey pox,
and I'm like, well, number one, you're not a doctor.
Number two did you? Are you just making this up?
Like a lot of this sounds like somebody flushed an
alligator down the toilet and now there's alligators in the suites,

(11:16):
and I mean that's the thing, right, Like, she was
making some valid cases about disease spread and particularly with children. Um,
But like I said she was kind of hurting her
own cause because she does come off as like a
little bit of like a um a tut tutting, sort
of like judge, don't kiss anyone, don't do any And

(11:39):
again there was also the need that people had to
make it salacious so that they could yell about what
approved she was. She would literally say, even though she
would say like, I wish we could explain to young
lovers that they shouldn't do this, but I know we can't.
I'm focusing on this, but people would still be like, yeah,
but you can't tell people who are in love not
to kiss. She's like, I just said, I did not

(12:01):
say that. I just said I know that's not realistic,
but yet that is what the press focused on every time.
That's what all of those detractors, even in that those
those newspapers that predated it, that was a lot of
what they said. Now, given there were people who were like, Nope,
nobody should kiss ever um, but she wasn't. Most of

(12:24):
most of the people in her organization and imaging herself,
we're realistic about that fact. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, people
are gonna want to make out it's just part of
the thing. But please stop missing babies you don't know
in the street. That's just gross. The baby kissing thing
reminded me of two things simultaneously, And one was my

(12:45):
cousin and his wife when they had their first baby.
She got really sick um and it was very scary.
And when she was better, my my cousin's wife, whenever
anyone asked if they could hold the baby, she would
be like, if you wash your hands, which is totally reasonable. Um.

(13:07):
And the other thing that it reminded me of the opposite,
which is that when I was a kid, there was
a whole campaign for uh, for new parents to kiss
their baby and pay attention to whether their skin tasted
excessively salty because that was an indicator of cystic fibrosis,
which there's now way better screening for. Because that was

(13:28):
forty years ago, um. And so every time that there
would be a thing about don't kiss your baby, it's
very bad for them, I would just sort of think
about the give your baby the Kiss of life campaigns
right well, And there were people even at that time
they were like, no, no, babies actually need to be
kissed by their parents. They didn't have as much information
about it as you know, would have been had when

(13:51):
we were kids and certainly not today. But there were
people that were intuiting, like, I think this is actually
important for their development. Um, don't not kiss babies they
if it's your baby, they probably need it. Um. And
there were some women that took it not from the
scientific method, but like, emotionally, your kids need affection and

(14:12):
to feel loved, and that's part of it. Maybe don't
withhold affection from your babies. Right. So there of course
layers to that onion, but it does become really really
fascinating to me how many people are like, no, I
want to kiss people when I greet them. You can't
stop me. Thanks? What? Yeah? The whole the whole COVID

(14:33):
pandemic has made me think a lot about instances where
I have just had contact with a whole lot of
people at once. And one of them has been when
we have had live shows and we have had meat
and greets afterward, and there's like a line of people
that we have talked to you um, And for a
while I was like, should we be shaking everyone's hands?
Like are we spreading germs that way? Uh? And then

(14:57):
when so much information came out about how easily a
lot of stuff spreads through the air. I was like,
probably does not matter neither here nor there. Um, yeah,
I mean that's tricky, right. That's one of the things
I mean to go behind the curtain that you and
I have talked about a lot in the last couple
of years, like when do we start back live events

(15:17):
in person and how do we manage that? Because I
think for both of us that being able to talk
to people one on one after shows is really important
and it feels like a way that, you know, we
can give people a little bit of like personal attention,
and often people tell us things that are very personal
in those moments, that are very meaningful, and I don't
want to shut that down. But I also don't want

(15:39):
anybody to get sick because I can't say goodbye to
that part of it. So yeah, I mean you and
I have both talked about this a million times a
bunch of times, So just know that, uh, you know,
presumably if there is a point when we get back
to doing that that we have thought about it a
whole lot. And it's not because we don't want to
get out there and see people in person and do

(16:00):
live shows. We're just trying to make sure none of
our listeners who we treasure get sick because we wanted
to go on tour. Yeah, that and wanting to reduce
the likelihood that people who have been looking forward to
the show don't get to have it because one or
both of us has gotten sick. Like that also a

(16:21):
factor in it. Yes, yeah, so it's tricky, but police
know we're thinking about it always and trying to figure
out best way a plan in the ever changing landscape. Yeah,
oh it seems like no nope, nope, nope, no nope, nope.
Oh maybe oh no, no, no, there's this one spreads faster.

(16:41):
Nope nope, nope, nope, no. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's very
hard part of the puzzle to navigate. So thank you
for your patients and all of that. Um. If this
is your weekend coming up, I hope it is filled
with bliss. If it is not your weekend coming up,
I still hope it's filled with bliss. I hope everybody

(17:02):
has the smoothest possible uh travels through whatever responsibilities they have,
and everybody eats really delicious things. It takes time for
themselves to have some fun and laughs a lot this
weekend because we all need it. Uh. We will be
right back here tomorrow with a classic, and then on
Monday you can expect another new episode. Stuff You Missed

(17:26):
in History Class is a production of I heart Radio.
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