Retrato Magnets
Description: Empress Wu Zetian, The only woman in over 3,000 years of Chinese history to rule China in her own right At the age of 14 she entered the palace as a junior concubine of Emperor Taizong. After his death in 649 she married his son, Emperor Gaozong, instead of retiring to a nunnery as was the custom. She removed her rivals within the palace, Empress Wang and the Pure Concubine, gained the position of empress for herself and eventually established herself as her husbands equal sitting in audience with him behind a screen but on a throne that was equal in elevation to his own. After Gaozong’s death she retained power as the dowager empress until in 690 when, at the age of 65, she ordered the last of her sons to abdicate and took the thr...
Description: Veronica Franco, poet and sex worker. Franco learnt the profession of a cortigiana onesta from her mother and shared in her brother's education by a private tutor. By the 1570's she became involved with one of the most prestigious literary circles in the city. In 1575 she published her first of two volumes of poetry, she also collected works for anthologies and published books of letters. In her poems she celebrated her sexual expertise and defended herself and other women who were verbally and physically abused by men. Her 1580 book Lettere familiari a diversi included letters to Henry III of France and Jacopo Tintoretto, the painter. In 1580 Franco was charged with witchcraft by the inquisition, accused by her son's tutor, her ...
Description: Julie d'Aubigny, a 17th-century swordswoman and opera singer. She learned dancing, reading, drawing, and fencing alongside the pages her father trained and dressed as a boy from a young age. Around 1687, d'Aubigny became involved with a man named Sérannes and the pair fled to Marseille after he killed a man in an illegal duel. On the road south they made a living giving fencing exhibitions and singing in taverns and at local fairs. While travelling and performing d'Aubigny dressed in male clothing but didn't conceal her gender. On arrival in Marseille, she joined the opera company run by Pierre Gaultier. She later became involved with a young woman and when the girl's parents sent her to the Visitandines convent in Avignon. d'Aubign...
