Iaia

Iaia of Cyzicus was described by Pliny the Elder as living in the time of Varro's youth around 90 BCE.

In the Renaissance, Boccaccio, a fourteenth century humanist, included Iaia in De mulieribus claris (Latin for On Famous Women). He called her Marcia, daughter of Varro, who never married and remained a virgin all her life. He praised her for "scorning womanly occupations, she gave herself up completely to the study of painting and sculpture so that she would not lanquish in idleness." According to Boccaccio, Marcia/Iaia's painted carved ivory figures were finer than those of Sopolis and Dionysius, the most famous painters of her time. She was also said to earn more than those men and to work faster. Boccaccio also ventured to explain her success. He said, "I think that her chaste modesty was the cause of this, for in antiquity figures were for the greater part represented making them perfect, forget maidenly modesty. To avoid both these things, it seemed better to her to abstain from both." As none of Marcia/ Iaia's work was extant by Boccaccio's time, his claims are somewhat in question.

Reference

Harris, Anne Sutherland and Linda Nochlin, Women Artists: 1550-1950, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Knopf, New York, 1976, pg. 23.

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