1. Early reaction to the film came from Linda Nochlin, Judith Brodsky, and myself and from the circulation of eloquent protest letters written by Miriam Schapiro and June Wayne. A fact sheet outlining the film's outrageous liberties, written by Gloria Steinem and me, was distributed by Steinem and Brenda Feigen at the film's premiere and subsequently placed on the Internet by Sheila ffolliott and Helen Langa. This provoked widespread response, and the fact sheet was circulated at screenings in some major cities.

2. Participants in the symposium included the art and cultural historians Leonard Barkan, myself, Rona Goffen, Simon Schama, and Bette Talvacchia, along with the filmmaker Grahame Weinbren and Feigen Gallery's curator, Ann Guité. The exhibition, “Paint and Passion,” was on view from April 28 to June 13.

3. As quoted in “Movies: When Hate Turns to Love,” in the unsigned “Periscope” section of Newsweek, May 25, 1998, 8.

4. Eva Menzio, ed., Artemisia Gentileschi/Agostino Tassi: Atti di un processo per stupro (Rome: Edizioni delle donne, 1981); Mary D. Garrard, Artemisia Gentileschi: The Image of the Female Hero in Italian Baroque Art (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1989), Appendix B.

5. This new information comes from Alexandra Lapierre's recently published biography, Artemisia: Un duel pour l'immortalité (Paris: Robert Laffont, 1998), 214, 422–23. Tassi chose exile; he had previously been condemned to service on the Florentine grand duke's galleys, presumably for bad behavior.

6. See Kristine McKenna, “‘Artemisia’: Artistic License with an Artist,” Los Angeles Times, May 27, 1998, F1, F10.

7. Artemisia's testimony of March 18, 1612; Garrard, Artemisia Gentileschi, 418.

8. “I decided that I did not have to necessarily provide the audience with a lot of historical background…. My analysis was more particular, more precise, similar to the one a person would have today concerning a news item. Sometimes, this approach provides more freedom.” (From an announcement and description of the film, dated August 22, 1997, circulated by Miramax Zoë. Unless otherwise indicated, other citations of Merlet come from this document.)

9. See especially Sandra Cavallo and Simona Cerutti, “Female Honor and the Social Control of Reproduction in Piedmont between 1600 and 1800,” trans. Mary M. Gallucci, in Sex and Gender in Historical Perspective, ed. Edward Muir and Guido Ruggiero (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990), 73–109.

10. G.B. Stiattesi testified to overhearing Tassi's proposal when he brought Artemisia to visit Tassi in prison during the trial. Garrard, Artemisia Gentileschi, 467–68. Artemisia married the Florentine Pierantonio Stiattesi, whom we now know to be the brother of G.B. Stiattesi. See Lapierre, Artemisia, 481.

11. From another press release issued by Miramax Zoë, “Director's Note.”

12. Garrard, Artemisia Gentileschi, 462. In the Feigen Gallery symposium, Grahame Weinbren emphasized the cinematic potential of these lines: “What filmmaker would give them up?”

13. The often repeated story that Orazio hired Tassi to teach Artemisia perspective comes only from Tassi's assertion in the trial testimony. Artemisia tells a different version of their meeting; Orazio doesn't mention this in his opening statement.

14. From an anonymous note added to the English edition of Roger de Piles's The Art of Painting, 3rd ed. (London: T. Payne, 1754). On the epitaphs, see Garrard, Artemisia Gentileschi, 137.