Author Carolyn McDowall
‘Rarely do great beauty and great virtue dwell together’ Petrarch (1304-1374)
Diana the Huntress, Fitzroy Gardens, Melbourne Australia
In legend Helen of Troy was the face that ‘launched a thousand ships’ championed in her desire and love for Prince Paris of Troy by Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of desire, whose divine duty was to make love and inspire others to do so.
In reality physical beauty brought fame throughout the ages for many women, especially during the Ancien Regime in France when a few, effectively used their beauty and very powerful connections, to influence their age.
If beauty was accompanied by intelligence those who used both attributes skilfully seemed to have been the most successful.
Fifteenth century beauty Diane de Poitiers was an ‘ardent feminist sure of her own worth – a child of her time’.
She had all the attributes plus a strong will and a great strength of purpose both very necessary skills for survival in the world of political intrigue that surrounded the court of the last medieval and first Renaissance King of France Francois I whose court was the envy of Europe.
She aligned herself with the Roman Goddess Diana (Greek Goddess Artemis) the huntress of mythology adopting the crescent moon as her symbol.
Born on New Year’s Eve in 1499 Diane’s blood and destiny was linked with the powerful Royal House of Bourbon. She was sent away from her family and the Chateau of Saint Vallier to be educated at the house of a kinswoman as was the custom for all high born children. She was only six years old.
The kinswoman was Anne, Duchess of Bourbon daughter of King Louis XI. Anne educated Diane regarding the ‘dignity of her rank, the deportment that became it, a finesse of mind, delicacy of taste and an awareness of the traditions of which she was to become an unbending champion‘. From Anne she also learned Latin, acquired a taste for fine books and grew up with a horror of the coquetries and cunning connivances particular to most of the woman of her age.
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