This study begins by contextualizing the historiographic treatment of women artists and intellectuals to evaluate the reasons for their historical under-representation in the art historical canon. It continues with two case studies, of poet Vittoria Colonna (1492-1546) and portraitist Sofonisba Anguissola (1532-1625) to examine how each impacts her public image through her authorship. Vittoria Colonna's passionate Petrarchan sonnets were visualized by artists like Michelangelo in his 1540 presentation drawing Pietà for Vittoria Colonna. Sofonisba Anguissola's self-portraits like Self-Portrait at the Clavichord (1556) contain systematic symbolism which aligns her works with masterful male painters like Titan and Raphael. In effect, the works of Colonna and Anguissola suggest that sixteenth women engaged thoughtfully in self-representation which would create an alternative and empowering narrative of sixteenth-century womanhood.

The self-fashioning of women like Vittoria Colonna and Sofonisba Anguissola, even at a small scale, presents a view of sixteenth-century femininity from those who enacted its meaning in their daily lives. The crux of this discussion is to understand why sixteenth-century female subjectivity needs further representation in dominant art historical narratives. Ultimately, Colonna's poems and Anguissola's portraits reveal that women who are in control of cultural images demonstrate professional ambition, intense spirituality, and masterful skill.