A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country/Andreini, (Isabella)
ANDREINI, (ISABELLA) an excellent Italian Actress of great poetical Abilities. Born at Padua, 1562, died at Lyons, 1604.
This lady was the wife of Francis Andreini, an Italian comedian and poet, though not so celebrated in either character as his wife, towards whom nature appears to have been unusually prodigal of charms and excellencies. The exquisite beauty of her face and person, the melody of her voice in speech and singing, and the taste and feeling she possessed, rendered her inimitable upon the stage. Under her picture, this inscription was put in Latin, "If you admire, reader, this glory of the theatre, when you only see her, what would you do if you heard her?"
The eulogiums of all the learned men of the age, but more particularly the works she left behind her, establish her claim to poetical excellence. She played admirably well on several instruments, understood the French and Spanish languages, and was not unacquainted with philosophy.
Cardinal Cinthio Aldobrandini had a great esteem for her, as appears by many of her poems, and the epistle dedicatory to her works. When she went to France, she was kindly received by their majesties, and the celebrated people at court; and wrote several sonnets in their praise, which are to be seen in the second part of her poems.
Isabella Andreini died of a miscarriage, at Lyons, in the forty-second year of her age. Her husband had her interred in the same city; and honoured her with an epitaph, in which he extols her virtues, talents, and piety; and it is worthy of remark, that, amidst all the incense offered to her charms and acquirements, she always preserved a most unblemished reputation.
The death of this actress was not only lamented by her husband, in many poems, but a number of Latin and Italian elegies were consecrated to her memory; several of which were prefixed to her works, in the edition of Milan, in 1605.
Besides her sonnets, madrigals, songs, and eclogues, we have a pastoral of her's, intitled Mirtilla, and letters, which were printed at Venice, in 1610.