Our Bassano family  continues to be as fascinating to researchers as they are to their descendants.  The most recent theory, being investigated, is about Emilia Bassano Lanier.  In the January issue of the BBC History magazine there is an article, by Simon Tait, concerning Emilia Bassano Lanier.  I didn't want any of you to miss it.

Tait writes about Tony Haygarth, an English actor and playwright, who believes he has discovered a miniature of Emilia.  The miniature,  painted in 1593 by court artist Nicholas Hilliard, is in the Victoria and Albert collection in London.  There is a copy of the painting in the article.  The subject of the picture is a very well-bred looking brunette with blue eyes and pale skin, dated 1593 and claiming the subject to be 26 years old.  The design on the blouse she is wearing is the critical point in his argument.  The blouse has a design that includes bugs, which could be bees, butterflies or silkworm moths, as well as stags and a mass of greenery, that he concludes is a mulberry tree, but does not show a tree trunk.   On the backside of the picture there is some Victorian-period writing.  It first claims the identity of the lady to be 'Mistress Holland'.  Emilia's sister Angela married Joseph Holland.  The identity is then changed to 'Elizabeth, Lady Russell'.  It is now labeled 'unknown'.   Angela Holland would have been at least 33 years old in 1593, if she had lived, but she was dead by 1584.  So, Mr. Haygarth concludes it must be Emilia, who would have been 24 not 26 in 1593.  The beautiful and well-bred lady in the miniature certainly does not look like the Emilia that the Astrologist Simon Forman describes in his diary in 1597.

I have reseached the Bassanos, including Emilia, for many years and I am not at all convinced about Haygarth's reasoning for this lady's identity..  I have a multitude of reasons, which I will not go into here.  My purpose is only to make all you Bassano/Lanier descendants aware of the article.