There were unconfirmed mentions of actresses before Lucrezia Di Siena. The first professional company of actors since antiquity in which the names of the members are known by name are from Padova in 1545; the name of the actors of that company were all men, and since no name of any professional actress is known until the 1560s, it has been assumed that there were no actresses before. During the entry of king
Henri II and
Catherine de Medici to Lyon in 1548, the tragicomedy
La Calandria by
Bernardo Dovizi was performed, of which
Brantome noted that it was "very well performed by the actors and actresses, who were very beauiful, spoke very well, and were extremely graceful"; however, it is not known if they were professional actors or if they were people of other professions temporary engaged to participate in the festivities by staging a play. A letter from Mantova in 1562 mention an unnamed actress from Rome performing with "Moorish dances". Lucrezia Di Siena signed a signature for an acting contract by a
Commedia dell'arte theatre company in Rome on 10 October 1564, in which she is stated to be able to sing, do declamation and play music. This is the first time any professional actress is mentioned in Italy since antiquity and the first time any actress known by name to perform in Commedia dell'arte. All other members of the company were men. She is assumed to have been a former
courtesan, a
cortigiana onesta, a common background for the first generation of actresses in Italy: this was a good background for an actress because courtisans of that class were normally instructed in singing, declamation, music and dance, subjects otherwise rarely attainable for women, and the fact that she was noted with no last name in combination with the honorary title
Domina (a common way of address for courtesans), supports this assumption. She may have been the same person as the actress "La Donna Lucrezia" depicted in the engraving (c. 1577-1585) of the Fossard collection, reprinted by Duchartre, and the "Madonna Lucrezia, Widow" in Bernardino Lombardi's ''l'Alchemista'' (1583). After this, actresses became common in Italy, and she was followed only three years later by
Vincenza Armani and
Barbara Flaminia. ==References==