Friday, May 14, 2010

A Lost Face

What did Queen Margaret of Anjou look like? Author Susan Higginbotham shares her research for her latest historical novel.
Though contemporaries had a great deal to say about Margaret of Anjou, complimentary and otherwise, scarcely anyone troubled to write about such a mundane detail as her personal appearance. The most detailed description is a secondhand one, which appears in a letter from Raffaelo De Negra to Bianca Maria Visconti, Duchess of Milan, dated October 24, 1458: "The Englishman told me that the queen is a most handsome woman, though somewhat dark and not so beautiful as your Serenity."

Flattery aside, what exactly does "somewhat dark" mean? Did it mean that Margaret was a brunette? Did it mean that she was a dark blonde? Did it refer merely to her complexion in general? For the record, I know next to nothing about the Duchess of Milan, but it appears from her portraits that she had very fair hair and a very light complexion, so compared to her, many if not most women might have looked "somewhat dark."
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