"[5] Undecided in her youth as to which outlet of self-expression she wanted to pursue, she found her direction when she tried her hand at sculpture, with some sources claiming that she created small but intricately detailed works of art on apricot, peach, and cherry stones.

[1] In 1520, she was accused of vandalism of a private garden belonging to her neighbour, Francesco da Milano, a velvet merchant, along with Anton Galeazzo Malvasia, with whom she was noted as his "concubine".

[13][14] In her life, Vasari gives examples of ancient women from the Classical tradition who achieved extraordinary things, and contemporary female writers, and then states "Nor have they been too proud to set themselves with their little hands, so tender and so white, as if to wrest from us the palm of supremacy, to manual labours, braving the roughness of marble and the unkindly chisels, in order to attain to their desire and thereby win fame", going on to describe de' Rossi's achievements.

[5] Some scholars have seen Vasari's life as shaped only by derogatory assumptions about women, but it can be read in more complex ways, for instance, where de' Rossi's female body allegorises aspects of contemporary art making.

[15] Vasari does claim that de' Rossi was able to depict Joseph and Potiphar's wife so successfully because she was madly in love with a "handsome young man" who cared little for her, and that in carving this piece she was able to get over her passion.

[8] Gian Paolo Lomazzo wrote a life of de' Rossi, adding details to the tale around the Joseph and Potiphar's wife piece and comparing her to tragic women of antiquity such as Sappho.

[16] De' Rossi functioned for Hemans as a female artist who transcends the role of muse, liberating herself from traditional gender constraints through the act of self-creation.

[16] 1828 also saw the publication and performance of a play of Properzia's life by Paolo Costa which also focuses on De Rossi's unrequited love, eventually leading to her death.

[8] In 1830, the Accademia delli Belli Arti of Bologna celebrated De' Rossi among other early modern women artists, noting her unique role as a sculptor and defending her against Vasari's construction of her as a woman who couldn't cope with the extremes of unrequited passion.