On the 10th of June, 1604, Isabella died in childbirth at Lyons, in the forty–second year of her age, and was buried by the municipality of that city with much pomp, and all sorts of honours. Her husband placed the following inscription over her tomb.
"Isabella Andreina, Patavina, Mulier magnâ virtute prædita, Honestatis Ornamentum, maritalisque Pudicitiæ Decus, Ore facunda, Mente fœcunda, religiosa, pia, Musis amica, et Artis scenicæ Caput, hic Resurrectionem expectat. Ob Obortum obiit iv. Idus Junii, MDCIV. annum agens XLII. Franciscus Andreinus Conjux mœstissimus posuit."
"Isabella Andreini, of Padua, a most highly gifted woman, the Soul of Honour, a model of conjugal chastity, eloquent of tongue, fertile of genius, religious, pious, beloved by the Muses, and a most distinguished member of the histrionic profession, here awaits her Resurrection. She died from a miscarriage on the 10th of June, 1604, in the 42nd year of her age. Francesco Andreini, her deeply afflicted husband, placed this monument."
Bayle remarks on the close juxtaposition of the statement of her profession, and her expectation of resurrection; and observes that the circumstance may serve to prove, that the severity of the Church on the subject of the sepulture of comedians had been much exaggerated. But it would be more correct to say, that it proves the action of the Church in carrying out its views and principles to have been fitful, irregular, and subordinated to circumstances, as it in truth ever has been. In the long, ceaseless battle of the Church through century after century, against all that is not–church, it has always known how to retire temporarily from a point likely to be too hotly contested, without by any means abandoning the hope of reconquering the ground at a more favourable moment. Always pushing on the advanced posts of its pretentions in accurate correspondence with the amount of resistance it has been met by, the polemical battle–front which it has shown to its enemies from Pekin to Peru, has never been straight drawn by the rule of immutable principles, but ever a wavy line, with undulations constantly in movement. And the startling fact that at Lyons, in the year 1604, Isabella Andreini, avowing her calling, was at the same time permitted to assert publicly, that she hoped for resurrection to life eternal, shows only, that so audacious a solecism was overlooked, because her standing in the public esteem, and the mood of the Lyons world at the moment, made it unwise to select that occasion for asserting the ecclesiastical claims.