Wives Widows Mistresses And Nuns In Early Modern Italy

Through a visually oriented investigation of historical (in)visibility in early modern Italy, the essays in this volume recover those women - wives, widows, mistresses, the illegitimate - who have been erased from history in modern literature, rendered invisible or obscured by history or scholarship, as well as those who were overshadowed by male relatives, political accident, or spatial location. A multi-faceted invisibility of the individual and of the object is the thread that unites the chapters in this volume. Though some women chose to be invisible, for example the cloistered nun, these essays show that in fact, their voices are heard or seen through their commissions and their patronage of the arts, which afforded them some visibility. Invisibility is also examined in terms of commissions which are no longer extant or are inaccessible. What is revealed throughout the essays is a new way of looking at works of art, a new way to visualize the past by addressing representational invisibility, the marginalized or absent subject or object and historical (in)visibility to discover who does the 'looking,' and how this shapes how something or someone is visible or invisible. The result is a more nuanced understanding of the place of women and gender in early modern Italy.

Benjamin G. Kohl (1938-2010) taught at Vassar College from 1966 till his retirement as Andrew W. Mellon Professor of the Humanities in 2001. His doctoral research at The Johns Hopkins University was directed by Frederic C. Lane, and his principal historical interests focused on northern Italy during the Renaissance, especially on Padua and Venice. His scholarly production includes the volumes Padua under the Carrara, 1318-1405 (1998), and Culture and Politics in Early Renaissance Padua (2001), and the online database The Rulers of Venice, 1332-1524 (2009). The database is eloquent testimony of his priority attention to historical sources and to their accessibility, and also of his enthusiasm for collaboration and sharing among scholars.

This volume provides an expansive view of women negotiating their faith, voice, and agency in the religious scene of the sixteenth-century Reformations. Biographical chapters are accompanied by in her voice text samples, images, theme articles, and recommended readings. Features the work of thirty-four international experts in the field.

Emphasizing on the one hand the reconstruction of the material culture of specific residences, and on the other, the way in which particular domestic objects reflect, shape, and mediate family values and relationships within the home, this volume offers a distinct contribution to research on the early modern Italian domestic interior. Though the essays mainly take an art historical approach, the book is interdisciplinary in that it considers the social implications of domestic objects for family members of different genders, age, and rank, as well as for visitors to the home. By adopting a broad chronological framework that encompasses both Renaissance and Baroque Italy, and by expanding the regional scope beyond Florence and Venice to include domestic interiors from less studied centers such as Urbino, Ferrara, and Bologna, this collection offers genuinely new perspectives on the home in early modern Italy.

Taking as axiomatic the concept that artistic output does not simply reflect culture but also shapes it, the essays in this interdisciplinary collection take a holistic approach to the cultural fashioning of sexualities, drawing on visual art, theatre, music, and literature, in sacred and secular contexts. Although there is diversity in disciplinary approach, the interpretations and readings offered in each essay have a historical basis. Approaching the topic from the point of view of both visual and auditory media, this volume paints a comprehensive picture of artists? challenges to erotic boundaries, and contributes to new historicizing thinking on sexualities. Collectively, the essays demonstrate the role played by artistic production-visual arts, literature, theatre and music-in fashioning, policing, and challenging early modern sexual boundaries, and thus help to identify the ways in which the arts contributed to both the disciplining and the exploration of a range of sexualities.

Over the past three decades scholars have transformed the study of women and gender in early modern Europe. This Ashgate Research Companion presents an authoritative review of the current research on women and gender in early modern Europe from a multi-disciplinary perspective. The authors examine women’s lives, ideologies of gender, and the differences between ideology and reality through the recent research across many disciplines, including history, literary studies, art history, musicology, history of science and medicine, and religious studies. The book is intended as a resource for scholars and students of Europe in the early modern period, for those who are just beginning to explore these issues and this time period, as well as for scholars learning about aspects of the field in which they are not yet an expert. The companion offers not only a comprehensive examination of the current research on women in early modern Europe, but will act as a spark for new research in the field.

The Routledge History of Women in Early Modern Europe is a comprehensive and ground-breaking survey of the lives of women in early-modern Europe between 1450 and 1750. Covering a period of dramatic political and cultural change, the book challenges the current contours and chronologies of European history by observing them through the lens of female experience. The collaborative research of this book covers four themes: the affective world; practical knowledge for life; politics and religion; arts, science and humanities. These themes are interwoven through the chapters, which encompass all areas of women’s lives: sexuality, emotions, health and wellbeing, educational attainment, litigation and the practical and leisured application of knowledge, skills and artistry from medicine to theology. The intellectual lives of women, through reading and writing, and their spirituality and engagement with the material world, are also explored. So too is the sheer energy of female work, including farming and manufacture, skilled craft and artwork, theatrical work and scientific enquiry. The Routledge History of Women in Early Modern Europe revises the chronological and ideological parameters of early-modern European history by opening the reader’s eyes to an exciting age of female productivity, social engagement and political activism across European and transatlantic boundaries. It is essential reading for students and researchers of early-modern history, the history of women and gender studies.

Celebrated at the heart of a notoriously unstable period, the Vacant See, papal funerals in early modern Rome easily fell prey to ceremonial chaos and disorder. Charged with maintaining decorum, papal Masters of Ceremonies supervised all aspects of the funeral, from the correct handling of the papal body to the construction of the funeral apparato: the temporary decorations used during the funeral masses in St Peter?s. The visual and liturgical centre of this apparato was the chapelle ardente or castrum doloris: a baldachin-like structure standing over the body of the deceased, decorated with coats of arms, precious textiles and hundreds of burning candles. Drawing from printed festival books and previously unpublished sources, such as ceremonial diaries and diplomatic correspondence, this book offers the first comprehensive overview of the development of early modern funeral apparati. What was their function in funeral liturgy and early modern festival culture at large? How did the papal funeral apparati compare to those of cardinals, the Spanish and French monarchy, and the Medici court in Florence? And most importantly, how did contemporaries perceive and judge them? By the late sixteenth century, new trends in conspicuous commemoration had rendered the traditional papal funeral apparati in St Peter?s obsolete. The author shows how papal families wishing to honor their uncles according to the new standards needed to invent ceremonial opportunities from scratch, showing off dynastic resilience, while modelling the deceased?s memoria after carefully constructed ideals of post-Tridentine sainthood.