Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-03T18:56:25.747Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

11 - Female sanctity, 1500–1660

from Part III - Catholic Renewal

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2008

By
Gabriella Zarri
Edited by
R. Po-chia Hsia
R. Po-chia Hsia
Affiliation:
Pennsylvania State University
Get access

Summary

Introduction

During the Renaissance and early modern period, female religious life emerged with extreme vivacity. Scholars agree that both the socio-economic and juridical condition of women’s lives deteriorated during the Renaissance. They also agree that religion, on the other hand, provided a means for different forms of female affirmation to offset and even-out the misogynist cultural currents that were present and driven by churches. Socially, sanctity was valued and was pursued both by licit means, that is, means relevant to the very nature of religious faith, and by illicit.

Between 1500 and 1660, women expressed their religiousness according to traditional models that were valued differently as the political, social, and cultural situations proposed and imposed new conditions of life upon them. At the same time, religious conflicts and the plurality of religions generated new models of sanctity but at times reproduced the old ones. Considering the universality of the aforementioned problems, I intend to trace the evolutionary lines of female sanctity, starting with the most representative experiences of religious life during the period indicated, and to proceed in chronological order. I will not consider the approved model of sanctity exclusively, but will bear in mind the proscribed as well, while also referring to counter-models.

In outlining the evolution of female sanctity, I will avail myself of traditional representations of Christianity while demonstrating the active role of women in interpreting such representations or in generating new ones. The models can be found in some principal chronological periods: the first decades of the sixteenth century; the period of the Protestant Reformation and the Council of Trent; and the period of the Counter-Reformation and Catholic renewal.

Models of female sanctity in the first decades of the sixteenth century: mystical and prophetic sanctity

Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge History of Christianity , pp. 180 - 200
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Addante, Pietro, San Francesco di Paola (Cinisello Balsamo: Edizioni Paoline, 1988).Google Scholar
Ahlgren, Gillian T. W., Francisca de los Apostoles. A visionary voice for reform in sixteenth-century Toledo. In Giles, Mary E. (ed.), Women in the Inquisition. Spain and the New World (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999).Google Scholar
Baernstein, P. Renée, A convent tale: a century of sisterhood in Spanish Milan (New York: Routledge, 2002).Google Scholar
Baernstein, Renée, A convent tale. A century of sisterhood in Spanish Milan (New York and London: Routledge, 2002).Google Scholar
Bainton, Roland, Women of the Reformation in Germany and Italy (Minneapolis: Augsburg Publication House, 1971).Google Scholar
Barone, Giulia, La canonizzazione di Francesca Romana (1608): la riproposta di un modello agiografico medievale, in Finzione e società.
Beilin, Elaine V. (ed.), The examinations of Anne Askew (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996).Google Scholar
Beilin, Elaine V. (ed.), The examinations of Anne Askew: women writers in English 1350–1850 (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996).Google Scholar
Bell, Rudolph, Holy anorexia. Davis, Epilogue William N. (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1985).Google Scholar
Biblioteca Sanctorum Orientalium, Enciclopedia dei santi: le chiese orientali, vol. 2 (Rome: Città Nuova, 1998–1999).
Bilinkoff, Iody, ‘Charisma and controversy. The case of Maria’, Archivio dominicano. Anuario 10 (1989).Google Scholar
Bloch, Marc, Les rois thaumaturges. Etude sur le caractère surnaturel attribué à la puissance royale particulièrement en France et en Angleterre. Preface Goff, J. (Paris: Gallimard, 1983; orig. edn 1923).Google Scholar
Bonora, Elena, I conflitti della Controriforma. Santità e obbedienza nell’esperienza religiosa dei primi barnabiti (Florence: Le Lettere, 1998).Google Scholar
Børresen, Kari E., and Vogt, Kari (ed.), Women’s studies of the Christian and Islamic traditions: ancient, medieval and Renaissance foremothers (Dordrecht and Boston: Kluwer Academic, 1993).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, Judith, Immodest acts. The life of a lesbian nun in Renaissance Italy (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986).Google Scholar
Bucuré, Miriam, ‘Camilla Battista Varano da Camerino: Istruzioni al discepolo. Dos dominicos testigos de un texto de espiritualitad francescana a principio de la etad moderna’, Memorie domenicane 32 (2001).Google Scholar
Bynum Walker, Caroline, Holy feast and holy fast. The religious significance of food to medieval women (Berkeley and London: University of California Press, 1987).Google Scholar
Bynum Walker, Caroline, Jesus as mother. Studies in the spirituality of the high Middle Ages (Berkeley and London: University of California Press, 1982).Google Scholar
Cantù, Francesca, Rosa da Lima eil ‘Mistico giardino’ del Nuovo Mondo: identità e trasfigurazione di una santa nell’immaginario sociale peruviano, in Ordini religiosi, santit` e culti: prospettive di ricerca tra Europa e America Latina. Atti del Seminario di Roma 21–22 giugno 2001, a cura di Gabriella Zarri (Galatina: Congedo Editori, 2003). (Pubblicazioni del Dipartimento di studi storici dal Medioevo all’Età contemporanea dell’Università di Lecce. Saggi e Ricerche 52.)Google Scholar
Certeau, Michel, La fable mystique: XVIe-XVIIe siècle (Paris, Gallimard, 1982).Google Scholar
Certeau, Michel, The mystic fable. Trans. Smith, Michael B. (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1992).Google Scholar
Certeau, Michel, Le possession de Loudun (Paris: Gallimard/Julliard, 1990).Google Scholar
Certeau, Michel, Thepossession at Loudun. Trans. Smith, Michael B ; foreword Stephen Greenblatt (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000).Google Scholar
Craveri, Marcello, Sante e streghe: biografie e documenti dal 14 al17 secolo (Milan: Feltrinelli, 1980).Google Scholar
da Rotterdam, Erasmo, Vita di san Girolamo. Ed. and trans. Guerra, Anna Morisi (L’Aquila and Rome: Japadre Editore, 1988).Google Scholar
Davis, N. Z., ‘Poor relief, humanism, and heresy’. In Davis, N. Z., Society and culture in early modern France (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1987).Google Scholar
Devos, Roger, Vie religieuse féminine et société: L’origine sociale des Visitandines d’Annecy aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles (Annecy: Académie Salésienne, 1973).Google Scholar
Dinzelbacher, Peter, Heilige oder Hexen? Schicksale auffallinger Frauen in Mittelalter und Frühneuzeit (Zurich: Artemis & Winkler Verlag, 1995).Google Scholar
Dunn-Lardeau, Brenda (ed.), Legendaaurea: sept siècles de diffusion. Actes du Colloque international sur la Legenda aurea, Université du Québec, Montreal, 11–12 May 1983 (Montreal: Bellarmin, 1986).Google Scholar
Fedotov, Georgij, Isanti dell’antica Russia. Preface by Gabriele De Rosa, Postface Sisto Dalla Palma. Ed. Maria Pia Pagani (Milan: Aquilegia Editori, 2000; orig. edn Paris: YMCA Press, 1931).Google Scholar
Fiorani, Luigi, and Prosperi, Adriano (eds.), Roma la città del papa: vita civile e religiosa dal giubileo di Bonifacio 8 al giubileo di papa Wojtyla. Storia d ‘Italia. Annali, (Turin: Einaudi, 2000).Google Scholar
Geary, Patrick J., Furta sacra: thefts of relics in the central Middle Ages (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990).Google Scholar
Giles, Mary E. (ed.), Women in the Inquisition. Spain and the New World (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999).Google Scholar
Gregory, Brad S., Salvation at stake. Christian martyrdom in early modern Europe. Harvard Historical Studies, 132 (Cambridge, MA, and London: Harvard University Press, 1999).Google Scholar
Grisar, Joseph, Maria Wards Institut vor Römischen Kongregationen (1616–1630) (Rome: Pontificia Università Gregoriana, 1966).Google Scholar
Hamilton, Alastair, Heresy and mysticism in sixteenth-century Spain: The Alumbrados (Toronto and Buffalo: University of Toronto Press, 1992).Google Scholar
Herlihy, David, ‘Did women have a Renaissance?’ Medievalia et Humanistica 13 (1985).Google Scholar
Hsia, R. Po-chia, The world of Catholic renewal (1450–1770) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).Google Scholar
Kagan, Richard, Lucrecia’s dreams. Politics and prophecy in sixteenth-century Spain (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990).Google Scholar
Kelly, Joan, ‘Did women have a Renaissance?’ In Kelly, Joan, Women, history and theory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984).Google Scholar
Konrad, Anne, Zwischen Kloster und Welt. Ursulinen und Jesuitinnen in der Katolischen Reformbewegung des 16./17. Jahrhunderts (Mainz: Zabern, 1991).Google Scholar
Lavenia, Vincenzo, ‘I diavoli di Carpi e il Sant’Uffizio (1636–1639)’. In Rosa, Mario (ed.), Eretici esuli e indemoniati nell’età moderna. Biblioteca della Rivista di Storia e Letteratura religiosa. Studi, 9 (Florence: Olschki, 1999).Google Scholar
Làzaro, Sastre, ‘Proceso de la beata de Piedrahita’, Àrchivio dominicano. Anuario 11 (1990).Google Scholar
Làzaro, Sastre, ‘Proceso de la beata de Piedrahita (II)’, Archivio dominicano. Anuario 12 (1991).Google Scholar
Maggi, Armando, Maria Maddalena de’ Pazzi. Intro. and trans. Armando Maggi. Preface Matter, E. Ann (New York: Mahwah, 2000).Google Scholar
Maggi, Armando, Satan’s rhetoric, a study of Renaissance demonology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002).Google Scholar
Malena, Adelisa, L’eresia dei perfetti. Inquisizione romana ed esperienze mistiche nel Seicento italiano (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 2003).Google Scholar
Matter, E. Ann, ‘Prophetic patronage as repression: Lucia Brocadelli da Narni and Ercole d’Este’. In Waugh, Scott L. and Diehl, Peter D. (eds.), Christendom and its discontents. Exclusion, persecution, and rebellion, 1000–1500 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).Google Scholar
Matter, E. Ann, and Galluzzi, Maria Domitilla, ‘Creative women’. In Matter, E. A. and Coakley, J. (eds.), Medieval and early modern Italy. A religious and artistic Renaissance (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994).Google Scholar
Mellinghoff-Bourgerie, Viviane, François de Sales, 1567–1622: un homme de lettres spirituelles: culture, tradition, épistolarité. Travaux d’humanisme et Renaissance, 330 (Geneva: Droz, 1999).Google Scholar
Morisi, Guerra Anna, ‘La leggenda di San Girolamo. Temi e problemi tra umanesimo e controriforma’, Clio 23 (1987).Google Scholar
Muňoz, Fernandez Angela, Beatas santas neocastellanas: ambivalencia de la religion correctoras del poder (ss XIV-XVII) (Madrid: Comunedad de Madrid, 1994).Google Scholar
Niccoli, Ottavia, ‘Introduzione’. In Niccoli, Ottavia (ed.), Rinascimento al femminile (Rome and Bari: Laterza, 1991). Spanish edn, La mujer del Renacimiento. Edicion de Ottavia Niccoli (Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 1993).Google Scholar
Ori, Anna Maria, ‘La principessa in Convento’. In Ori, Anna Maria (ed.), Le Clarisse in Carpi. Cinque secoli di storia XVI–XX, vol. 1. Saggi. Ed. Zarri, Gabriella. Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Carpi (Reggio Emilia: Diabasis, 2003).Google Scholar
Polizzotto, Lorenzo, Theelectnation. The Savonarolan movement in Florence, 1494–1545 (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1994).Google Scholar
Pomata, Gianna, ‘A Christian utopia of the Renaissance. Elena Duglioli’s spiritual and physical motherhood (ca. 1510–1520)’. In Medick, Kaspar Greyerz Hans, and Veit, Patrice, Von der dargestellten Person zum erinnerten Ich. Europaische Selbstzeugnisse als historische Quellen (1500–1850) (Cologne, Weimar, and Vienna: Böhlau, 2001).Google Scholar
Pozzi, Giovanni (ed.), Maria Maddalena de’ Pazzi. Le parole dell’estasi (Milan: Adelphi, 1984).Google Scholar
Prodi, Paolo, Gabriella, Zarri, Luigi, Mezzadri, and Castenetto, D., Angela Merici. Vita della chiesa e spiritualità nella prima metà del Cinquecento. Convegno di studi storici (Mascalucia 2 1–22 iuglio 1997). Ed. Naro, Cataldo (Caltanissetta and Rome: Salvatore Sciascia Editore, 1998).Google Scholar
Prosperi, Adriano, Tribunali della coscienza. Inquisitori, confessori missionari (Turin: Einaudi, 1997).Google Scholar
Ranft, Patricia, A woman’s way. The forgotten history of women spiritual directors (New York: Palgrave, 2000).Google Scholar
Rapley, Elisabeth, The dévotes: women and church in seventeenth-century France (Montreal and Ithaca, 1990).Google Scholar
Renoux, Christian, ‘Canonizzazione e santità femminile in età moderna’. In Foriani, Luigi and Properi, Adriano (eds.), Roma, la città del papa: vita civile e religiosa dal giubileo di Bonifacio VIII al iubileo di papa Wojtyla (Turin: Einaudi, 2000).Google Scholar
Rhodes, Elisabeth, ‘Y yo dije, “Sì senor”. Ana Domenge and the Barcelona Inquisition’. In Giles, Mary E. (ed.), Women in the Inquisition (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999).Google Scholar
Romeo, Giovanni, Esorcisti, confessori e sessualità femminile nell’Italia della Controriforma. A proposito di due casi modenesi del primo Seicento (Florence: Le Lettere, 1998).Google Scholar
Roper, Lyndal, Oedipus and the devil: witchcraft, sexuality and religion in early modern Europe (London and New York: Routledge, 1994).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rudi, R. Tat’iana, ‘La santità femminile nell’antica Rus’. In Mainardi, Adalberto (ed.), Forme della santità russa. Atti del Convegno ecumenico internazionale di spiritualità ortodossa sezione russa (Bose: Edizioni QiQajon, 2002).Google Scholar
Ryan, Frances, and Rybolt, E. John (eds.), Vincent de Paul and Louise de Marillac: rules, conferences, and writings. Intro. O’Donnell, Hugh F.. Preface Tarrazi, Amin A. (New York: Paulist Press, 1995).Google Scholar
Sastre, Làzaro, ‘Proceso de la beata de Piedrahita’. Archivio dominicano. Anuario 11 (1990).Google Scholar
Sastre, Làzaro, ‘Proceso de la beata de Piedrahita (II)’. Archivio dominicano. Anuario 12 (1991).Google Scholar
Scaraffia, Lucetta, and Zarri, Gabriella (eds.), Donne e fede, santità e vita religiosa in Italia (Rome and Bari: Laterza, 1994). English trans. Women and faith: Catholic religious life in Italy from late antiquity to the present (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999).Google Scholar
Scattigno, Anna, ‘Carissimo figliolo in Cristo’. In Ferrante, Lucia, Palazzi, Maura, and Pomata, Gianna (eds.), Ragnatele di rapporti: patronato e reti di relazione nella storia delle donne (Turin: Rosenberg & Sellier, 1988).Google Scholar
Schutte, Anne Jacobson, Aspiring saints: pretense of holiness, inquisition and gender in the Republic of Venice, 1618–1750 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001).Google Scholar
Schutte, Anne Jacobson (ed.), Autobiography of an aspiring saint: Cecilia Ferrazzi. The other voice in early modern Europe (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1996).Google Scholar
Slade, Carole StTeresa of Avila: author of a heroic life (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995).Google Scholar
Solfaroli Camillocci, Daniela, I devoti della carità: le confraternite del Divino Amore nell’Italia del primo Cinquecento (Naples: La città del sole, 2002).Google Scholar
Surtz, Ronald, ‘Writing and sodomy in the Inquisitorial trial (1495–1496) of Tecla Servent’. In Lanz, Eukene Lacarra (ed.), Marriage and sexuality in medieval and early modern Iberia (New York and London: Routledge, 2002).Google Scholar
Tedeschi, John, The prosecution of heresy. Collected studies on the Inquisition in early modern history. Medieval and Renaissance texts and studies (Binghamton, NY: 1991).Google Scholar
The royal touch: sacred monarchy and scrofula in England and France. Trans. Anderson, J. E. (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1973).Google Scholar
Vauchez, André, La sainteté en Occident aux derniers siècles du Moyen Age d’apres les proces de canonisation et les documents hagiographiques (Ecole Française de Rome, Palais Farnese, 1981).Google Scholar
Vauchez, André, Sainthood in the later Middle Ages. Trans. Birrell, Jean (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997).Google Scholar
Vauchez, André, Les laïcs au Moyen Age: pratiques et experiences religieuses (Paris: Cerf, 1987).Google Scholar
Vauchez, André, The laity in the Middle Ages: religious beliefs and devotional practices. Ed., intro. Bornstein, Daniel E.. Trans. Schneider, Margery J. (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1993).Google Scholar
Vauchez, André, Saints, prophètes et visionnaires: le pouvoir surnaturel au Moyen Age (Paris: Albin Michel, 1999).Google Scholar
Waugh, Scott L., and Diehl, Peter D (eds.), Christendom and its discontents. Exclusion, persecution, and rebellion, 1000–1500 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).Google Scholar
Weber, Alison, Teresa of Avila and the rhetoric of femininity (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990).Google Scholar
Weinstein, Donald, Savonarola and Florence: prophecy and patriotism in the Renaissance (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970).Google Scholar
Weinstein, Donald, Girolamo Savonarola: piety, prophecy and politics in Renaissance Florence. Bridwell Library religious studies (Dallas: Bridwell Library, 1994).Google Scholar
Zarri, Gabriella, ‘L’altra Cecilia: Elena Duglioli dall’Olio (1472–1520)’. In Bernardini, Carla (ed.), Indagini perun dipinto. La Santa Cecilia di Raffaello. A cura di Emiliani, A. (Bologna: ALFA, 1983). Now in Zarri, Le sante vive.Google Scholar
Zarri, Gabriella, Le sante vive. Cultura e religiosità femminile nella prima età moderna (Turin: Rosenberg & Sellier, 1990).Google Scholar
Zarri, Gabriella, ‘Le sante vive. Per una tipologia della santità femminile nel primo Cinquecento’, Annali dell’Istituto Storico Italo-Germanico in Trento, 6 (1980).Google Scholar
Zarri, Gabriella, ‘Living saints. A typology of female sanctity in the early sixteenth century’. In Bornstein, Daniel and Rusconi, Roberto (eds.), Women and religion in medieval and Renaissance Italy (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1996).Google Scholar
Zarri, Gabriella, ‘Lucia da Narni e il movimento femminile savonaroliano’. In Fragnito, Gigliola and Miegge, Mario (eds.), Girolamo Savonarola da Ferrara all’Europa (Florence: SISMEL, 2001).Google Scholar
Zarri, Gabriella, ‘Pietà profezia alle corti padane: le pie consigliere dei principi’. In Il Rinascimento alle corti padane. Società e cultura (Bari: De Donato, 1977). Also in Zarri, Le sante vive.Google Scholar
Zarri, Gabriella, ‘The thirth status’. In Schutte, Anne Jacobson, Kuehn, Thomas, and Menchi, Silvana Seidel (eds.), Time, space, women’s lives in early modern Europe. Sixteenth Century Essays and Studies, 57 (Kirksville,: Truman State University Press, 2001).Google Scholar
Zarri, Gabriella, ‘Ursula and Catherina: the marriage of virgins in the sixteenth century’. In Matter, E. A. and Coakley, E. J. (eds.), Creative women in medieval and early modern Italy. A religious and artistic renaissance (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania press, 1994).Google Scholar
Zarri, Gabriella (ed.), Finzione e santità tra medioevo ed età moderna (Turin: Rosenberg & Sellier, 1991).Google Scholar
Zemon Davis, Natalie, Society and culture in early modern France: eight essays (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1975).Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×