Hostname: page-component-6bf8c574d5-gr6zb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-02-23T09:39:56.871Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Elections of Abbesses and Notions of Identity in Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century Italy, with Special Reference to Venice*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Kate Lowe
Kate Lowe*
Affiliation:
Goldsmiths' College, University of London
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Ceremonies of election to abbess were occasions of great display. Election to this highest of offices was the defining moment of a successful nun's life, and thereafter self-identity became crucial. This article examines an anatomy of an election of 1509 by a nun from San Zaccaria in Venice; the illustrated chronicle of Santa Maria delle Vergini in Venice dated 1523, written by an anonymous nun; and the visual representation (in a range of media) of various abbesses from Florence, Pavia, and Venice. Success in election conferred the possibility of personality and consequently legitimated personalized representation.

Type
Studies
Information
Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 54 , Issue 2 , Summer 2001 , pp. 389 - 429
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 2001

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

Albertario, M. 1996. “Pittura a Pavia (1359-1525).” In Storia di Pavia, 3.2. L'arte dallXI al XVI secolo. Pavia.Google Scholar
Arcangeli, Letizia. 1996. “Ragioni politiche della disciplina monastica: il caso di Parma tra quattro e cinquecento.” In Donna, disciplina, creanza cristiana dal XV al XVII secolo: studi e testi a stampa, ed. Gabriella Zarri, 165-87. Rome.Google Scholar
Battiston, Odilla. 1991. Tre monaster! scomparsi a Venezia, sestiere di Castello (S. Daniele, S. M. delle Vergini, S. Anna). Venice.Google Scholar
Bertoli, Bruno, and Annalisa Perissa. 1994. Chiesa di San Zaccaria, arte e devozione. Venice and Rome.Google Scholar
Black, Christopher. 1989. Italian Confraternities in the Sixteenth Century. Cambridge.Google Scholar
Boehm, Gottfried. 1985. Bildnis undlndividuum: Uber den Ursprung der Portrdtmalerei in der italienischen Renaissance. Munich.Google Scholar
Borenius, Tancred. 1939. “Among the Belliniani.” The Burlington Magazine 74 (January): 12-23.Google Scholar
Boschini, Marco. 1674. Le ricche minere della pittura veneziana. Venice.Google Scholar
Bowe, T. J. 1939. Religious Superioresses: A Historical Synopsis and a Commentary. Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Brown, Judith. 1994. “Monache a Firenze all'inizio dell'eta moderna: un'analisi demografica.” Quaderni storici 29: 117–52.Google Scholar
Bullarum diplomatum etprivilegiorum sanctorum romanorum pontificum Tauriensis editio. 1857-1885. 25 vols. Turin.Google Scholar
Catalogue of the Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum in the Years 1854-60. 1875. London.Google Scholar
Cicogna, E. A. 1824-1853. Delle inscrizioni veneziane raccolte ed illustrate. 6 vols. Venice.Google Scholar
Conti, G. 1902. Fatti e aneddoti di storia fiorentina. Florence.Google Scholar
Cornelio, F. 1749. Ecclesiae venetae antiquis monumentis nunc etiam primum editis illustratae ac in decades distributae. 16 decades. Venice.Google Scholar
Dictionnaire de spiritualiti ascttique et mystique, doctrine et histoire, ed. M. Viller, etal. 1937-1995. 17 vols. Paris.Google Scholar
Dictionnaire de the'ologie catholique, ed. A. Vacant and E. Mangenot. 1923-1972. 16 vols. Paris.Google Scholar
Franzoi, Umberto, and Dina di Stefano. 1976. Le chiese di Venezia. Venice.Google Scholar
Gardner, Julian. 1995. “Nuns and Altarpieces: Agendas for Research.“ Rbmisches Jahrbuch der Bibliotheca Hertziana 30: 27–57.Google Scholar
Gemäldegalerie Berlin: Gesamtverzeichnis der Gemälde/Complete Catalogue of the Paintings. 1986. London and Berlin.Google Scholar
Giuliani, Innocenzo. 1963. Genesi e primo secolo di vita del magistrate sopra monasteri (Ven. 1519-1620). In ASV, reprinted from Le Venezie francescane 1-4(1961): 1-103. Padua.Google Scholar
Guida del visitatore artista attraverso il Seminario patriarcale di Venezia. 1912. Venice.Google Scholar
Henderson, John. 1994. Piety and Charity in Late Medieval Florence. Oxford.Google Scholar
Humfrey, Peter. 1990. “Co-ordinated Altarpieces in Renaissance Venice: The Progress of an Ideal.” In Humfrey and Kemp, 190-211.Google Scholar
Humfrey, Peter, and Martin Kemp. 1993. The Altarpiece in Renaissance Venice. New Haven and London.Google Scholar
Huter, C. 1974. “Panel Paintings by Illuminators. Remarks on a Crisis of Venetian Style.” Arte veneta 28: 9–16.Google Scholar
Kaftal, George. 1978. Iconography of the Saints in the Painting of North East Italy. Florence.Google Scholar
King, Catherine. 1992. “Medieval and Renaissance Matrons, Italian-Style.” Zeitschrift fur Kunstgeschichte 55: 372–93.Google Scholar
King, Catherine. 1995. “Women as Patrons: Nuns, Widows and Rulers.” In Siena, Florence and Padua: Art, Society and Religion, 1280-1400, 2 vols., ed. Diana Norman, 2:243-66. New Haven and London.Google Scholar
King, Catherine. 1998. Renaissance Women Patrons: Wives and Widows in Italy, c. 1300-1550. Manchester and New York.Google Scholar
Kocks, Dirk. 1971. Die Stifterdarstellung in der italienischen Malerei des 13.-15. Jahrhunderts. Cologne.Google Scholar
Lowe, Kate. 1998a. “Nuns and Choice: Artistic Decision-Making in Medicean Florence.” In With and Without the Medici: Studies in Tuscan Art and Patronage, 1434-1530, ed. Eckart Marchand and Alison Wright, 129-53. Aldershot.Google Scholar
Lowe, Kate. 1998b. “Secular Brides and Convent Brides: Wedding Ceremonies in Italy during the Renaissance and Counter-Reformation.” In Marriage in Italy, 1300-1650, ed. Trevor Dean and K. J. P. Lowe, 41-65. Cambridge.Google Scholar
Mansi, G., et al., eds. 1759-1962. Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio. 53 vols. Florence.Google Scholar
Martindale, Andrew. 1993. “The Venetian Sala del Gran Consiglio and its Fourteenth-Century Decoration.” The Antiquaries Journal 73: 76–124.Google Scholar
Mazzucco, G., ed. 1983. Monasteri benedettini nella laguna veneziana. Venice.Google Scholar
McAndrew, John. 1981. Venetian Architecture of the Early Renaissance. Cambridge, MA and London.Google Scholar
Miller, Sandra. 1978. “Giovanni Mansueti, a Little Master of the Venetian Quattrocento.” Revue roumaine de I'histoire de I'art 15: 77–115.Google Scholar
Mosca, Marilena, ed. 1986. La Maddalena fra sacro e profano. Milan. sance Culture and Society, ed. LetiziaGoogle Scholar
Moulin, L. 1973. “Les origines chriennes des techniques electorates et deliberatives contemporaines.” Res Publica: Revue de I'Institut Beige de science politique 15: 785–98.Google Scholar
Muir, Edward. 1981. Civic Ritual in Renaissance Venice. Princeton.Google Scholar
Musolino, G., Niero, A., and Tramontin, S.. 1963. Santi e heati veneziani, 40 profili. Venice.Google Scholar
Natali, Giulio. 1908. “Saggio d'un ‘abecedario artistico pavese.'” Bollettino della Societa pavese di storiapatria 8: 340–8.Google Scholar
Oratio sororis Aureliae Quirino monialis in monasterio sanctae Mariae de Virginibus habita coram sereniss. Marino Grimano die 7februarii 1598. 1598. Venice.Google Scholar
Paatz, W, and E. Paatz. 1940-1954. Die Kirchen von Florenz. 6 vols. Frankfurt am Main.Google Scholar
Pallucchini, R. 1961. I Vivarini (Antonio, Bartolomeo, Alvise). Venice.Google Scholar
Paoletti, Pietro. 1893. Architettura e scultura del rinascimento in Venezia. 2 vols. Venice.Google Scholar
Parsons, A. 1939. Canonical Elections: An Historical Synopsis and Commentary. Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Pelliccia, G., and G. Rocca, eds. 1974-. Dizionario degli istituti di perfezione. 9 vols, to date. Rome.Google Scholar
Peroni, Adriano. 1981. Pavia Pinacoteca Malaspina. Pavia.Google Scholar
Pilot, Antonio. 1910. “Una capatina in alcuni monasteri veneziani del ‘500.” Rivista d'ltalia 13.2: 49–72.Google Scholar
Pittura a Pavia dal Romanico al Settecento. 1988. Milan.Google Scholar
Primhak, Victoria. 1991. “Women in Religious Communities: The Benedictine Convents in Venice, 1400-1550.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of London.Google Scholar
Primhak, Victoria; 2000. “Benedictine Communities in Venetian Society: the Convent of S. Zaccaria.” In Women in Italian Renais Panizza, 92-104. Oxford.Google Scholar
Roberts, Ann M. 1994. “Chiara Gambacorta of Pisa as Patroness of the Arts.” In Creative Women in Medieval and Early Modern Italy, ed. E. Ann Matter and John Coakley, 120-54. Philadelphia.Google Scholar
Rubinstein, Nicolai. 1954. “I primi anni del Consiglio Maggiore di Firenze (1494-99).” Archivio storico italiano 112: 151–94, 321-47.Google Scholar
Rubinstein, Nicolai. 1997. The Government of Florence under the Medici (1434-94). 2nd ed. Oxford.Google Scholar
Sansovino, Francesco, and Giovanni Stringa. 1604. Venetia citta nobilissima etsingolare. Venice.Google Scholar
Sanuto, Marino. 1879-1903.I diarii. Ed. R. Fulin et al. 58 vols. Venice.Google Scholar
Scandella, Sr. Angela Emmanuela, ed. 1987. Ricordanze del monastero di S. Lucia in Foligno. Assisi.Google Scholar
Spencer, John. 1991. Andrea del Castagno and his Patrons. Durham, NC and London.Google Scholar
Spiazzi, Raimondo, ed. 1993. Cronache e fioretti del monastero di San Sisto all'Appia. Bologna.Google Scholar
Staley, E. 1906. The Guilds of Florence. 2nd ed. London.Google Scholar
Syson, Luke. 1998. “Circulating a Likeness? Coin Portraits in Late Fifteenth-Cent u r y Italy.” In The Image of the Individual: Portraits in the Renaissance, ed. Nicholas Mann and Luke Syson, 113-23. London.Google Scholar
Terpstra, Nicholas. 1995. Lay Confraternities and Civic Religion in Renaissance Bologna. Cambridge.10.1017/CBO9780511523502Google Scholar
Thomas, Anabel. 1993a. “Neri di Bicci: the S. Sisto Crucifixion, the Mantellate Nuns of S. Monaca at Florence and the Compagnia di Miransu.” Antichita Viva 32:5-15.Google Scholar
Thomas, Anabel. 1993b. “Neri di Bicci, Francesco Botticini and the Augustinians.” Arte Cristiana 81: 23–34.Google Scholar
Toscani, Xenio. 1969. Aspetti di vita religiosa a Pavia nelsecolo XV Milan.Google Scholar
Viviani della Robbia, E. 1947. Nei monasterifiorentini. Florence.Google Scholar
Wolters, Wolfgang. 1987. Storia e politica nei dipinti di Palazzo Ducale: aspetti dell'autocelebrazione della Repubblica di Venezia nei Cinquecento. Venice.Google Scholar
Zorzi, Alvise. 1972. Venezia scomparsa. 2 vols. Milan.Google Scholar