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Nuns and Their Art: The Case of San Zaccaria in Renaissance Venice*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Gary M. Radke
Gary M. Radke*
Affiliation:
Syracuse University
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Abstract

This article discusses the ways in which fifteenth-century nuns financed, shaped and used works of art and architecture at the Benedictine convent of San Zaccaria in Venice. Evidence from chronicles, account books, liturgical manuscripts, reports of visits to the convent, and inscriptions on the works of art themselves shows that the nuns viewed art within their convent extremely proprietarily. While they accepted subsidies from the civic government, indulgences from popes, privileges from Byzantine emperors, and donations from private patrons, the nuns paid close attention to the administration of commissions within the convent church and committed substantial funds to artistic projects, making them their own.

Type
Studies
Information
Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 54 , Issue 2 , Summer 2001 , pp. 430 - 459
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 2001

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