Nuns and Nunneries in Renaissance Florence

280 Pages·2009·1.865 MB·English

by  Sharon T. Strocchia

Nuns and Nunneries in Renaissance Florence
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Nuns and Nunneries in
Renaissance Florence
Sharon T. Strocchia
The Johns Hopkins University Press
Baltimore
This book was brought to publication with the generous assistance of
the Lila Acheson Wallace–Reader’s Digest Publications Subsidy at
Villa I Tatti.
∫ 2009 The Johns Hopkins University Press
All rights reserved. Published 2009
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
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The Johns Hopkins University Press
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Strocchia, Sharon T.
Nuns and nunneries in Renaissance Florence / Sharon T. Strocchia.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
isbn-13: 978-0-8018-9292-9 (harcover : alk. paper)
isbn-10: 0-8018-9292-9 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Monastic and religious life of women—Italy—Florence—History—
Middle Ages, 600–1500. 2. Monastic and religious life of women—
Italy—Florence—History—16th century. 3. Florence (Italy)—Church
history. I. Title.
bx4220.i8s76 2009
271%.9004551109023—dc22 2008054188
A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.
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paper with recycled content.
Contents
List of Tables, Graphs, and Figures vii
Preface ix
1 The Growth of Florentine Convents 1
Convents in Crisis 4
The Midcentury Resurgence 19
The Rush to the Convent 28
2 Nuns, Neighbors, and Kinsmen 39
From Neighborhood Enclaves to Citywide Institutions 40
Property and the Topography of Power 58
Defenders of the Parish 66
3 The Renaissance Convent Economy 72
The Structure of Convent Finance 74
The Paradox of ‘‘Private’’ Wealth 84
Balancing the Budget 92
The Medici and the Monte 98
4 Invisible Hands: Renaissance Nuns at Work 111
Economic Strategies and Opportunities 113
The Century of Silk: Nuns and Textile Production 116
Three Case Studies in Textile Work 126
Books and Educational Activities 144
5 Contesting the Boundaries of Enclosure 152
The Practice of Open Reclusion, 1300–1450 154
Privatization, Enclosure, and Reform, 1430–1500 166
The Florentine ‘‘Night Officers’’ 171
Ecclesiastical Reform Initiatives, 1500–1540 184
vi Contents
Conclusion 191
Acknowledgments 197
Notes 199
Bibliography 239
Index 255
Tables, Graphs, and Figures
tables
1.1 Estimated Population of Florentine Convents inside the Walls,
1338–1552 13
3.1 Gross Assets of Florentine Convents, 1427 76
4.1 Major Embroidery Commissions at S. Brigida del Paradiso,
1451–1511 136
graphs
3.1 Mean Assets of Florentine Convents, 1427
(inside and outside Walls) 77
3.2 Expenses at S. Felicita, 1438 93
4.1 Textile Income, S. Brigida del Paradiso, 1451–98 133
4.2 Monticelli Textile Income, 1520–90 143
figures
1.1 Francesco Botticini, St. Monica Creates the Order of Augustinian Nuns 15
1.2 Anonymous, Veiling Ceremony of a Florentine Nun 18
1.3 Woodcut, Nuns of Le Murate Receiving Savonarola 33
2.1 Convent emblem of S. Pier Maggiore 59
2.2 Upper loggia of cloister, S. Apollonia 64
4.1 Chasuble (late fifteenth century), with embroidered orphrey band
(late fifteenth to early sixteenth century), Italy or Spain 134
4.2 Suor Agnola da Rabatta (miniatures) and Suor Gostanza Cocchi
(text), breviary from convent of S. Ambrogio 148
5.1 Cosimo Rosselli, Procession of the Holy Miracle 158
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Preface
The study of religious women in late medieval and early modern Europe has
recently emerged as a vibrant field in its own right. Drawing on an abundance of
riches, scholars have explored various forms of female spirituality and cultural
production ranging from food practices to female-authored texts and music.
Whether motivated by intensely felt spiritual convictions or profound distaste
for the cloistered life thrust on them, medieval and early modern nuns wrote
chronicles, plays, and treatises of real merit; painted and illuminated devotional
works in both normative and idiosyncratic styles; made celestial-sounding music
in a distinctive female voice; and patronized art and architecture on a previously
unimagined scale. The recovery of this cultural legacy demonstrates conclusively
that religious life offered one of the most significant vehicles for the formation
and expression of female subjectivity in the premodern period.
Less well established is the constitutive role that nuns and nunneries played
in the grand narrative of early modern Europe, especially in its political and
economic development. In general, the historiography of early modern state-
building has not been in sustained conversation with studies treating gender,
religion, and society. To date, the most heavily trafficked intersection maps polit-