The Travels of Pieter Albert Bik
Mikko Toivanen
- Title
- Women, Art and Observant Franciscan Piety
- Subtitle
- Caterina Vigri and the Poor Clares in Early Modern Ferrara
- Author
- Kathleen Giles Arthur
- Price
- € 124,00 excl. VAT
- ISBN
- 9789462984332
- Format
- Hardback
- Number of pages
- 252
- Language
- English
- Publication date
- 14 - 02 - 2018
- Dimensions
- 17 x 24 cm
- Category
- Early Modern Studies
- Discipline
- History, Art History, and Archaeology
- Preview
- Download Preview
- Also available as
- eBook PDF - € 123,99
List of Figures and Plates
Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
1. The Pious Women of Corpus Christi
Bernardina Sedazzari’s House in Via Praisolo
Leaders of the Community
The Inventory of 1426: Ecclesiastical Vestments
Relics, Devotional Objects and Altarpieces
From ‘Urban Hermits’ to Cloistered Nuns
2. Building a Public Image of Piety
San Guglielmo as a Poor Clare ‘Anti-model’
Building the First Church and Convent
The Poor Clares Form of Life
The Entombment and Adoration of the Host Altarpieces
3. The Sette Armi Spirituali and its Audience
The Corpus Christi Community 1431-1456
Women’s Education in Ferrara, Mantua, and Urbino
The Nuns’ Library and Lectio Divina
The Sette Armi Spirituali and Teaching Novices
4. Drawing for Devotion: Sister Caterina’s Breviary
Nun-artists: Aesthetic, Medium and Materials
Structure and Provenance of the Kalendar and Psalter
Personalizing the Breviary: The Temporale
Poverty, Penitence, and Franciscan saints: The Sanctorale
Vigri’s Man of Sorrows and the Gaude Mater Virgo Christi
5. Corpus Christi’s Later Religious and Civic Identity
The Sette Armi Spirituali and Observant Devotion
The Community and Casa Romei
The d’Este Duchesses as Patrons
Later Fifteenth-century Art and Vsual Culture
Corpus Christi as a Pantheon of d’Este Women
Conclusion
Appendices
Appendix I: The Pinzochere Inventory of 1426
Appendix II: Demographic Growth of Corpus Christi 1430-c.1500
Reviews and Features
Nominated for the Hagiographic Society Prize 2019!
"Arthur’s fascinating study brings the story of the Poor Clares in Ferrara to an anglophone audience for the first time. She offers new insights into the visual culture of Observant Franciscan women in a crucial period of transition for the order. The author’s extensive archival research reveals the names and ages of many of the nuns at Corpus Christi, providing much new material for future scholars."
- Holly Flora, caa.reviews, February 2020
"This study shows the fruits that can be won by connecting a gender study approach with the reconstruction of a religious community and religious tradition by means of a reading of visual and material sources. In doing so, it challenges implicit values that regulate academic research."
- Prof. Daria Pezzoldi-Olgiati, Ludwig Maximilians Univ., Munich, Gender and Religion 9 (2019)
"Arthur's monograph is to be recommended as groundbreaking work on women's history, Observant Franciscan spirituality, and true "outsider art." There is the thrill of discovery in progress around such direct study of manuscripts still too little explored. In short, this is a superb work of scholarship as well as a fascinating read."
- Linda Burke, Elmhurst College, The Medieval Review 19.09.38
"Arthur's book makes an important contribution to our understanding of female convents, Observant Franciscan piety, and religious women’s engagement with visual culture. By integrating Caterina Vigri’s written and artistic production into the social, spiritual, and visual context of the Ferrarese convent of Corpus Christi, Arthur enriches our perceptions of both Vigri’s devotional works and female piety."
- Marilyn Dunn, Loyola University Chicago Renaissance Quarterly Volume LXXI I, No. 3
"Arthur’s fascinating study brings the story of the Poor Clares in Ferrara to an anglophone audience for the first time. She offers new insights into the visual culture of Observant Franciscan women in a crucial period of transition for the order. The author’s extensive archival research reveals the names and ages of many of the nuns at Corpus Christi, providing much new material for future scholars."
- Holly Flora, caa.reviews, February 2020
"This study shows the fruits that can be won by connecting a gender study approach with the reconstruction of a religious community and religious tradition by means of a reading of visual and material sources. In doing so, it challenges implicit values that regulate academic research."
- Prof. Daria Pezzoldi-Olgiati, Ludwig Maximilians Univ., Munich, Gender and Religion 9 (2019)
"Arthur's monograph is to be recommended as groundbreaking work on women's history, Observant Franciscan spirituality, and true "outsider art." There is the thrill of discovery in progress around such direct study of manuscripts still too little explored. In short, this is a superb work of scholarship as well as a fascinating read."
- Linda Burke, Elmhurst College, The Medieval Review 19.09.38
"Arthur's book makes an important contribution to our understanding of female convents, Observant Franciscan piety, and religious women’s engagement with visual culture. By integrating Caterina Vigri’s written and artistic production into the social, spiritual, and visual context of the Ferrarese convent of Corpus Christi, Arthur enriches our perceptions of both Vigri’s devotional works and female piety."
- Marilyn Dunn, Loyola University Chicago Renaissance Quarterly Volume LXXI I, No. 3
Kathleen Giles Arthur
Women, Art and Observant Franciscan Piety
Caterina Vigri and the Poor Clares in Early Modern Ferrara
Caterina Vigri (later Saint Catherine of Bologna) was a mystic, writer, teacher and nun-artist. Her first home, Corpus Domini, Ferrara, was a house of semi-religious women that became a Poor Clare convent and model of Franciscan Observant piety. Vigri's intensely spiritual decoration of her breviary, as well as convent altarpieces that formed a visual program of adoration for the Body of Christ, exemplify the Franciscan Observant visual culture. After Vigri's departure, it was transformed by d'Este women patrons, including Isabella da Aragona, Isabella d'Este and Lucrezia Borgia. While still preserving Observant ideals, it became a more elite noblewomen's retreat.
Grounded in archival research and extant paintings, drawings, prints and art objects from Corpus Domini, this volume explores the art, visual culture, and social history of an early modern Franciscan women's community.
Grounded in archival research and extant paintings, drawings, prints and art objects from Corpus Domini, this volume explores the art, visual culture, and social history of an early modern Franciscan women's community.
Author
Kathleen Giles Arthur
Kathleen Giles Arthur is Professor of Italian Renaissance Art (emerita) at James Madison University (Virginia), author of studies on fifteenth-century women artists, including Caterina Vigri (St. Catherine of Bologna) and self-portraitist Maria di Ormanno degli Albizzi, as well as Florentine art and patronage around the time of the Black Death.
