Nuns and Nunneries in Renaissance FlorenceAn analysis of Renaissance Florentine convents and their influence on the city’s social, economic, and political history. The 15th century was a time of dramatic and decisive change for nuns and nunneries in Florence. That century saw the city’s convents evolve from small, semiautonomous communities to large civic institutions. By 1552, roughly one in eight Florentine women lived in a religious community. Historian Sharon T. Strocchia analyzes this stunning growth of female monasticism, revealing the important roles these women and institutions played in the social, economic, and political history of Renaissance Florence. It became common practice during this time for unmarried women in elite society to enter convents. This unprecedented concentration of highly educated and well-connected women transformed convents into sites of great patronage and social and political influence. As their economic influence also grew, convents found new ways of supporting themselves; they established schools, produced manuscripts, and manufactured textiles. Using previously untapped archival materials, Strocchia shows how convents shaped one of the principal cities of Renaissance Europe. She demonstrates the importance of nuns and nunneries to the booming Florentine textile industry and shows the contributions that ordinary nuns made to Florentine life in their roles as scribes, stewards, artisans, teachers, and community leaders. In doing so, Strocchia argues that the ideals and institutions that defined Florence were influenced in great part by the city’s powerful female monastics. Winner, Helen and Howard R. Marraro Prize, American Catholic Historical Association “Strocchia examines the complex interrelationships between Florentine nuns and the laity, the secular government, and the religious hierarchy. The author skillfully analyzes extensive archival and printed sources.” —Choice |
Contents
1 | |
2 Nuns Neighbors and Kinsmen | 39 |
3 The Renaissance Convent Economy | 72 |
Renaissance Nuns at Work | 111 |
5 Contesting the Boundaries of Enclosure | 152 |
Conclusion | 191 |
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abbess activities Albizzi Ambrogio annual annuities Apollonia assets Benedictine bishops Black Death Brigida Brucker Buondelmonti Catasto Caterina chapter city’s civic cloister convent populations Cosimo CRSGF CRSPL daughters Domenico Dominican dowry dowry fund early modern early Quattrocento earnings ecclesiastical economic embroidery enclosure Eugenius favors Felicita female monasticism female religious fifteenth century Florentine convents Florentine nuns florins Francesco Franciscan friars Gaggio Giovanni girls gold thread income institutions Italian Jacopo late Trecento laywomen linen Lorenzo male Mantignano Margherita Maria marriage Medici medieval Molho Monasteries monastic monte credits Monticelli Murate neighborhood night officers ofthe Oltrarno papal Paradiso parish patronage patrons payments percent Pier Maggiore Piero political Poor Clares Prato production Quattrocento recruitment reform religious communities religious houses religious women Renaissance Renaissance Florence role S.Jacopo Savonarolan sexual sisters social sodomy spiritual Strocchia Suor textile tion Trecento Trexler urban Venetian Verdiana workshop