Nuns' Chronicles and Convent Culture in Renaissance and Counter-Reformation Italy

A well-illustrated and innovative analysis of convent culture in sixteenth-century Italy.

K. J. P. Lowe (Author)

9780521621915, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 4 December 2003

454 pages, 42 b/w illus.
25.4 x 18.4 x 3.5 cm, 1.066 kg

' … important and richly nuanced …'. Journal of Ecclesiastical History

This well-illustrated book analyses convent culture in sixteenth-century Italy through the medium of three unpublished nuns' chronicles. The book uses a comparative methodology of 'connected differences' to examine the intellectual and imaginative achievement of the nuns, and to investigate how they fashioned and preserved individual and convent identities by writing chronicles. The chronicles themselves reveal many examples of nuns' agency, especially with regard to cultural creativity, and show that convent traditions determined cultural priorities and specialisms, and dictated the contours of convent ceremonial life.

Introduction
Part I. History Writing and Authorship: 1. The creation of chronicles: contents and appearance
2. The authors of the chronicles
Part II. Historical and Cultural Context: 3. The convents and physical space
4. Nuns and convent communities
5. Rules and traditions
Part III. Chronicles and the Culture of Convent Identity: 6. The chronicles and ceremonial life
7. Cultural creativity and cultural production
8. Convents and art
Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Gender studies: women [JFSJ1], History of religion [HRAX], Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700 [HBLH], European history [HBJD], Literary studies: c 1500 to c 1800 [DSBD], History of art & design styles: c 1400 to c 1600 [ACN]