New Evidence for a Scribal-Nun's Art: Maria di Ormanno degli Albizzi at San Gaggio (original) (raw)
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New Evidence for a Scribal-Nun's Art: Maria d'Ormanno degli Albizzi at San Gaggio
Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz, 2017
"Maria Ormani" has been known as the earliest scribal nun-artist to paint a self-portrait, signed and dated 1453 . However, her breviary contained no further information about her convent or personal identity. A search through Florentine archives revealed her place of residence, Santa Katerina al Monte in Florence, known as San Gaggio, her proper name--daughter of Ormanno degli Albizzi-- and much new information about her family history and the convent's active scriptorium. The nuns of San Gaggio formed an elite community with an outstanding library inherited from Pietro Corsini. They copied manuscripts for the Augustinian friars at Santo Spirito, especially for the new convent of Santa Monaca. Maria di Ormanno Albizzi appears to have sketched her self-portrait in the frontispiece, but not illuminated other initials. After her disappearance from the convent's archives c. 1470, the manuscript traveled to northern Italy (possibly Ferrara or Mantua), and thence to Vienna.
From Palace to Convent: Visual and Material Making of a Choir Nun in Baroque Rome
Fra doppi muri. Cultura e arte claustrale femminile a Roma in età moderna, 2023
In 1747, the Duchess Maria Giustiniani Sforza Cesarini (1707-1783) had her portrait painted 1 (fig. 1). Three years earlier, her husband, Giuseppe Sforza Cesarini, Prince of Genzano, (1705-1744), had died, leaving his consort in charge of planning the future of their family. The couple's eldest son inherited the titles and patrimonies while the younger was already embarked on a religious career. A similar destiny awaited the young daughters Livia (1731-1808) and Camilla (1732-1787), future nuns in the Dominican convent Santa Caterina da Siena a Magnanapoli 2. The portrait shows the Duchess in formal dress adorned with ermine coat 3. She holds a small oval painting, elegantly framed, and indicates with her left hand a letter: Cariss.me Figlie L'amore, con cui riguardo Voi mie cariss.me Figlie, è ben quello che mi muove a fare a voi d. Livia il regalo d'un quadro che è Opera del S. Michel Ang.o Cippitelli rap: presentante S. Cattarina da Siena, accioche/ rimirando Voi spesso la Copia, sappiate rico piare in Voi stessa l'eroiche Virtù del Ori: ginale, come pure della med.a pausa son mossa a mandare a Voi D. Cammilla in do: no una delle sacre Reliquie del glorioso Patriarca S. Domenico, affinchè con sì forte aiuto cor: rispondendo Voi agli obblighi della Vostra vocazione vi rendiate ben degna Figlia di sì gran Padre. Cosi dunque si approfitti L'Una e L'Altra di Voi di questi nuovi pegni, che vi dà del suo affetto chi teneramente vi ama Casa 8. Ag.to 1747 Vrà affma Mre Maria Giust.ni Sforza Cesarini.
"Il Santo. rivista francescana di storia dottrina arte", 2023
This paper focuses on a relief with the Virgin of Mercy in the Museo Antoniano. Although the provenance is unknown, the presence of Franciscan friars among the devotees represented under the Virgin’s mantle points to a placement within the Santo, either the church or the convent. Furthermore, stylistic and formal characteristics suggest that the work, dating around mid-15th century, may be attributed to a sculptor from beyond the Alps, most likely the area of Salzburg. Moreover, the authors concentrate upon the gothic minuscule inscriptions placed in the lower part of the relief, within the symbol of the sun and the moon. The inscriptions have been identified as the absolute incipit and the beginning of the second quatrain of two popular Marian hymns, included in the Liturgia horarum. The hymns – recited respectively in the Lauds and the Matin of the Hail Mary – were originally part of a single hymn which scholars accredited to Venantius Fortunatus. Ancient sources also link these hymns to St. Anthony’s Marian devotion. The creation of a new text from twodifferent textual fragments, significantly integrated with the image, testifies to the sculptor’s ability as well as to the profound theological knowledge of those who conceived the relief.
Convent Networks in Early Modern Italy, 2020
Suor Teresa Berenice’s artistic oeuvre vividly testifies to the fact that, despite monastic enclosure, she studied from life not only exotic flora and fauna, and luxury objects such as Chinese porcelain and Mesoamerican búcaros, but also a number of paintings in the Medici collections. It will be demonstrated here that Suor Teresa Berenice’s ability to make reference to this wide range of subject matter stemmed from her advantageous family connections, and that her incorporation of these objects into her artistic imagery served to reinforce these family ties. Despite the Tridentine decrees legislating strict enclosure and the Church’s effort to sever nuns’ family attachments, art allowed Suor Teresa Berenice to cultivate a family identity within her convent (where she found herself among three other Vitelli relatives) and to remain vitally connected to her kin in the secular world.
NUN-SCRIBES AND THEIR COLOPHONS: FEMALE SELF-IDENTIFICATION AND REMEMBRANCE IN EARLY MODERN ITALY
Literary Snippets: Colophons Across Space and Time, 2023
Italian nuns produced thousands of manuscripts in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Colophon use became increasingly common in this period and nuns used these paratextural spaces to present themselves in a range of ways. Though generally dismissed as formulaic, a deeper analysis of these metatexts reveals information about nuns’ work, education, knowledge of texts, reading, and devotional practices, offering a unique view of cloistered women’s lives that is otherwise difficult to recover. The essay examines a range of colophon typologies, motives for writing, and describes how colophon language can be used to identify previously unidentified manuscripts produced by nun-scribes. *please note - there is a companion to this volume - Literary Snippets Reader due in 2024
Arcangela Tarabotti: A Literary Nun in Baroque Venice
Quaderni d'italianistica, 2007
In recent years, ample scholarly attention has been devoted to the intersection of women's religious vocation and the lay community in early modern Italy. Women's imposed religious devotion was determined in many cases by the inheritance sys-tem. It was common practice for young ...