Women, Art, and Spirituality: The Poor Clares of Early Modern Italy

Description

Women, Art, and Spirituality: The Poor Clares of Early Modern Italy situates the art made between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries for the Franciscan nuns in its historical and religious contexts. Evaluating its production from sociological and intellectual perspectives, this study also addresses the discourse among spirituality, devotional practices, and aesthetic attitudes as formalized in the construction and decoration of the women's convents and in their didactic literature.

"Wood's carefully crafted volume makes a significant contribution to our understanding of the art and architecture of the nuns of early modern Italy...Wood's book does much to expand our knowledge of convent life." Andrea Pearson, The Sixteenth Century Journal "Wood's Women, Art, and Spirituality: The Poor Clares of Early Modern Italy is a slight, elegant treatise on nuns in late medieval and Renaissance Italy who were very much agents of their own religious milieu. Wood's graceful explication of texts, art, and architecture is a model for historians and art historians alike. Her literate style...should be copied by dissertation-writers everywhere." Lisa M. Bitel, Journal of Women's History