Religious Women of Quattrocento Florence: Staying Out of Sight but Not Out of Mind

Circa 1480 the Abbess of the convent of Sant’ Ambrogio in Florence commissioned the artist Cosimo Rosselli, to paint the fresco Procession of the Holy Miracle in her convent church. In the painting the nuns of Sant’ Ambrogio gather on the threshold of the church before a crowd which includes portraits of well-connected Florentine men. Visible to the public the women break the church law mandating they live apart from secular society. Under my Globalink project I will investigate whether the fresco depicts the real-world secular network maintained by the nuns of Sant’ Ambrogio and affirms the women’s agency and engagement in urban society. Revealing the use of an artistic commission to promote the secular standing of a community of nuns in early modern Florence, I will advance feminist art history scholarship in the fields of patronage and identity in Canada. Disclosing strategies by which early modern women overcame gender barriers to build secure lives for themselves, I will contribute to contemporary studies of the strategies by which gender inequality is fostered and overcome.

Faculty Supervisor:

Steven Stowell

Student:

Partner:

The Medici Archive Project

Discipline:

Sociology

Sector:

Other

University:

Concordia University

Program: