by Donna DiGiuseppe in Early Modern Convents Sexual Innuendo … · 2019. 12. 14. · Sexual Innuendo and Female Autonomy in Early Modern Convents by Donna DiGiuseppe Convents in

69Sexual Innuendo and Female Autonomy

in Early Modern Convents

by Donna DiGiuseppe

Convents in late medieval and early Renaissance Italy were defactorepositories of girls not destined for marriage. Some girls enteredvoluntarily to pursue personal religious conviction, but most enteredconvents at the insistence of family, typically for purposes of dynastic orfinancial preservation, concentrating dowry funds on the mostsuccessfully marriageable daughters and more promising sons.1 In otherinstances, parents sent their daughters to convents as expressions of theirown religious conviction. Given the ubiquity of religious life for girls,convents captured by default a wide spectrum of personalities. As aninstitution, the convent made up a significant segment of the urbanpopulace, and the sheer number of nuns made for a comprehensive crosssection of the female population. That population reflected and respondedto the cultural and social changes of the early Renaissance, the best thatconvent restrictions pennifled. Convent culture itself transformed overtime to reflect changing societal perceptions of nuns in relation to theoutside world. Greater freedom in earlier centuries ceded to strictcloistering in the sixteenth century after the Council of Trent andanalogous regional laws literally walled off nuns from their families andall social contact.2 This paper explores whether official censure wasinfluenced by societal perceptions of nuns’ creative productivity withinconvent walls. While popular literature and moralists chose to emphasizethe exceptional cases of sexual activity in convents by portraying womenas deceitful and lustful, considerable positive creative activity wasoccurring within convents. This creativity was adversely affected by theclausura reforms designed to eliminate prohibited sexual activity.

In the erotic satire IRagionamenti or Dialogues, Piefro Aretino’s Nanna must decide the fateof her daughter—nun, whore, or wife—to which she is advised to “make her a nun. Just think,besides saving the three-fourths of her dowty, you’ll be adding another saint to the calendar.”Piefto Aretino, Dialogues, trans. Raymond Rosenthal (New York: Stein & Day, 1971), 16.2 Convent life under Clausura reforms of the sixteenth century can be contrasted with arelatively autonomous existence in the fifteenth century. For example, in the fifteenth century,individual convents frequently used their contacts with the outside world to solicit exceptionalpowers. In 1433, Simona di Giovanni di Panzano, abbess of the convent of Le Murate, sentdelegates to Pope Eugenius IV, who extended relative autonomy to the convent by investing theabbess with full administrative authority to oversee her convent. BNF 1111 509, fols lOr and13r-14r; cited in Kate Lowe, “Female Strategies for Success in a Male-Ordered World: TheBenedictine Convent of Le Murate in Florence in the Fifteenth and Early Sixteenth Centuries,”in Studies in Church History: Papers Read at the 1989 Summer Meeting and the 1990 WinterMeeting of the Ecclesiastical History Society, Vol. 27, ed. by W.J. Sheils and Diana Wood(Cambridge: Basil Blackwell Ltd., 1990), 215.

70 • Ex Post facto XVIPopular literature of the period projected an image of sexualLy active

nuns whose misbehavior was shielded by the seclusion of the convent.Nuns were simultaneously represented as naïve and sexuallyinexperienced, yet also as curious, rebellious and sexually rapacious. Inhis Decameron, Boccaccio tells the story of Masetto, a gardener whofeigns dumb and enters a convent renowned for holiness under the pretextof begging for food but with an excited longing for the nuns.3 In a nodtoward individual freedom, the narrator condemns societal expectations ofconvent celibacy by bemoaning those who fear the “diabolical evil” ofsexually active nuns.4 Throughout the story, sexual freedom is prized. Thenine nuns and Masetto work out a feasible share arrangement; offspringare discreetly raised within the convent, destined to become future nuns ormonks; and Masetto retires happily to his village on a sizeable pensionthat would not normally have been available to a man of his peasantorigins. However, the nuns are not just depicted as lustful, but also asindecisive, imprudent and shortsighted. They inconsistently supervised hiswork, dismissed breaking their vows as pro forma, and blatantly ignoredthe risks of pregnancy. This portrayal of the nuns mirrored a fear that,unchecked, the seclusion of the convent could provide an opportunity formisbehavior by women incapable of managing personal discretion. Andyet this message was delivered in the context of apparent approbation oftheir sexual freedom. The story sent a strong, albeit mixed, message thatwhile even the most pious nuns retained sexual desire, those who actedout those needs were untrustworthy.

In addition, the authority figure of the abbess is portrayed asmanipulative yet slow-witted, even though she typically would have beenhighly educated. An abbess would have substantial responsibilities, andwas arguably the only individually identifiable person within the convent.5She was depicted on one hand as denying Masetto adequatecompensation, instructing others to “[p]rovide him with a pair ofshoes.. wheedle him, pay him a few compliments”;6 and on the other, aseasily deceived by his subterfuge, as the last to appreciate Masetto’sulterior value, and as slow to realize her subordinates’ misconduct.Undermining a female authority figure is consistent with Boccaccio’streatment of strong women who exhibited authority and assertiveness

Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron, trans. G.H. McWilliam (London: Penguin Books, 2003), 194.Boccaccio, Decameron, 192.Kate Lowe argues that only when being elevated to rank of abbess, with an elaborately

celebrated election process, was an individual nun ever personally differentiated from thecorporate body. Kate Lowe, “Elections of Abbesses and Notions of Identity in Fifteenth- andSixteenth-Century Italy, with Special Reference to Venice,” in Renaissance Quarterly 54,(Summer 2001): 389429.floccaccio, Decameron, 195.

Donna DiGiuseppe

ExPostfactoXVl • 71rather than submission and modesty, a position reflecting conventionalexpectations for female behavior in the period.7

Francesco da Barberino told a similar tale of convent sexuallasciviousness in Reggimento e Costumi di Donne, yet to a less comedicend. Similar to Boccaccio’s tale, the sexual invader comes in subterfuge,although this time sent by Satan, with God’s permission, to test the virtueof the nuns.8 The nuns similarly reached a mutually beneficialarrangement to divide the intruder’s time so that alt could be satisfied.Here, too, the abbess was the last to know, but equally willing. The nunsall become pregnant, the townspeople storm the convent and theirrelatives stone them.9 Barberino’s version condemned the nuns’ sexualbehavior outright and served as a cautionary tale to warn that any nun whoengaged in sexual activity was defying God. But her punishment wouldnot just be meted out in heaven; rather she would be scorned by the largercommunity and abandoned and disciplined by her family as well. Incontrast, Boccaccio’s version was not strictly a cautionary tale as its happyending also provided entertainment value. Yet the condemnation, whilesubtler, was still evident in the unflattering characterizations of the nunsand the devaluation of the abbess. In both stories, the nuns had sex withmen who entered the convent through their own initiative, who remainedthere through subterfuge and the seclusion of the convent. The commonmessage between them was that convents provided both opportunity andcover for misbehavior, particularly sexual, and that women could not betrusted to exercise discretion within the isolated convents.

While these literary examples portrayed rampant sexual activity inconvents as the norm, cases of sexual rebellion were actually theexception. The literature highlighted the stereotype of the devious andlustful nature of women. Women were generally defined as lustful, andsexual misconduct as women’s primary sin.10 Generally, the perception of

In Famous Women, Boccaccio presented various stories of women and the influences of theirrespective accomplishments. One story was about Veturia, an ancient Roman matron who ssvedthe city of Rome from attack by convincing her own warrior son to withdraw. “If Rome’sliberty had not been aaved by her pleas, I would curse Veturis for the haughtiness that womenhave assumed as a result of her actions.” Instead of praising her persuasiveness andeffectiveness, Eoccaccio focused on the fact that she strayed from the ideal of modesty inaddressing her warrior son. She was criticized for not conforming to the ideal even whencontradicting it achieved the desired effect. Giovanni Boccaccio, Famous Women, trans. and ed.Virginia Brown (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001), 239.francesco da Barberino, Reggimento e Costumi di Donne, ed. Giuseppe E. Sansone (Rome:Zauli Artigrafiche, 1995), 135-137.“Tmevi il popolo della confrada; entrano dentin per forza: trovarono Ic douse co’ corpi grandi.Mettono mano alle pietre e, cosi Ii br parenti come Ii altri, Ic lapidarono.” Da flarberino,Reggimento, 137. See also Graciela S. Dsichman, Wayward Nuns in Medieval Literature(Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1986), 108.0 Ruth Karras has examined the legends behind medieval prostitute saints and reveals that outof a variety of moral imperfections, sexuality was woman’s sin. Thais’s moral imperfection waspride in her beauty which did not lead to jewelry theft; Mary the Egyptian’s desire to be freefrom parental control did not lead her to parricide; Afra’s paganism did not lead to idolatry;

Sexual Innuendo and female Autonomyin Early Modern Convents

72 • Ex Post facto XVIrebelliousness could easily be massaged from stereotypes of women’slustful nature, but regional differences also affected these perceptions.Preachers publicly likened the open convents of fifteenth-century Venice“not [to] monasteries but houses of prostitution and public brothels.”Venice at this time was most notable for documented, prosecuted illicitsexuality. Yet, it was one convent in particular, the belle of the nobleconvent, San Angelo di Contora, which garnered the infamy sufficient totarnish all convents. In an eighty-year time span, this one conventwitnessed over fifty prosecutions by secular authorities for illicit sex,vastly more than arose with any other convent in Venice, and this at a highpoint in Venetian libertine sexual acceptance. San Angelo was the conventof choice for noble families looking to place daughters in acceptable rolesbut without the ever-escalating dowry. So powerful were these families,that when the pope moved to shut the convent down, they successfullynegotiated a compromise to ensure continued open access for theirdaughters.’2 There were also demonstrated isolated cases of sexual activitybased on admissions. The convent of San Zaccaria in Venice witnessedthe admission of one nun, Laura Quenni, who made a hole in the conventwall to admit her lover, and testiffed that, “I fell in love with him, and Iinduced him to love me. I used every means to make him love me.”t3However, rather than supporting the depiction of the whonng sister-saint,this case perhaps better exemplifies the broken heart of a girl forced into areligious life that was not her calling.

Other opportunities for sexual scandal at convents involved the semipublic celebrations of Abbess’ elections. Two disparate yet notableinstances, one at Santa Maria delle Vergini in 1430 and the other at SantaMaria Celeste in 1509, involved large groups of men who stormed theconvents during abbess election festivities. In each instance, scandalevolved from the violation of the sanctity of the convent by maleoutsiders, reminiscent of both Boccaccio’s Massetto and Barberino’sSatan. The result of these violations was a perceived need to heighten

legend describing Mary Magdalene’s as a wealthy noble did not lead her to overindulgence. Allthese women’s diverse sins led them to be regarded as sexual sinners. Ruth Karras, “HolyHarlots: Prostitute Saints in Medieval Legend,” in Journal of the History of Sexuality (1990):17, citing Luke 8:2, Mark 16:9, John 20:17, Luke 10:38-42, Luke 7:37-38. See also RuthKarras, Common Women: Prostitution and Sexuality in Medieval England (New York: OxfordUniversity Press, Inc., 1996), 111.Victoria Jane Pdmhsk, “Women in Religious Communities: the Dunedictine Convents in

Venice” (Ph.D. diss., University of London, 1991), 248, citing D.M.S., I, col.836, December25, 1497. Primhak notes that this Christmas day sermon was attended by the Doge and theSenate of Venice and was put in a context of blaming the nuns’ moral laxity for a plagueoutbreak.2 Guido Ruggiero, The Boundaries of Eros: Sex Crime and Sexuality in Renaissance Venice(New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), 82-85, citing Flaminio Corner, Ecclesiae VenetaeAntiguis Monumentis (Venice, 1794) vol. 1, 5-7.‘ Msiy Laven, Virgins of Venice (New York: Viking Penguin, 2003), 186-187.14 Kate Lowe, “Elections of Abbesses,” 405.

Donna DiGiuseppe

Ex Post facto XVI • 73security within the convent rather than enforcing a code of behavior uponthe male citizenry:

[alit other fatigue and diligence is useless without caesura, Iknow that this would reduce the monasteries to obedience ofHoly Worship, to honesty, and free these monasteries andthis illustrious city, so zealous by nature, from so muchinfamy which has already reached the ears of foreignPrinces’5

Ironically, these church and secular leaders viewed clausura as the meansto give nuns greater freedom. However, this freedom was realized at theexpense of their personal liberties.

Outside of these specifically documented cases evidence is oftenlimited, anecdotal, and speculative, even while summarized aslegendary.16 One study evaluating the known cases of sexual prosecutionsconcludes that there is scant evidence of sexual violations. Rather, thecrimes consisted primarily of escaping the convent for family visits.’7Another study concurs that at times, this legendary immorality amountedto nothing other than a nun who snuck home to visit family members.’8 Itis important to distinguish between the perceived immoralities of a nunventuring outside of the convent because it violated the sanctity of theconvent, from the sexual nature of the exceptional cases derived from alustful stereotype ofwomen.

The sexualized stereotype to which convent life was reduced alsoresulted in a misrepresentation of the positive creative productionoccurring in Renaissance convents. As will be explored later, considerableart was created by women in convents, even under conditions unfavorableto artistic growth. While this artistic production was wholly of a religiousnature and utterly orthodox within counter-reformation Italy, sexualizedstereotypes tainted the popular perception of this art. In his Dialogues,Aretino portrayed one mother’s agonizing decision of whether to devoteher daughter to a life as nun, whore, or wife. Aretino’s ribald descriptionportrays a girt who has entered the convent, saddened by the loss of her

° “ogn’altrs fatica e duligentia e inutile dico Ia clausura, questa so Ia e quell ache ridurra IcMonache alla obedientia al culto divina, all’onesta et a hberar essi monastery et questaillustrissima Citta unto zelante persua natura dell’honor di Dio de tanto infamia honnai postanella oreechia de Principe ested.” A. Curia Pat., Act. Gen. Coil. Al. N.14, cited in PrimhakDissertation, 248.6 Victoria Jane Primhak “Women in Religious Communities,” 244 citing Guido Ruggiero, TheBoundaries ofEros. Primhak concludes that “certainly this luxury and laxity associated with theconventual houses was not without foundation, even though detailed sources are difficult to find.”° Laven, Virgins of Venice, 157.‘ Primhak cites the Patriarch of Venice who, in 1509 decried the “nuns who outside theconvents wander through the city and in the homes of the laity, in Piazza San Marco and inother places, dressed in a secular manner to the great scandal of the whole city, infamy of theconvents, and offence to the divine majesty.” Primhsk “Women in Religious Communities”248, citing BibI. Correr, Cicogna 2583, May 23, 1509, f.14.

Sexual Innuendo and Female Autonomyin Early Modern Convents

74 • Ex Post facto XVIfamily, and afraid that she was stepping into a grave of austerity andfasting. She found, on the contrary, a richly laden table and the companyof “a troop of monks, friars, and a few laymen—the most handsome, well-groomed, gay young men I have ever laid eyes on.”19 Its walls were notcovered with religious art, but rather with paintings, which would havemade, “a hypocrite stop and stare.” Full of sexual overtones, the storydescribes one painting of St. Nafissa, the patron saint of whores, singingthe song entitled “What is My Love Doing That He Does Not Come.” Thenext painting is of St. Nafissa satisfying the people of Israel, this timeportrayed as a generous host taking her guests on a journey full of sexualinnuendo. Another painting is of Boccaccio’s Masetto. In a story within astory, Aretino’s characters enjoy their recount of Boccaccio’s Masetto anda canonization of the convent inserted into the original story. Anotherpainting portrays all the nuns of the order with their lovers and children.The final painting shows “all the various modes and avenues by which onecan flick and be flicked. In fact, before beginning their jousts with theirpartners, the nuns must try to assume the same positions in life as the nunspainted in the picture.”2° Aretino was himself the son of a reputedlybeautiful courtesan who modeled for a number of sculptors and painters.While he was believed to have run away from home at the age of thirteen,his early years may have given him insight into how female prototypesconstrained—or constructed—women’s opportunities for personalexpression. The Dialogues perpetuate a perception that the art withinconvents reflected a lascivious, rather than pious, culture. Not only wasthe art of convents entirely pious in nature, its realism was crippled bylack of male figures to copy.

Whether the perceived need for convent reform was based on fact orfiction, convents did not escape the scrutiny of the Council of Trentwhich, in its twenty-fifth and final session, turned the eye of counterreformation reforms toward the convents. The issues related to conventsfell into three groups: the need for stricter moral discipline; forcedprofessions for girls, in particular, but also widows; and the election ofabbesses. The perceived need to restore discipline was evident in severalways. First, the council reiterated the need for strict observance of allreligious rules and vows.21 Next, it articulated the need to reinforcecloistering, to “restore” the enclosure of nuns wherever violated,referencing another document, the constitution of Boniface VIII, whichdescribed the issue as periculoso.22 The Council called for bothecclesiastic censure and any necessary secular enforcement. No nun waspermitted to leave the monastery without the express permission of the

° Aretino, Dialogues, 19.20 Aretino, Dialogues, 22-24.21 Rev. 11.3. Schroeder, 0.?., trans., Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent (Rockford,Illinois: Tan Books and Publishers, Inc., 1978), 218.22 Schroeder, Council of Trent, 220.

Donna DiGiuseppe

Ex Post facto XVI • 75bishop.23 No outsider of any social or economic status was permitted toenter a monastery without the permission of a bishop or superior. Specialnote was made of the danger of convents located outside town walls, andtheir exposure to “rapacity” and crimes of evil men. One thinks ofMasettoleaving his village to go to work for the nuns outside the town walls. Inresponse, bishops were to move nuns to convents within cities.24 Theenclosure of the convent was to be so strict that bishops presiding overabbess elections were to hear votes from a small grated window to theoutside. Nuns were to attend monthly confession in order to strengthentheir resolve against attacks by the devil, and to attend extraordinaryconfession two to three times a year with the bishop.

Perhaps acknowledging the cause and effect that forced cloisteringhad on moral conviction and the behavior of nuns, the council specificallyaddressed the forced profession of girls and dedicated a separate chapterforbidding forced profession of any woman.25 The practice of ‘daughterdumping’ in convents was to be safeguarded against by a bishop or hisdelegate, querying all girls seeking the habit, specifically to confirm thatshe understood and desired the calling.26 At the time of thesepronouncements, the second half of the sixteenth century, Italy wasexperiencing dowry inflation, which made the less taxing dowryrequirements of the church more appealing to the girls’ families.27

The final area of convent regulation that the Council of Trentaddressed was the election of abbesses. To be elected abbess, one neededto meet certain age and experience requirements, forty years of age witheight years of experience, or if unobtainable, thirty years of age with fiveyears of experience. In addition, abbesses were prohibited from overseeingmore than one convent.28 Certain regional secular legislation alsocontrolled the process of the abbess election. Venice establishedprocedures to keep nuns from conferring together during the election andrequired male oversight of the election process.29 Two competingsentiments emerged. On one hand, distrust of nuns’ discretion led tolegislation requiring male oversight of the election process. On the other,

23 Enclosing convents as a method of controlling nuns did not originate at the Council of Trent;in 1260 a Sister Cecilia described Dominic’s efforts to enforce enclosure as necessaty for agood convent. Miracula B. Dominici cited by Brenda M Bolton, “Daughters of Rome; All Onein Christ Jesus,” in Studies in Church History.- Papers Read at the 1989 Summer Meeting andthe 1990 Winter Meeting of the Ecclesiastical History Society, Vol. 27, ed. Wi. Sheils andDiana Wood (Cambridge: Basil Blackwell Ltd., 1990), 105, f.n. 36. Requirements for enclosurevaried regionally and over time.Schroeder, Council of Trent, 221.

25 Schroeder, Council of Trent, 228-229.26 Schroeder, Council of Trent, 228.27 Jutta Sperling has analyzed patrician dowries of sixteenth-century Venice compared to theannual income of a skilled artisan: tens of thousands of ducats compared to approximately fiftyducata. Jutta Sperling, Convents and the Body Politic in late Renaissance Venice (Chicago:University of Chicago Press, 1999), 34.29 Schroeder, Council of Trent, 222.29 Lowe, “Elections of Abbesses,” 395.

Sexual Innuendo and Female Autonomyin Early Modern Convents

76 • Ex Post facto XVItotal seclusion of nuns was valued highly enough to necessitate the use ofa grate to distance the nuns from their overseers. Both effectively limitedthe autonomy of the body of nuns by restricting their self-determinationwithin the convent power structure.

Secular authorities also regulated the freedom of nuns. Venicerestricted the autonomy of convents by legislating clausura well beforethe Council of Trent. In 1514 the highest legislative body in Venice, theCouncil of Ten, enacted a law requiring perpetual seclusion, although withvarious exception for close family members.3° Florence began legislatingconvent restrictions over a century before the Council of Trent. In 1435,the Officials of the Curfew and Convents declared that God afflicted theworld with war, disease, and calamity as a direct response to nuns’ sexualmisconduct. They further declared that the physical enclosure and isolatednature of the convent, including complete prohibition for any outsider toenter, was necessary for the nuns to serve God with their virginity. Whilethe sexual misdeeds of nuns was assigned direct responsibility for God’swrath, the document blamed men for transforming nuns, “from virtue intodishonor, from chastity into luxury, and from modesty into shame 31

“Liberty” would be the reward for the strictly encloistered nuns. Incontrast to the calamities directly attributed to nuns’ perceived sexualmisconduct, the penalty for a priest who regularly violated the cloister wasa six month jail sentence and a thirty form fine to be distributed to thepoor.32 In another case, a layperson, described as a youth from Nami, waspenalized with public flogging through the streets of Florence andimprisonment until he could pay a fine of five hundred lire or theamputation of his left foot if he could not.33 In a case reminiscent ofMasetto’s garden, Michele di Piero Mangioni, a mason who didoccasional work for a convent, was described as having multiplerelationships at the convent, some, apparently coercive, with Mangioni“seizing” nuns, and once purportedly, “incited to lust by that nun.”34Michele did his penance by walking a penitential procession on the feastday St. John the Baptist and by making a “peace agreement” with theabbess and nuns of the convent, presumably not modeled after theagreement Masetto negotiated. The nuns in these cases were most likelyissued internal discipline or penances, as the secular cases do not mentionany recourse to the nuns. Another case involved a reformed prostituteturned nun, who portrayed her pimp as having daily access to the convent

° Council of Ten, August 9, 1514, in Giuliani, Genesi” p. 149 cited in Jutta Sperling,Convents and the Body Politic, 126.‘ ASF, Guidice degfl Appelli, 79, part 2, fots. 68r-69r, cited in Bmcker, 207. Given lack ofaccess to unpublished documents in Italian archives, this paper relies on secondary sources aspdmaty sources for archival documents.32A5f, Archi rio NolarileAntecosimiano, F 334, vol.1, fols, 41r-42r, October 17, 1410, cited in Bmcker, 207-208.‘ ASF, Atti del Capitano, 2523 bis, fols. 9r-I It, August 22, 1423, cited in Gene Bmcket The SocietyofRenaissance Florence: A Documentary Study (New York: Harper & Row, Inc., 1971), 208.ASF, Provvisioni, 132, fols.109v-l lIt, June, 1441, cited in Brucker, Society ofRenaissance Florence, 209.

Donna DiGiuseppe

Ex Post facto XVI • 77and repeated opportunities for coerced sex with the nuns. Apparentlyfeeling cheated of his investment, the pimp sought, and was awarded,fifteen forms from his former prostitute and was banished from Florencefor three years.35 The inconsistent penalties issued in these cases may stemfrom the thirty-year time span from which they were derived. However,the lack of consistency more likely belies the ad hoc nature of theproceedings due to their exceptional nature, contrary to the prevailingperception that the misconduct was a regular occurrence.

While the spectrum of the female population living in convents led toinstances of sexual activity on which church and commentators fixated, italso led to a significant output of creative work. Some evidence of femaleartistic production has been obscured because nuns shied away fromsigning their work, and consequently, some pieces may never beaccurately attributed. But convent art also suffered from the same reluctantsocial acceptance that woman artists received in the secular world. AsVasari put it, “[n]or have they been too proud to set themselves with theirlittle hands, so tender and so white. . .braving the roughness of marble andthe unkindly chisels 36 However, there remains evidence ofconsiderable artistic production by nuns relative to the limited female artproduced in general. One compilation of sixteenth-century Italian womenartists identifies thirty-nine artists total, of which fourteen are designated“Suor.” One of these fourteen entries refers to multiple artists from theconvent of San Vicenzio of Prado.37 While such numbers do not competewith the production of male Renaissance artists, they arguably reflect amore ambitious spirit, given prejudices against women’s artisticproductivity.

One notable artist nun from the fifteenth century was Saint CatherineVigri. Born to a noble family of Fenara, Saint Catherine founded andserved as abbess of Corpus Domini in Bologna. In addition to painting,she wrote, and was written about—another nun, Suor Illuminata, wroteher biography. Not only was Catherine of Vigri’s work entirely devotionalin nature, she argued that Jesus was the most proper subject matter for art,as opposed to ornamental “flowers and branches.”38 Her convent was alsoprolific in book ,roduction, including publishing editions of her Le SetteArmi Spirituati.3

ASF, Giudice degli Appelli, 80, fols. 151r-152r, June 2, 1439, cited in Brucker, Society ofRenaissance Florence, 211.36 Giorgio Vasari, The Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects, trans.Gaston du C. de Vere (New York: Harry N. Abrams Inc., 1979), 1044-1045.Fredriks H. Jacobs, Defining the Renaissance Virtuosa: Women Artists and the Language of

Art History and Criticism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 165.Specchio de illuminalione, fol. 41, cited in Jeiyldene M. Wood, ‘Breaking the Silence: The Poor

Clams and the Visual Arts in Fifteenth-Century Italy,” Renaissance Quarterly 48, No.2(1995): 273-274.Katherine Gill, “Women and the Production of Religious Literature in the Vernacular, 1300-

1500,” in Creative Women in Medieval and Early Modern Italy, ed. E. Ann Matter and JohnCoakley (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994), 68, in which Gill outlines

Sexual Innuendo and female Autonomyin Early Modern Convents

7$ • Ex Post facto XVIVasan’s Vite mentions Suor Plautilta Nelli, a nun and Prioress of the

Convent of Santa Catenna da Siena in Florence. Contrary to Aretino’sportrayal of convent art as lascivious, the work produced at Santa Caterinawas entirely religious in nature. Vasan described her as one of manywomen in history who rose above the tedium of domestic work for whichhe considered all women to be ideally suited.4° He identified variouscelebrated pieces by Plautilla: two panels in the Church of the Convent ofSanta Caterina, particularly her Magi Adoring Jesus; choir panels in theConvent of S. Lucia in Pistoia; a Last Supper in the refectory of theConvent of Santa Caterina, pieces at San Giovannino and at Santa Mariadel Fiore in Florence; and altar pieces and a large panel in the Hospital ofLelmo. He also noted her many pieces owned privately, which he felt toonumerous to detail.41 Vasari recognized the traditional importance ofstudying under and imitating great masters in training artists, andacknowledged Plautilla’s limited training opportunities in relation to hermale contemporaries.42 He identified Plautilla’s technical skill atrepresenting female facial features as much more realistic than herrepresentation of male figures and attributed this difference to herinsufficient exposure to men. He contrasted her skills to that of SofonisbaAnguissola, who earned her place as a resident artist on the court ofPhillip II of Spain on the one hand as a “miracle,” but on the other, as aresult of Sofonisba’s opportunity to copy the works of masters to perfecther technical skill. This contrast implied that Sofonisba had morepersonal, and therefore professional, freedom outside the convent than didPlautilla within it. It further implied that Plautilla’s artistic creativitywithin the convent was crippled by her lack of exposure to men. Eventhough popular literature advanced the notion of the lascivious nun, inreality, the nun artist was disadvantaged by a lack of male models. Vasariwas not alone in recognizing the tangible effect of limited trainingopportunity for women artists, particularly for cloistered nuns. FraSerafino Razzi, a sixteenth-centuiy Dominican Friar and historian,profusely praised Plautilla’s skill particularly given her lack of trainingopportunities.43

various convents responsible for manuscript and book production, including San Jocopo diRipoli in Florence, Monteluce in Perugia, Santa Caterina al Monte and Santa Lucia in foligno.° Vasari, Lives, 1046.Vasari, Lives, 1047.“The best works from her hand are those that she has copied from others, wherein she shows

that she would have done marvelous things if she had enjoyed, as men do, advantages forstudying, devoting herself to drawing, and copying living and natural objects. And that this istrue is seen clearly from a picture of the Nativity of Christ, copied from one which Bronzinoonce painted for Filippo Salviati.” Vasati, Lives, 1047.“Suor Plautills Nelli, Fiorentina, Monsca del Monastero di Santa Caterina da Siens da

Firenze, oltre aIls bontà e puritã dells vita, che replende singolsrmente in tutte Ic suore di quellReverendo collegio, è stats cia nostro Signore Iddlo dotata dun ingegno sopra l’ordinario delledonne. Imperocche nella professione della pittura, senza mai essere istara do veruno instrutta,ha fatto opere, che hsnno recato maraviglie a’ I primi artefici di cotsle professione nella sua

Donna DiGiuseppe

ExPostfactoXVl • 79In the absence of traditional training opportunities, or even live male

figures to copy, cloistered nuns learned from each other. The convent ofSanta Caterina in Florence, and Suor Plautilla Nelli in particular, attracteda following and the convent has long been noted for its creative work.Razzi named three nuns of Santa Caterina as disciples of Plautilla, SuorPrudenza Cambi, Suor Agata Trabalesi, Suor Maria Ruggieñ, and threeothers as additional producers: Suor Veronica, Suor Dionisia Niccolini,and his sister Suor Maria Angelica Razzi. Other sixteenth-centuryconvents known for artistic production included San Vincenzo of Prato,San Domenico in Lucca, and San Giorgio in Lucca.45 Manuscriptiltuminators include fifteenth-century Suor Angela dei Rucellai andsixteenth-century Suor Lucrezia di Francesco Panciatichi.46

The Convent of Santa Caterina was devoted to the martyrdom of theDominican moralist preacher Savonarola. Savonarola’s influence on thecreative autonomy of nuns was checkered, however, he certainly inspiredthe work of Suor Nelli and influenced one nun’s composition of laude.One of the more significant pieces attributed to Suor Nelli depictsSavonarola asking the Madonna to intercede on behalf of Florence.47 Yet,these pieces were produced in the later half of the sixteenth century,several generations after his 1496 execution, which was certainly enoughtime for his reputation to be rehabilitated by his devotees. However,Savonarola was generally acknowledged for his attack on decadentFlorentine culture under Medici rule. In 1495 he fiercely sermonizedagainst the art of Le Murate in Florence, one of the more prosperousconvents of his era.48 In that sermon, Savonarola drew a direct connectionbetween Le Murate’s art and sin, associating their art and their music withscandal, vanity, Satan, and openness to men.49 He imputed sexual

citth di Firenze.” Razzi, Isloria de gil Huomini Iliustri, Lucca, Busdrago, 1596, 369-372, ascited in Suor Plautilla Nelli (1 523-1588): The First Woman Painter ofFlorence: Proceedings of’the Symposium Florence-Fiesole, May 27, 1998, ed. Jonathan Nelson (Fiesole: Cadmo srI., 2000), Appendix II.“Razzi, Istoria de gil ifuomini Illustri, Lucca, Busdrago, 1596, 369-3 72, as cited in Nelson,Suor Plautilla Nelli, Appendix II.Catherine Turrill, “Compagnie and Discepole: The Presence of Other Women Artists at Santa

Caterina da Siena,” in Nelson, Suor Plautilla Nelli, 83-102, 85.46Tll “Compagnie and Discepole,” 85.‘° Included in the Appendix. Thin painting, which remains at the convent of San Domenico inFiesole, is attributed to Suor Nelli by Catherine Turrill, but Andrea Muzzi attributes it to ZanobiPoggini. Turrill, “Compagnie and Discepole,” 123.Le Murate produced exceptional embroidety, gold and silver Agnus Dci, plaster sculpture

and manuscripts. Its abbesses were adept at fundraising by giving these items to famous patronssuch as the queen of Portugal. ASF, CRS 81, 100, 241r, April 15, 1501; ASF, CRS 81,100,212r, September 24, 1508, ASF, CRS 81,100, 324r, ASF, CRS 81, 100, 198r as cited in KateLowe, Nuns’ Chronicles and Convent Culture in Renaissance and Counter-Reformation Italy(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 265.“Jo ye lo dico, perche vol vi scandalizzate. . else fauno d’oro e d’argente, e loro libriccini;

secondo, se aono murate, debbono stare come hanno il nome. E dico che quests e una cosapesaima ad aprire ai signod che vi vadino. 10 ao ancora io chi sono e cortigiani, che sono comeusa galla leggied e ho detto loro che quello canto figurato l’ha trovato Satannasso e che legettino vi queati libri di canti e organi. . .Cosi dico delle alice monache, che tutte bishogna che

Sexual Innuendo and Female Autonomyin Early Modern Convents

80 • Ex Post facto XVIinnuendo to their work when he denounced their little gloves and linenstrimmed with gold with a reference to Signon in their bedrooms, but it hasalso been argued that Savonarola was not opposed to religious art. Heused woodcuts in the pamphlets he designed to compliment his sermons.50Some scholars believe that Savonarola introduced the practice of paintingto the Dominican Convent of Santa Caterina in Pistoia.5’ How can weexplain the disparity between Savonarola’s criticism of the art of the nunsof Le Murate and his alleged encouragement of art at Santa Caterina inPistoia? Savonarola simply may have been politically motivated becausethe Medici supported Le Murate and he garnered much of his influence byfilling a power void left after the Medici expulsion from Florence in1494.52 Alternatively, perhaps it was not the art of Le Murate, but rathertheir self-made success and their artistic autonomy that instigated hissuspicions.53 Perhaps it was not Savonarola, but rather his conventdevotees themselves, fully immersed in the art culture of the ItalianRenaissance, who inspired their own art.

A connection between the independent spirit of art-producingconvents like Santa Catenna and the perceived need to strictly enclosethem and truncate their independence may be seen in their vocal dissentfrom enclosure dictates and the response their dissent provoked. Theprioress of Santa Catenna documented her convent’s dissent fromclausura. In her “Ricordi e Memorie Attenenti at Monastero di S.Caterina,” she describes her parlay with a Reverend Father AlessandroRiuccini in which she argued that the convent’s rules and constitutionexcused them from clausura requirements. She protested that they did notwant to live that way.54 In response, he called her “arrogant,”55 an aptly

tomino a quests simplicita. Cosi vol donne, che avete tanti guancialini e tanti Ienzuoli conreticelle d’oro; e vol Signori che avete colassu in queue vostre camere, tante vanith, quelle sonecose da donne. lo voglio bene che voi stiate decentemente come Signori, ma uno poco piusemplici.” Girolamo Savonarola, Prethche Sopra I Salmi, ed. Angelo Belardetti (Rome:Edizione Nationale delle Opere di Girolamo Savonarola, 1969), 181-183. Kate Lowe haswritten extensively about Le Murate and her work directed me to this quote. “Female Strategiesfor Success in a Male-Oriented World,” 216.50 A. Hyatt Mayor, “ Renaissance Pamphleteers Savonarola and Luther” in The MetropolitanMuseum ofArt Bullitin, New Series, Vol. 6, No. 2 (1947), 66-72.Andrea Muzzi, “The formation of Plautills Nelli dipintora’: Artistic ‘Dhlettantismo’ and Ssvonarola’s

Ideas in the Convent,” in Nelson, Suer Plautilla tIelli (1523-1588), 33. She states in a footnote that,‘according to Savonarolan tradition, the preacher had introduced the practice of painting into the convent”52 Patrick Macey, “Infiamma ii mb cor: Savonarolan Laudc by and for Dominican Nuns inTuscany,” in The Crannied Wall: Women, Religion and the Artr in Early Modern Europe, ed.Craig Monson (Ann Arbor: University ofMichigan Press, 1992), 163.Unsigned pieces from the Convent of Le Mutate, housed today in the library of Major JR.

Abbey, are included as number (5) and (6) in the Appendix; J.A. 6991, f. 83v (Florence: 1510)and J.A. 6991, f. l29v-30 (Florence, 1510) both reproduced in J.J.G. Alexander and A.C. de IaMare, ed., The Italian Manuscripts in the Library ofMajor IR. Abbey (New York: Frederick A.Praeger, 1969), plates F and LXXV.“Nob non aiamo in clausura ma habbiamo Ia noatra Regola et costiustione confinnate da papa

Paulo 3 Ic quale non ci obbligono a clausura; non l’habbiamo et non Ia vuogliamo.” A.S.F.,C.R.S., 106, reprinted in Nelson, Suor Plautilla Nelli (1 523-1588), Appendix II.

Donna DiGiuseppe

Ex Post facto XVI • 81telling adjective reflecting the expectation that a woman, moreover a nun,should submit and accept restrictions imposed from above. Herwillingness to record this volley and insult reflect that what Riucciniviewed as arrogance, the Prioress saw as a positive assertion oflegitimately acquired rights. It may also have reflected the independentstreak that fueled the creative spirit of the convent. The nuns may alsohave protected their degree of freedom for the sake of economic survival.Some convents were increasingly impoverished by the effects of clausura,both from reduced donations from family and from eliminatedopportunities for outside earning, primarily begging.56 Even so, as late as1617, more than a quarter of a century after the Council of Trent, theconvent of Santa Caterina was still cataloguing works of art and theirvalues on the open market. Yet, incomes had diminished, ranging fromfive scudi for “La Testa della Madonna con le Mani” to twenty fivedenari for a “Magi ne Angeli.”57 Account books show much higherearnings at Santa Caterina before the clausura effects took hold. SuorNelli’s highest earning 1ear, 1562, yielded 282 lire and totaled 890 lireover a five year period.5

Examples of nuns’ creative work can be found not only in painted artbut also in original music, particularly in Savonarolan laude. Onepreserved piece was composed by Santa Caterina de’ Ricci, a nun whojoined the convent of San Vincenzo in Florence in 1536. A diarist’saccount tells of her deathbed visions of Savonarola in 1540 that lifted herto recovery and inspired her composition.59 Her lyrics were entirelydevotional and consistent with other laude written by, or in honor of,Savonarola. However, a collection of laude texts published in Venice anddedicated to her included an introductory note by the printer stating thatnuns’ singing of laude in convents had devolved into shocking, innuendofilled songs.6° While it is curious how a Venetian printer would knowwhat lyrics the nuns of Tuscany were singing in their convents, it is likelythat he was projecting his expectations onto them consistent with thesexual innuendo frequently attached to nuns’ artistic production.

“Allora detto Reverendo veachovo venne in tale fisria else si rivolse alla priora et gil disse cheera superba arrogante altiera et gli darebbe ii castigo che meritava.” AS.F., CR5., 106,reprinted in Nelson, Suor Plaulilla Nelli (1523-1588), Appendix II.56 Silvia Evangelisti, “Art and the Advent of Clausura: The Convent of Saint Catherine of Sienain Tridentine Florence,” in Nelson, Suor Plautilla Nelli (1523-1588), 68 and 76.A.S.F., CRSGF 106, n. 80, fslza 3, reprinted in Nelson, Suor Plautilla Nelli (1523-1588), Appendix 11.Caroline Murphy, “Plautilla Nelli, Between Cloister and Client: A Study in Negotiation,” in

Nelson, Suor Plautilla Nelli (1523-1588), 60. Twelve denari equaled one soldo and twentysoldi equaled one Lira. [Flotins were used for international cornmerce.JGuglielmo Dominico di Agreati, “Diario of Fra Modesto Maui” in Santa Caterin de ‘Ricci:

Tesimonianze sull’eta giovenile, Collana Ricciana, Fonti 1 (Florence: Olachki, 1963) 98-99cited in Patrick Macey, “Infiamma ii mb Car: Savonarolan Laude by and for Dominican Nunsin Tuscany,” in Crannied Wall, ed. Craig Monaon, 174-175.° Libro Primo delle Laudi Spirituali (Venice: Giunti, 1563) cited in Macey, “Infiamma ii mbCor.,” in Monson, Crannied Wall, 194.

Sexual Innuendo and female Autonomyin Early Modern Convents

82 • Ex Post facto XVINuns’ music was specifically targeted by post-Tridentine reformers

and did not escape the clausura effort to wall off nuns from any publiccontact. In later periods, Bolognese nuns were banned from singing inorgan lofts in order to keep them out of view. They responded diligently,by recording “[h]ow on December 22, 1584 our organ was removed fromits place facing the outer church, by order from Rome applicable to all theconvents of Bologna. And, as a sign of obedience, we sisters had itremoved and had the spot solidly walled up, to the entire satisfaction ofour illustrious Archbishop Paleotti.”61 This proclamation stands as a tooobvious example of how convent creativity was targeted by the church inits effort to limit nuns’ personal freedom. Yet, it would be further infusedwith a perception of scandalous behavior. A decade later, this samePaleotti would associate traditional solenm music with scandal, “becausein our city it is the practice for the nuns to perform such sorts of solemnmusic, which are the cause of many scandalous disorders, as weexperience daily, therefore I would ask your excellency.. .to prohibitsolemn music.”62 Given that Paleotti admitted the traditional practice andsolemn content of the music, it is hard to imagine to what scandal he isreferring. One can only surmise that the daily scandal was the fact that themusic reached the ears of outside listeners, thereby violating clausura andthe sanctity of the convent. It is in examples such as this that one can seehow benign, even pious, behavior of nuns was contorted into an image ofmisbehavior, perpetuating stereotypes of women as lascivious. Evenmusic for mere entertainment was cast as profane to the outside world.One visitor reported that “[s]ometimes the nuns sing profane songs, andthey play the guitar and the lute, and they dress up as men in order to puton plays... It is ordered that they should not wear secular clothes whenthey perform plays.”63 One scholar views this as an example of the type offreedom that clausura provided for creative expression, as if nuns isolatedfrom the world escaped scrutiny.TM However, that this particular instancewas both reported and resulted in an order proscribing their performance,argues to the contrary. Their creative efforts were both scrutinized andcurtailed because it was believed that their creativity was infused withinnuendo even when they performed only for each other.

While a causal connection between Renaissance nuns’ art andcloistering cannot be strictly proven, a connection was frequently evidentamong female autonomy in convent art production, the sexual innuendothat often colored the positive creative work, and church and secularsuppression of nuns’ personal freedom. Convent art is a critical factor in

61Bologna, Archivio di Stato Demanisle 31/5845, fol. 18r. cited in Craig Monson,“Disembodied Voices; Music in the Nunneries of Bologna in the Midst of the CounterReformation,” in Monson, The Crannied Wall, 194.62hivio Segreto Vaticano, Sacra Congregazione dci Vescovi e Regolari, posizione 1593,lettere B-C, cited in Monson, “Disembodied Voices,” 195.63 ACPV, Vis Psst.. Priuli, 1592-96, Mfracoli, 1595, fo. 369r. cited in Lsven, Virgins of Venice, 140.64 Lsven, Virgins of Venice, 140.

Donna DiGiuseppe

Ex Post facto XVI • 83the question of whether women had a Renaissance. It is evident thatconvent women were affected by the importance of art in ItalianRenaissance society given the considerable amount and variety of artproduced. Yet it was produced within a narrowly permissible range. Nuns’work was subjected to the cultural limitations placed on women generallyand then repeatedly infused with sexual innuendo, when, in reality,convents were not even producing humanist, secular art, let alone work oflascivious nature. The art produced in convents was consistently oforthodox, religious subject matter, wholly undeserving of the images ofAretino or the sermons of Savonarola. What little freedom nuns had forpersonal or creative expression in earlier centuries was not curtailedbecause of the exceptional cases of misbehavior, but because culturalprejudices against women were projected onto their creative output.

Sexual Innuendo and female Autonomyin Early Modern Convents