By Craig A. Monson (NHC Fellow, 1992–93) Piecing together 200 years of convent history, this engaging narrative tells the story of the nuns of Santa Cristina della Fondazza—gifted singers, instrumentalists, and composers who used music to circumvent ecclesiastical authority and to forge links with the world beyond convent walls. Craig Monson reconstructs the daily lives … Continued
By Gianna Pomata (NHC Fellow, 2003–04)
By Sharon T. Strocchia (NHC Fellow, 1998–99; 2015–16) The 15th century was a time of dramatic and decisive change for nuns and nunneries in Florence. In the course of that century, the city’s convents evolved from small, semiautonomous communities to large civic institutions. By 1552, roughly one in eight Florentine women lived in a religious … Continued
By K. J. P. Lowe (NHC Fellow, 2000–01) This well-illustrated book analyses convent culture in sixteenth-century Italy through the medium of three unpublished nuns' chronicles.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 … Continued