Nuns Behaving Badly

Nuns Behaving Badly PDF Author: Craig A. Monson
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226534626
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
Witchcraft. Arson. Going AWOL. Some nuns in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Italy strayed far from the paradigms of monastic life. Cloistered in convents, subjected to stifling hierarchy, repressed, and occasionally persecuted by their male superiors, these women circumvented authority in sometimes extraordinary ways. But tales of their transgressions have long been buried in the Vatican Secret Archive. That is, until now. In Nuns Behaving Badly, Craig A. Monson resurrects forgotten tales and restores to life the long-silent voices of these cloistered heroines. Here we meet nuns who dared speak out about physical assault and sexual impropriety (some real, some imagined). Others were only guilty of misjudgment or defacing valuable artwork that offended their sensibilities. But what unites the women and their stories is the challenges they faced: these were women trying to find their way within the Catholicism of their day and through the strict limits it imposed on them. Monson introduces us to women who were occasionally desperate to flee cloistered life, as when an entire community conspired to torch their convent and be set free. But more often, he shows us nuns just trying to live their lives. When they were crossed—by powerful priests who claimed to know what was best for them—bad behavior could escalate from mere troublemaking to open confrontation. In resurrecting these long-forgotten tales and trials, Monson also draws attention to the predicament of modern religious women, whose “misbehavior”—seeking ordination as priests or refusing to give up their endowments to pay for priestly wrongdoing in their own archdioceses—continues even today. The nuns of early modern Italy, Monson shows, set the standard for religious transgression in their own age—and beyond.

Nuns Behaving Badly

Nuns Behaving Badly PDF Author: Craig A. Monson
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226534626
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 258

Get Book Here

Book Description
Witchcraft. Arson. Going AWOL. Some nuns in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Italy strayed far from the paradigms of monastic life. Cloistered in convents, subjected to stifling hierarchy, repressed, and occasionally persecuted by their male superiors, these women circumvented authority in sometimes extraordinary ways. But tales of their transgressions have long been buried in the Vatican Secret Archive. That is, until now. In Nuns Behaving Badly, Craig A. Monson resurrects forgotten tales and restores to life the long-silent voices of these cloistered heroines. Here we meet nuns who dared speak out about physical assault and sexual impropriety (some real, some imagined). Others were only guilty of misjudgment or defacing valuable artwork that offended their sensibilities. But what unites the women and their stories is the challenges they faced: these were women trying to find their way within the Catholicism of their day and through the strict limits it imposed on them. Monson introduces us to women who were occasionally desperate to flee cloistered life, as when an entire community conspired to torch their convent and be set free. But more often, he shows us nuns just trying to live their lives. When they were crossed—by powerful priests who claimed to know what was best for them—bad behavior could escalate from mere troublemaking to open confrontation. In resurrecting these long-forgotten tales and trials, Monson also draws attention to the predicament of modern religious women, whose “misbehavior”—seeking ordination as priests or refusing to give up their endowments to pay for priestly wrongdoing in their own archdioceses—continues even today. The nuns of early modern Italy, Monson shows, set the standard for religious transgression in their own age—and beyond.

Nuns' Chronicles and Convent Culture in Renaissance and Counter-Reformation Italy

Nuns' Chronicles and Convent Culture in Renaissance and Counter-Reformation Italy PDF Author: K. J. P. Lowe
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521621915
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 466

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Book Description
This well-illustrated and innovative book analyses convent culture in sixteenth-century Italy through the medium of three unpublished nuns' chronicles. It uses a comparative methodology of 'connected differences' to examine the intellectual and imaginative achievement of these nuns, and to investigate how they fashioned and preserved individual and convent identities by writing chronicles. The chronicles themselves reveal many examples of nuns' agency, especially with regard to cultural creativity, and show that convent traditions determined cultural priorities and specialisms, and dictated the contours of convent ceremonial life.

Convent Life in Italy

Convent Life in Italy PDF Author: Algernon Taylor
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Convents
Languages : en
Pages : 370

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Book Description


Convent Networks in Early Modern Italy

Convent Networks in Early Modern Italy PDF Author: Marilyn Dunn
Publisher: Brepols Publishers
ISBN: 9782503586076
Category : Christian art and symbolism
Languages : en
Pages : 325

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Book Description
Interdisciplinary essays that examine the connections of early modern Italian convents, and how these networks were expressed through texts, art, architecture, music, gift and favour exchange, real estate development, and other modes of expression.

Divas in the Convent

Divas in the Convent PDF Author: Craig A. Monson
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226535193
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 298

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Book Description
Monson retells the story of Vizzana and the nuns of Santa Cristina to elucidate the role that music played in the lives of these cloistered women. Monson explains how the sisters fought back with words and music, and when these proved futile, with bricks, roof tiles, and stones.

Virgins of Venice

Virgins of Venice PDF Author: Mary Laven
Publisher: Penguin Group
ISBN: 9780142004012
Category : Convents
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Cambridge historian Laven has created a detailed and dramatic tapestry of resourceful, determined, often passionate women who managed to lead fulfilling lives despite their virtual imprisonment in Venice's 16th-century convents.

Convent Life in Italy by Algernon Taylor

Convent Life in Italy by Algernon Taylor PDF Author: Algernon Taylor
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description


Immodest Acts

Immodest Acts PDF Author: Judith C. Brown
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197652220
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description
The discovery of the fascinating and richly documented story of Sister Benedetta Carlini, Abbess of the Convent of the Mother of God, by Judith C. Brown was an event of major historical importance. Not only is the story revealed in Immodest Acts that of the rise and fall of a powerful woman in a church community and a record of the life of a religious visionary, it is also the earliest documentation of lesbianism in modern Western history. Born of well-to-do parents, Benedetta Carlini entered the convent at the age of nine. At twenty-three, she began to have visions of both a religious and erotic nature. Benedetta was elected abbess due largely to these visions, but later aroused suspicions by claiming to have had supernatural contacts with Christ. During the course of an investigation, church authorities not only found that she had faked her visions and stigmata, but uncovered evidence of a lesbian affair with another nun, Bartolomeo. The story of the relationship between the two nuns and of Benedetta's fall from an abbess to an outcast is revealed in surprisingly candid archival documents and retold here with a fine sense of drama.

Nuns and Nunneries in Renaissance Florence

Nuns and Nunneries in Renaissance Florence PDF Author: Sharon T. Strocchia
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press+ORM
ISBN: 0801898625
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 281

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Book Description
An analysis of Renaissance Florentine convents and their influence on the city’s social, economic, and political history. The 15th century was a time of dramatic and decisive change for nuns and nunneries in Florence. That century saw the city’s convents evolve from small, semiautonomous communities to large civic institutions. By 1552, roughly one in eight Florentine women lived in a religious community. Historian Sharon T. Strocchia analyzes this stunning growth of female monasticism, revealing the important roles these women and institutions played in the social, economic, and political history of Renaissance Florence. It became common practice during this time for unmarried women in elite society to enter convents. This unprecedented concentration of highly educated and well-connected women transformed convents into sites of great patronage and social and political influence. As their economic influence also grew, convents found new ways of supporting themselves; they established schools, produced manuscripts, and manufactured textiles. Using previously untapped archival materials, Strocchia shows how convents shaped one of the principal cities of Renaissance Europe. She demonstrates the importance of nuns and nunneries to the booming Florentine textile industry and shows the contributions that ordinary nuns made to Florentine life in their roles as scribes, stewards, artisans, teachers, and community leaders. In doing so, Strocchia argues that the ideals and institutions that defined Florence were influenced in great part by the city’s powerful female monastics. Winner, Helen and Howard R. Marraro Prize, American Catholic Historical Association “Strocchia examines the complex interrelationships between Florentine nuns and the laity, the secular government, and the religious hierarchy. The author skillfully analyzes extensive archival and printed sources.” —Choice

Beds and Blessings in Italy

Beds and Blessings in Italy PDF Author: Paulist Press
Publisher: Hidden Spring
ISBN: 9781587680625
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 428

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Book Description
A traveler's guidebook to religious houses all over Italy that accept overnight guests. Complete information about and directions for each house are included. +