A portrait of 16th and 17th century Italian convent life, set in the vibrant culture of late Renaissance Venice. Early 16th century Venice had 50 convents and about 3,000 nuns. In this book Mary Laven provides an insight into the nuns hidden world. Far from being places of religious devotion, the convents were often little more than dumping-grounds for unmarried women from the upper ranks of Venetian society. Often entering a convent at seven years old, these young women remained emotionally and socially attached to their families and to their way of life outside the convent. Supported by their private incomes, the nuns ate, dressed and behaved as gentlewomen. In contravention of their vows, they followed the latest fashions in hairstyles and footwear, kept lap dogs and threw parties for their relations. But in the 16th and 17th centuries the Counter Reformation was to change all that. Threatened by the advance of Protestantism, the Catholic Church set about reforming its own institutions. A new state magistracy rapidly turned its attentions to policing the nuns' behaviour relentlessly pursuing transgressors on both sides of the convent wall.

Virgins of Venice : Enclosed Lives and Broken Vows in the Renaissance Convent

History

Laven, Mary

World

Penguin??Books

Documents the experiences of late-Renaissance Venetian nuns, many of whom were upper-class women immured against their will, exploring how convents of the period were often political hotbeds and the sites of illicit love affairs in their residents' efforts to find fulfillment. Reprint.

Virgins of Venice: Broken Vows and Cloistered Lives in the Renaissance Convent

Arts & Photography

The Sacred Home in Renaissance Italy explores the rich devotional life of the Italian household between 1450 and 1600. Rejecting the enduring stereotype of the Renaissance as a secular age, this interdisciplinary study reveals the home to have been an important site of spiritual revitalization. Books, buildings, objects, spaces, images, and archival sources are scrutinized to cast new light on the many ways in which religion infused daily life within the household. Acts of devotion, from routine prayers to extraordinary religious experiences such as miracles and visions, frequently took place at home amid the joys and trials of domestic life -- from childbirth and marriage to sickness and death. Breaking free from the usual focus on Venice, Florence, and Rome, The Sacred Home investigates practices of piety across the Italian peninsula, with particular attention paid to the city of Naples, the Marche, and the Venetian mainland. It also looks beyond the elite to consider artisanal and lower-status households, and reveals gender and age as factors that powerfully conditioned religious experience. Recovering a host of lost voices and compelling narratives at the intersection between the divine and the everyday, The Sacred Home offers unprecedented glimpses through the keyhole into the spiritual lives of Renaissance Italians.

The Sacred Home in Renaissance Italy

Howard, Deborah

Brundin, Abigail

Oxford University Press

Documents the experiences of late-Renaissance Venetian nuns, many of whom were upper-class women immured against their will, exploring how convents of the period were often political hotbeds and the sites of illicit love affairs in their resident's efforts to find fulfillment. 17,500 first printing.

Americas

Viking Adult

Virgins of Venice

Europe

VIKING

A portrait of 16th and 17th century Italian convent life, set in the vibrant culture of late Renaissance Venice. Early 16th century Venice had 50 convents and about 3000 nuns. Far from being places of religious devotion, the convents were often little more than dumping-grounds for unmarried women fron the upper ranks of Venetian society. Often entering a convent at seven years old, these young women remained emotionally and socially attached to their families and to their way of life outside the convent. Supported by their private incomes, the nuns ate, dressed and behaved as gentlewomen. In contravention of their vows they followed the latest fashions in hair-styles and footwear, kept lap-dogs and threw parties for their relations. But in the 16th and 17th centuries the counter reformation was to change all that. Threatened by the advance of protestantism, the Catholic Church set about reforming its own institutions. A new state magistracy rapidly turned its attentions to policing the nuns' behaviour, relentlessly pursuing transgressors on both sides of the convent wall.

Virgins of Venice: Enclosed Lives and Broken Vows in the Renaissance Convent

Penguin Books, Ltd.

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