In the fifteenth century, the Oblates of Santa Francesca Romana, a fledgling community of religious women in Rome, commissioned an impressive array of artwork for their newly acquired living quarters, the Tor de'Specchi. The imagery focused overwhelmingly on the sensual, corporeal nature of contemporary spirituality, populating the walls of the monastery with a highly naturalistic assortment of earthly, divine, and demonic figures. This book draws on art history, anthropology, and gender studies to explore the disciplinary and didactic role of the images, as well as their relationship to important papal projects at the Vatican.
Author(s): Suzanne M. Scanlan
Series: Visual and Material Culture, 1300-1700
Publisher: Amsterdam University Press
Year: 2018
Language: English
Pages: 244
City: Amsterdam
Divine and Demonic Imageryat Tor de’Specchi, 1400–1500
Contents
List of Illustrations
Color Plates
Black and White Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Demonic and Divine Bodies
Francesca Ponziani and the Oblates at Tor de’Specchi
Primary Sources
Organization of the Book
1. Sanctity on the Threshold: Liminality and Corporeality at Tor de’Specchi
Doorways, Liminality and Ritual
A Community on the Threshold
Transition and Vestition
Donne Oneste
From the Papal Chapel to the Tor de’Specchi Oratory
The Death and Funeral of Santa Francesca Romana
2. Painted Visions and Devotional Practices at Tor de’Specchi
Material Beginnings
Vision, Memory, and Late-Medieval Viewing Practices
Spiritual Agency and Authority
Heavenly Communion
The Virgin’s Crown and the Papal Tiara
3. Dining and Discipline at Tor de’Specchi: The Refectory as Ritual Space
Temptation and Discernment: How to Recognize Your Enemy
Knowing the Rules
Dining and Discipline
The Tor de’Specchi Refectory as a Ritual Space
4. The Devil in the Refectory: Bodies Imagined at Tor de’Specchi
Terra Verde and the Night
[Im]permeable Spaces
Inviolable Bodies
The Devil in the Refectory
Epilogue: Imagining the Canonization of Francesca Romana
Surrounding a Saint: Antonio Tempesta’s Canonziation Broadside
Whose Saint Is She?
Carrying the Standard
Appendix: Statutes of Ordination for the Beata Francesca
Notes
Introduction: Demonic and Divine Bodies
1. Sanctity on the Threshold: Liminality and Corporeality at Tor de’Specchi
2. Painted Visions and Devotional Practices at Tor de’Specchi
3. Dining and Discipline at Tor de’Specchi: The Refectory as Ritual Space
4. The Devil in the Refectory: Bodies Imagined at Tor de’Specchi
Epilogue: Imagining the Canonization of Francesca Romana
Bibliography
Archival Sources
Published Primary Sources
Secondary Sources
Index
