Biblioteca Domenicana, Florence, October 5, 2013
Deadline: Jul 31, 2013
Nun Artists in Early Modern Italy
Co-sponsored by the Medici Archive Project' s Jane Fortune Research Program on Women Artists and the Biblioteca Domenicana in Santa Maria Novella, this conference highlights new research on artistic production in female monastic communities since the early Renaissance until the Napoleonic suppression.
Demolishing older notions of enclosure as an absolute barrier between nuns and the world outside, recent research on social and religious aspects has begun to reinsert the convent within the wider networks of patronage and economic life in the early modern state, and to reposition it within larger civic and ecclesiastical discourses.
Presumably this model can also be applied to the study of nun artists. By framing research on nun artists and their activities within broader visions of society and material culture, we hope to arrive at a clearer understanding of the significance of nuns' artistic production.
We welcome papers on a variety of topics regarding convents and their artistic production, from painting, to needlework, to carta pestata sculpture, to ephemera, to manuscript illumination. Suggested topics include but are not limited to:
- monographic studies on single artists
- studies of artistic practice in one or more female religious communities
- stylistic analysis and attributions of artworks
- studies of the visual culture of nun artists
- the role of art in the economic and patronage strategies of monastic communities
- the teaching of art in female religious communities
- comparisons between nuns' artistic patronage their artistic production
- investigations of the relations and tensions between piety and artistic production
- historiographic studies of nun artists
Paper presentations, which must feature original research, may be given in Italian or English, and should be no longer than 20 minutes. A publication based on the conference papers is planned. Some support for travel expenses may be available. To apply, please send a one-page abstract and a brief c.v. to Dr. Sheila Barker (barker[at]medici. org) and Dr. Luciano Cinelli, O.P. (memorie.domenicane [at]gmail. com). The deadline for applications is July 31, 2013.
