Description
Book SynopsisIn Chariots of Ladies, Núria Silleras-Fernández traces the development of devotion and female piety among the Iberian aristocracy from the late Middle Ages into the Golden Age, and from Catalonia to the rest of Iberia and Europe via the rise of the Franciscan Observant movement. A program of piety and morality devised by Francesc Eiximenis, a Franciscan theologian, royal counselor, and writer in Catalonia in the 1390s, came to characterize the feminine ideal in the highest circles of the Iberian aristocracy in the era of the Empire. As Eiximenis's work was adapted and translated into Castilian over the century and a half that followed, it became a model of devotion and conduct for queens and princesses, including Isabel the Catholic and her descendants, who ruled over Portugal and the Spanish Empire of the Hapsburgs.
Silleras-Fernández uses archival documentation, letters, manuscripts, incunabula, and a wide range of published material to clarify how Eiximenis's ideas
Trade Review
Convincingly demonstrates the lasting influence of Eiximenis's models of womanly virtue and queenship.... Seamlessly unites literary and historical analysis, and the result is illuminating and eminently readable.
* RENAISSANCE QUARTERLY *
Besides its perfect contextualization, his- torical detail, historiographical precision, and general knowledge about the world surrounding Eiximenis across the Crown of Aragon (which occupies most of the first part of the book, "Genesis"), the author puts the emphasis in the processes whereby those powerful women appropri- ate the work, making it their own.... This is a great book.
* Project Muse *
Table of ContentsIntroduction: Eiximenis, His Patronesses, and Female Virtue in Late Medieval and Early Modern IberiaPart I. Genesis1. A Return to Piety: Eiximenis and the Culture of the Late Medieval Catalan Court (The Crown of Aragon, 1327–1409)2. Noble Inspiration: Sanxa Ximenis d'Arenós and the Book of Women (Valencia, c. 1380–96)3. Fit for a Queen: The Scala Dei, Franciscan Queenship, and Maria de Luna (Barcelona, c. 1396–1410)Part II. Afterlife4. Found in Translation: Isabel the Catholic Reads Eiximenis (Castile, c. 1490–1516)5. Eiximenis on the Atlantic: The Chariot of Ladies and Catalina of Habsburg (Portugal, c. 1525–78)Conclusion: Feminine Virtue, Female Agency, and the Legacy of EiximenisWorks Cited
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