Description
Book SynopsisThis well-illustrated and innovative book analyses convent culture in sixteenth-century Italy through the medium of three unpublished nuns' chronicles, using a comparative methodology of 'connected differences' to examine their intellectual and imaginative achievement, and to investigate how they fashioned and preserved individual and convent identities by writing chronicles.
Trade Review'… splendid in its objectivity, allowing its primary sources to speak for themselves … Professor Lowe is much to be commended on the thoroughness of her study. This is historical writing at its best: focused, colourful, vibrant.' Art Newspaper
'K. J. P. Lowe's Nun's Chronicles and Convent Culture in Renaissance and Counter-Reformation Italy is a truly impressive work that reflects the wide range and depth of its author's knowledge of Renaissance and Counter-Reformation Italian culture. Lowe does a fine job of bringing these neglected writings to life, and into a context which invites further imaginative engagement with these nun's lives.' Reformation
' … important and richly nuanced …'. Journal of Ecclesiastical History
Table of ContentsIntroduction; Part I. History Writing and Authorship: 1. The creation of chronicles: contents and appearance; 2. The authors of the chronicles; Part II. Historical and Cultural Context: 3. The convents and physical space; 4. Nuns and convent communities; 5. Rules and traditions; Part III. Chronicles and the Culture of Convent Identity: 6. The chronicles and ceremonial life; 7. Cultural creativity and cultural production; 8. Convents and art; Conclusion.
