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.
- 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
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