ABOUT THIS BOOK
Caterina Vigri (later Saint Catherine of Bologna) was a mystic, writer, teacher and nun-artist. Her first home, Corpus Domini, Ferrara, was a house of semi-religious women that became a Poor Clare convent and model of Franciscan Observant piety. Vigri's intensely spiritual decoration of her breviary, as well as convent altarpieces that formed a visual program of adoration for the Body of Christ, exemplify the Franciscan Observant visual culture. After Vigri's departure, it was transformed by d'Este women patrons, including Isabella da Aragona, Isabella d'Este and Lucrezia Borgia. While still preserving Observant ideals, it became a more elite noblewomen's retreat.Grounded in archival research and extant paintings, drawings, prints and art objects from Corpus Domini, this volume explores the art, visual culture, and social history of an early modern Franciscan women's community.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Kathleen Giles Arthur is Professor of Italian Renaissance Art (emerita) at James Madison University (Virginia), author of studies on fifteenth-century women artists, including Caterina Vigri (St. Catherine of Bologna) and self-portraitist Maria di Ormanno degli Albizzi, as well as Florentine art and patronage around the time of the Black Death.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Figures and PlatesAcknowledgementsList of AbbreviationsIntroduction 1. The Pious Women of Corpus ChristiBernardina Sedazzari’s House in Via PraisoloLeaders of the CommunityThe Inventory of 1426: Ecclesiastical VestmentsRelics, Devotional Objects and AltarpiecesFrom ‘Urban Hermits’ to Cloistered Nuns2. Building a Public Image of Piety San Guglielmo as a Poor Clare ‘Anti-model’Building the First Church and Convent The Poor Clares Form of Life The Entombment and Adoration of the Host Altarpieces 3. The Sette Armi Spirituali and its AudienceThe Corpus Christi Community 1431-1456Women’s Education in Ferrara, Mantua, and Urbino The Nuns’ Library and Lectio DivinaThe Sette Armi Spirituali and Teaching Novices4. Drawing for Devotion: Sister Caterina’s BreviaryNun-artists: Aesthetic, Medium and MaterialsStructure and Provenance of the Kalendar and PsalterPersonalizing the Breviary: The Temporale Poverty, Penitence, and Franciscan saints: The SanctoraleVigri’s Man of Sorrows and the Gaude Mater Virgo Christi 5. Corpus Christi’s Later Religious and Civic IdentityThe Sette Armi Spirituali and Observant DevotionThe Community and Casa RomeiThe d’Este Duchesses as Patrons Later Fifteenth-century Art and Vsual Culture Corpus Christi as a Pantheon of d’Este WomenConclusion AppendicesAppendix I: The Pinzochere Inventory of 1426 Appendix II: Demographic Growth of Corpus Christi 1430-c.1500