Read more
Power often operates in strange and surprising ways. With A Convent Tale, Renee Baernstein uncovers some of the nuanced methods cloistered women devised to exert their agency. In the tradition of Simon Schama and Steven Ozment, Baernstein uses the compelling story of a single clan, the Sfondrati, to refashion our understanding of the early modern period. Showing the nuns as neither helpless victims nor valiant rebels, but reasonable beings maneuvering as best they could within limits set by class, gender and culture. Baernstein writes against the tendency to depict women as inactive pawns, and shows that even within the convent walls, nuns were empowered by ties with their (often earthly) families and actively involved in the politics of the period. Both a major contribution to scholarship on gender, family and religion in early modern Europe, and a colorful well-told tale of Renaissance intrigue, A Convent Tale is sure to attract a wide range of academic and general readers.
List of contents
List of Illustrations Preface Note on Conventions Chronology Introduction Chapter 1. The Community of San Paolo Converso, 1535-1550 Chapter 2. Crisis of Boundaries, 1550-1552 Chapter 3. Borromeo's Revolution, 1565-1584 Chapter 4. The Rise of the Sfondrati Dynasty, 1565-1590 Chapter 5. A Second Jerusalem, 1590-1535 Epilogue Sources and Abbreviations Notes Bibliography Index
About the author
P. Renée Baernstein is Associate Professor of European History at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. She grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, and holds degrees from Cornell University and Harvard University.
Summary
An absorbing work of historical reconstruction, A Convent Tale paints a rich portrait of remarkable women forced to change, adapt and survive in the Counter-reformation world of Renaissance Italy.
