Periodic Reporting for period 1 - RethinkingMary (Rethinking Mary in Early Modern Italy: Men's and Women's perspectives on the Virgin Mary (1450-1650))
Période du rapport: 2021-09-06 au 2023-09-05
Rethinking Mary offers the first comprehensive research on the role of early modern literary representations of the Virgin Mary by men and women in the construction of early modern Italian women’s identity. The Virgin Mary is the most important, controversial and ambivalent female symbol in Western culture, and since the Middle Ages, her literary and artistic representations have been connected with womanhood. However, her crucial role in the construction of the ideas of maternity, virginity, women’s bodies, as well as women’s knowledge, faith and power in Italy had never been studied in depth. Besides being a crucial object of devotion in Christian culture, Mary has mostly been regarded as a model of a passive and controlled woman. However, the figure of the Virgin can be interpreted as an extremely empowering model for women and can be related to the very Italian phenomenon of Renaissance women writers. RethinkingMary fills this gap, offering a new interpretation of the cultural role of the Virgin Mary in early modern Italy.
The period between c.1450 and 1650 was crucial for the foundation of European modernity, in which enormous cultural, socio-political, and religious changes took place. In this period of great political, social and religious transformations and definitions, the discourse on women was decisive, while women writers entered massively the literary system, especially in Italy. Understanding what happened to women and their relationship with the figure of the Virgin in this crucial and foundational period, can tell us a lot about women in our time and Western culture and society.
RethinkingMary analysed systematically for the very first time a corpus of overlooked Italian literary and devotional works on the Virgin Mary, with three main objectives: 1) to explore the ambiguity of the Marian model 2) to focus on the women writers’ point of view on the Virgin 3) to compare how Mary is presented as a gender role model in devotional literature with those in which women were described and represented in the contemporary literature on the role of women in society.
RethinkingMary has focused on the connections between the representation of the Virgin as a woman, including her relationship with body and sexuality, and the early modern idea of womanhood, both synchronically and diachronically, and illustrated that the figure of Mary, as represented in literature and art, was not just responsible of the construction of a patriarchal idea of womanhood, but was a crucial empowering role model for women, used by Italian women writers to legitimate themselves.
The period between c.1450 and 1650 was crucial for the foundation of European modernity, in which enormous cultural, socio-political, and religious changes took place. In this period of great political, social and religious transformations and definitions, the discourse on women was decisive, while women writers entered massively the literary system, especially in Italy. Understanding what happened to women and their relationship with the figure of the Virgin in this crucial and foundational period, can tell us a lot about women in our time and Western culture and society.
RethinkingMary analysed systematically for the very first time a corpus of overlooked Italian literary and devotional works on the Virgin Mary, with three main objectives: 1) to explore the ambiguity of the Marian model 2) to focus on the women writers’ point of view on the Virgin 3) to compare how Mary is presented as a gender role model in devotional literature with those in which women were described and represented in the contemporary literature on the role of women in society.
RethinkingMary has focused on the connections between the representation of the Virgin as a woman, including her relationship with body and sexuality, and the early modern idea of womanhood, both synchronically and diachronically, and illustrated that the figure of Mary, as represented in literature and art, was not just responsible of the construction of a patriarchal idea of womanhood, but was a crucial empowering role model for women, used by Italian women writers to legitimate themselves.
I have built up a corpus of more than 200 literary and devotional works on the Virgin Mary by men and women published in Italy between 1471 and 1661. I collected data on the characteristics of the Virgin and how she was presented as a role model for women in Marian literature. In addition to the physical and moral virtues constantly recurring in every text, I also considered the representation of the emotions of the Virgin in the moments of the Annunciation and Passion and their relationship with the literary representation of women's emotions. I then considered the ways and the reasons for what Mary was offered as a model for wives and nuns, as well as a model for powerful women (rulers and prophets) and learned women.
An important part of the project concerned women’s perspectives on the figure of the Virgin. I considered both literary texts and letters, both printed and manuscript by writers and visionary women, lay and religious.
The final part of the project aimed to contextualise the connections between the Virgin Mary and women. It was carried out by comparing how the Virgin was related to women in Marian Literature and texts about the role of women and their nobility and excellence; by comparing Mary’s virtues with women’s virtues as described in some examples of conduct literature and praises of women in different moments; by comparing the characteristics of the Virgin in literary representations and their transformations over time, with some contemporary artistic representations.
The analysis of Marian literature written by men and women on the period taken into consideration confirmed that In Early-Renaissance Marian literature, The Virgin was exceptional, full of all the possible moral virtues, but still human, and could offer a model of virtue, motherhood, and power to women rulers, as well as an inspiring image of a woman with the book in her hands, as it appears in the iconography of the moment of the Annunciation. After the Council of Trent, we can see a transformation in her cultural role as an exceptional, divine, creature, to be venerated, and detached from real women. This image of Mary, as underlined in previous studies, dominated Western culture. When connected to women, Mary was proposed only as a model of perfection for nuns, mothers and wives with specifically feminine, submissive, characteristics and rarely with a book in her hands. However, women writers, both lay and religious, and visionary women continued to use the Virgin Mary as a legitimizing and powerful example, able to offer to them and other women, a model of political authority and a crucial reference point even later.
The results of the project have been disseminated in numerous international conferences and six articles/chapters of books were published. A conference on Women Voices and the Virgin Mary in Early Modern Europe took place at The Norwegian Institute in Rome in June 2023 and a collective volume on the same topic was proposed to Brepols. Moreover, the corpus is included in a repertory now available on the platform Zotero https://www.zotero.org/groups/5246000/rethinking_mary._repertory_of_early-modern_italian_marian_literature/library. It is possible to search the repertory by bibliographical data, but also by “tags” concerning literary genres, gender of the author and gender of the dedicatee. Moreover, when the PDF is available online it is possible to access the link from the repertory. The research deserves to be continued from a European perspective and I plan to write a book on the Virgin in Italian literary works.
An important part of the project concerned women’s perspectives on the figure of the Virgin. I considered both literary texts and letters, both printed and manuscript by writers and visionary women, lay and religious.
The final part of the project aimed to contextualise the connections between the Virgin Mary and women. It was carried out by comparing how the Virgin was related to women in Marian Literature and texts about the role of women and their nobility and excellence; by comparing Mary’s virtues with women’s virtues as described in some examples of conduct literature and praises of women in different moments; by comparing the characteristics of the Virgin in literary representations and their transformations over time, with some contemporary artistic representations.
The analysis of Marian literature written by men and women on the period taken into consideration confirmed that In Early-Renaissance Marian literature, The Virgin was exceptional, full of all the possible moral virtues, but still human, and could offer a model of virtue, motherhood, and power to women rulers, as well as an inspiring image of a woman with the book in her hands, as it appears in the iconography of the moment of the Annunciation. After the Council of Trent, we can see a transformation in her cultural role as an exceptional, divine, creature, to be venerated, and detached from real women. This image of Mary, as underlined in previous studies, dominated Western culture. When connected to women, Mary was proposed only as a model of perfection for nuns, mothers and wives with specifically feminine, submissive, characteristics and rarely with a book in her hands. However, women writers, both lay and religious, and visionary women continued to use the Virgin Mary as a legitimizing and powerful example, able to offer to them and other women, a model of political authority and a crucial reference point even later.
The results of the project have been disseminated in numerous international conferences and six articles/chapters of books were published. A conference on Women Voices and the Virgin Mary in Early Modern Europe took place at The Norwegian Institute in Rome in June 2023 and a collective volume on the same topic was proposed to Brepols. Moreover, the corpus is included in a repertory now available on the platform Zotero https://www.zotero.org/groups/5246000/rethinking_mary._repertory_of_early-modern_italian_marian_literature/library. It is possible to search the repertory by bibliographical data, but also by “tags” concerning literary genres, gender of the author and gender of the dedicatee. Moreover, when the PDF is available online it is possible to access the link from the repertory. The research deserves to be continued from a European perspective and I plan to write a book on the Virgin in Italian literary works.
Rethinking Mary underlines how the figure of the Virgin was connected to women in different ways by men and women, and how their perspectives are transformed over time. The action not only shed new light and gave new meanings to a large number of neglected works which shaped Italian culture and Italian women, their role in society and their history, but also contributed to re-discover some forgotten women’s voices. The recent book by Laura Saetveit Miles The Virgin Mary and the book at the Annunciation studies the relationships between Mary and and learned and authoritative women in Medieval England. RethinkingMary continued the story, finding out that even later women continued to consider Mary as an authorizing and legitimising figure.
This research contributed to the progress of the research on religious and devotional literature as well as on the history of women, the history of Ideas and women writers. the digital repertory produced, which will continue to be updated and improved, can be a useful tool for other scholars. Moreover it could have a cultural impact, contributing to the transformation of the common perception of the figure of the Virgin and her relation with women's identity, that works such as those by Michela Murgia already tried to do.
This research contributed to the progress of the research on religious and devotional literature as well as on the history of women, the history of Ideas and women writers. the digital repertory produced, which will continue to be updated and improved, can be a useful tool for other scholars. Moreover it could have a cultural impact, contributing to the transformation of the common perception of the figure of the Virgin and her relation with women's identity, that works such as those by Michela Murgia already tried to do.