Women Writing Saints: Proto-feminist Discourses in Religious texts written by Women in Counter-Reformation Italy

Project Information

WomenWritingSaints

Grant agreement ID: 840913

DOI

10.3030/840913

Project closed

EC signature date 11 April 2019

Start date 1 September 2019

End date 31 August 2021

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 202 158,72

EU contribution

€ 202 158,72

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITETET I OSLO
Norway

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - WomenWritingSaints (Women Writing Saints: Proto-feminist Discourses in Religious texts written by Women in Counter-Reformation Italy)

Reporting period: 2019-09-01 to 2021-08-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The Action “Women Writing Saints in Counter-Reformation Italy” is an interdisciplinary project that looks at the religious production authored by different early modern women writers in Italy before the Council of Trenti until 1700. It looks at the depiction of female sanctity and the impact and continuities of the Reformation era in hagiographical representations. In particular, it researched how the female saint-philosopher has been a model of knowledge, agency, and ethics for many of the women writers who lived in the watershed years before and after the Council of Trent (1545).
Such topics are important in reconstructing women’s contributions to knowledge and their impact on the development of Western thinking. Their thinking changed over time about what knowledge is, where it comes from, and how it gets validated; their views on this constitute their search for authority. Although the research has been focused on centuries distant from the present, it is relevant today because it challenges long-held perceptions of religious models which have too often been perceived as silencing women’s voices into fixed categories of submission. This project suggests that, on the contrary, religious models offered a platform of self-expression and affirmation for many writers of that time. Beyond its scholarly value, the project disseminates alternative narratives on women’s history, which can contribute to countering the oppressive patriarchal discourses that still have currency in parts of contemporary Italian and European society.
Objectives of this Marie Skłodowska Curie Action (MSCA) have been: (1) to collect, analyse and compare the creative contributions of lay Italian women to the religious production of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Italy; (2) to investigate the strategies through which women have made use of female holiness in their writings by contrasting those with the official versions produced by the Church in the same years; and (3) to – as the ultimate aim – trace the readership of the lives of saints and the religious production taken into account in this study.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

Work was conducted via 3 work packages (WPs). WP2 and WP3 were intended to be conducted in the field, mapping and evaluating the circulation of the lives of women saints in Italian libraries, while I was based at the Norwegian Institute in Rome. Due to the pandemic, my overall plan had to change to reflect the closure of archives and libraries for over eighteen months. During this time, I changed the overall focus of those packages to a much more theoretical approach, looking at the impact of the model of sainthood on women writers’ lives and conceptions of authority. Therefore, WP1 focused on the female saint-philosopher model and its negotiation in poetry. Starting with the case studies of Vittoria Colonna (1492–1547) and Domenica Narducci da Paradiso (1473–1553), the project looked at how women authors have negotiated the legacy of female saints in their writings as both subjects of their writing as well as intellectual and ethical inspirations for their oeuvre and authorship. WP1 led to one journal article (Renaissance and Reformation journal) and one book chapter in an edited volume. WP2 focused on hagiography and hagiographic representations by women writers and has been devoted to hagiographical production by women authors and will look at some examples of women’s writing on female saints after the Council of Trent. The intersection of the genre and feminist positions has been the main focus, and it led to one article (Studi Secenteschi - journal) and one book chapter in an edited volume. WP2 analysed how women engaged with female sanctity in Rome and Lazio through a selection of case studies from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century. This has been the subject of a conference symposium held at the Norwegian Institute in Rome in presentia, on October 18 and 19 2021, whose proceedings will be edited and published in next year’s volume from the Institute, namely Acta.
In sum, the overall progress of the project has been disseminated via three invited lectures; via the organisation of one panel -that included four papers in collaboration with the Legacy of Birgitta project from the University of Oslo-, one workshop; one symposium; via presentations in two internal research groups (the Circolo Gianicolense in Rome and the Marie Curie Network at the University of Oslo), and via seven conference presentations in national and international contexts, either in presentia or online.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

This MSCA has pushed the frontiers of literary understanding forward in numerous ways. The article the Fellow submitted opened a field of study and methodology crossing literary methodologies with the history of ideas and religious studies. The Fellow has shed new light on the lives of forgotten Dominican writers, linking their legacy and voice to the great reformers and writers of the past. In addition, she researched a neglected epic poem written in the seventeenth century by Margherita Costa and highlighted her use of religious figures to foster her authorial identity. Overall, the Fellow disseminated her research via numerous presentations at international conferences, the organisation of a symposium, a seminar and an entire panel at the Italian Society in presentia. She also spread knowledge of her research via blog posts and a podcast is available, aimed at a younger public. She also organised a public event online with a non-profit association of retirees . The combined activities created discussion and debate about the role of women across the centuries, challenging typical stereotypes and images still embedded in Italian culture. Furthermore, in her role as co-founder of the publishing house Le plurali editrice, she ran, during the pandemic, an interactive workshop on early modern women writers for pupils of a secondary school in her home area.
Impacts anticipated from the MSCA have been achieved: the fellow has collaborated with feminist blogs to discuss the contribution of early modern women writers to the literary canon; she collaborated with school teachers giving a class lecture on female saints and women writers and with a non-profit association for retirees. In addition, the findings have been disseminated via articles published in leading journals (Renaissance and Reformation; Studi Secenteschi), edited volumes that are going to be published in 2022 by Brill and Delaware Press, and a special issue that will also be published in 2022. In addition, an encyclopaedia entry on apocalyptic literature by women will be published next year in the “European Literature and Drama” section of the Routledge Encyclopedia of the Renaissance World (RERW), a new digital platform in development under the General Editorship of the University of Delaware.

Publications page 1

Publications page 2