Dominican Women and Renaissance Art

Ann Roberts is a Professor of Art History at Lake Forest College, USA.

• Contents: Introduction; Chiara Gambacorta and the history of San Domenico of Pisa; The setting: the buildings of San Domenico; The impact of the foundress; The convent audience; An observant identity; Nuns and the world; Patrons and painters; Catalogue of paintings from San Domenico; Appendices; Bibliography; Index.

'While adopting many of the strategies of traditional art history investigating issues of style, taste, iconography, and sources, Roberts employs these not as ends in themselves but to answer questions about patronage, audience, and meaning, providing new insights into how nuns related to art and how they shaped the artistic program of their convent. Especially noteworthy in this study is the extent to which the author has been able to identify works from the internal spaces of the convent and to reconstruct decorative programs based on inventories and archival documents.' Marilyn Dunn, Loyola University Chicago, USA ’... impressive monographic study... Comprehensive monographic investigations of lesser-known objects or even complexes such as this convent become increasingly rare, in part because [...] scholars quite understandably shy away from the painstaking work they often require. Roberts' study, however, demonstrates that these efforts can be extremely rewarding.’ Journal fur Kunstgeschichte ’... [Ann Roberts's] book offers much more to the reader than the average specialized study. In many ways Dominican Women is a model of microhistorical analysis. Roberts has meticulously researched her topic in both archival and secondary sources... Roberts's microhistorical approach provides a depth of understanding that broader studies might lack... In these days of publishers' reluctance to issue art history books that do not sit comfortably on coffee tables, Ashgate is to be commended for supporting Roberts's investigation. The book is not big and glossy, its illustrations are all black and white, but its text offers great richness of information and ideas for serious scholars of Renaissance art, history, religion, and women.’ Sixteenth Century Journal