Writings on the Sisters of San Luca and Their Miraculous Madonna

Danielle Callegari received her Ph.D. from New York University. She has published on Dante, early modern nuns, and food and politics in Italy. Her current research focuses on the social and political history of food and eating in medieval and early modern literature. Shannon McHugh completed her Ph.D. at New York University. Her publications include articles on Vittoria Colonna and on literary underworld journeys. Presently she is working on a book that explores constructions of masculinity and femininity in early modern Italian lyric poetry.

• Acknowledgments xiiiIntroduction 1A Note on the Translation 31A Brief Discourse on What Occurred to the Most Reverend Sisters of theJoined Convents of San Mattia and San Luca from the Year 1573 (1575) 33The Arrival and the Miraculous Workings of the Glorious Image of theVirgin Mary Painted by Saint Luke, through the Year 1616 (1617) 67AppendixPoems by Malvasia in the Arrival, in Italian and English 121Dedicatory Letter from Santi Riccetelli, Cronica di tutto il successo[Chronicle of All That Occurred] (1574) 126Dedicatory Letter from Leandro Alberti, Cronichetta della gloriosaMadonna di San Luca, accresciuto da un ReverendissimoReligioso [Short Chronicle of the Glorious Madonna ofSan Luca, Augmented by a Most Reverend Religious] (1579) 127Bibliography 129Index 137

The two convent chronicles by Diodata Malvasia tell the story of Bologna’s most famous religious icon, the Madonna of San Luca, and of the struggle of convent women with authorities over its control. The earlier chronicle includes epistolary exchanges between the convent and civic and ecclesiastical authorities — extraordinary examples of the art of persuasion and eloquent documents of the interconnectedness of convent and secular life. Callegari and McHugh provide an accurate, clear and elegant English translation, with introduction and notes that provide an indispensable guide to the times, the characters and events portrayed; they give us a unique voice from Renaissance Bologna, an important cultural center under-represented in contemporary research on women’s history and literature. Elissa B. WeaverProfessor Emerita of Italian Literature, University of Chicago