Requirements of Devout Contemplation: Text and Image for the Poor Clares in Trecento Pisa

Abstract

This article analyzes two works of art made for the Poor Clares in Pisa in the third quarter of the fourteenth century. One is a set of frescoes featuring the Life of the Virgin that once decorated the nuns' choir of the convent of Santa Chiara Novella at San Martino, and the other is an illustrated manuscript of the Meditationes Vitae Christi possibly also made for the San Martino nuns. Our study of the Life of the Virgin cycle in both works and the interrelationship between text and image reveals an emphasis on the imitatio Mariae designed to instruct the nuns in basic aspects of female Franciscan convent life, including obedience and community, as well as devotion to poverty and to the Eucharist.

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