Sara F. Matthews-Grieco and Sabina Brevaglieri, eds. Monaca moglie serva cortigiana: Vim e immagine delle donne tra Rinascimento e Controriforma.

Florence: Comune di Firenze, 2001. Pbk. 287 pp. + 74 b/w pls. illus. 30 [euro]. ISBN: 888-5698-75-1.

Over the last few years, a large number of publications which focus on women in early modern Italy have come into print, and the current volume adds to this growing list. It consists of six essays written by well-known scholars in the field and was developed in connection with the Projetto Donna of the Council for Publications in Florence. What makes it a valuable contribution is the interdisciplinary approach to gender studies, which combines both public and private interests in the topic. Moreover, its strength lies in the fact that it collects together 403 illustrations, mostly prints from the period, which give the reader the opportunity to study a wide range of imagery showing the socially-constructed norms of nuns, wives, maidservants, and courtesans. This wealth of visual imagery, in and of itself, is an invaluable research tool, and thus adds to the growing body of documentation related to women's history in Italy of the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries.

Caroline E Murphy's essay, "Il cicolo della vita feminile: comportamenti e practiche di vita," opens the volume; she discusses images related to a woman's life from adolescence to marriage, and from maternity to widowhood. Murphy utilizes such sources as Cristofano Bertelli's print, The Ages of Women (1582), Cesare Vecellio's fashion prints from his Habiti antiche e moderni (1590), and Andrea Alciati's emblems (1546), in combination with paintings and drawings by well-known artists to suggest that the popular and inexpensive print medium illustrates what was expected of women in terms of their comportment and appearance during this period, as well as postulating that women were also "socialized" by these works.

The next essay, "Istruzione, lavoro e poverata," by Olwen Hufton, deals with the combined male rhetoric of Christianity, humanism, and medical knowledge as a method to construct woman as the weaker sex which, of course, affected a woman's education and financial status. Moreover, Hufton notes that, as opposed to men, women's work was less plentiful, that women were paid less, and that they had little control over their earnings. The vulnerability of a woman in the workplace, the death of her husband, illness, or old age all threatened to impoverish her. Like Murphy, Hufton utilizes visual imagery (at least ninety illustrations) to provide an overview of women's work in the city and country, focusing on the cloth industry and artisan households. Sixteenth-century Catholic reform also had an impact on the instruction of the average woman, who had to have some level of education in order to instruct her children.

In "La vita religiosa tra Rinascimento e Controriforma. Sponsa Christi: Nozza mistiche e professione monastici" by Gabriella Zarri, the focus turns to nuns and convent life between the Renaissance and the Counter Reformation as illustrated in the didactic prints of the period. Zarri divides her essay into three parts: first, the religious habit as it relates to issues of image and identity; second, the taking of vows as a mystical marriage to Christ; and, finally, daily convent life and the impact of the Rule of the particular order's way of life whether it be Benedictine or Franciscan. To illustrate her points, Zarri utilizes numerous illustrations, such as Filippo Bonanni's three-volume catalogue on the habits for male and female orders (early eighteenth century) and a variety of prints.

Anna Scattigno continues the discussion of female religious life in her essay, "'I desiderij ardenti': pentenza, estasi e martiro ne modelli di santita." This time the focus is on the most popular role models for the Counter Reformation nun, and, certainly, Catherine of Siena takes the lead here. While her image changed in the sixteenth century to an ecstatic visionary confined behind walls, another exemplar, Mary Magdalen, became the model of penitence, solitude, and self-denial. Prints from this era illustrate as well the popularity of the violent martyrdoms of the early Christian saints.

Turning away from the religious to the erotic in her essay, "Il mercato dell'Eros: rappresentazioni della sessualita femminile nei soggetti mito logici," Bette Talvacchia focuses on the tradition of the single-sheet print, rather than print series like Marcantonio Raimondi's I modi to discuss the wide variety of interpretation related to this erotic imagery. The volume ends with Sara Matthew-Grieco's essay, "La 'natura' delle donne: rappresentazioni biologiche e (im)moriali dall' allegoria umanista alia satira sociale," which looks at the biological nature of women and the moral identity constructed by men. Her wide range of imagery is drawn primarily from prints of the fifteenth through seventeenth centuries, which were produced in central and northern Italy. They include moral, allegorical, and satirical images, as well as those that distinguish between female (nature) and male (culture) and the conflict between flesh and spirit. Woman, of course, is always shown in constant need of control whether it be by the family, the church, or the state.

The uniting theme of all six essays comes in the form of a question: What relevance did these popular print images have for those who viewed them? And while all the writers address this issue in one way or another, no comprehensive answer is given; rather the way is left open for further research and discussion. Indeed, this volume's greatest value lies in providing extensive material and imagery as a foundation for further investigation. Its only drawback is one of language; if it could be translated into English--and four of the six essays were written in English--then a much wider audience could avail itself of the wealth of material that it contains. This is a fine volume, one well worth reading.

KATHERINE A. MCIVER

University of Alabama, Birmingham