Widowhood and Visual Culture in Early Modern Europe
Whereas recent studies of early modern widowhood by social, economic and cultural historians have called attention to the often ambiguous, yet also often empowering, experience and position of widows within society, Widowhood and Visual Culture in Early Modern Europe is the first book to consider the distinct and important relationship between ritual and representation. The fifteen new interdisciplinary essays assembled here read widowhood as a catalyst for the production of a significant...
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The 13 articles of this volume consider instances of patronage and the representation of widows in the 15th-17th centuries in Italy, Holland, France, Spain, and the UK. Individual topics include the architectural patronage of Bess of Hardwick, convents built by widows in 16th-century Toledo, Elisabeth of Austria's use of the relic of St. Leopold, portraits of widows in Florence, the politics and representation of widows in 14th-century Rome, memory and widowhood in England, and differing versions of the bereavement of Marie de Medici. Levy (art history, Wheaton College, US) contributes introductory and concluding chapters. High quality b&w plates are included. Annotation ©2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
List of IllustrationsNotes on ContributorsAcknowledgments1Widow's Peek: Looking at Ritual and Representation12'Widowhood was the time of her greatest perfection': Ideals of Widowhood and Sanctity in Florentine Art193Memento Mori: Death, Widowhood and Remembering in Early Modern England394Mourning Widows: Portraits of Widows and Widowhood in Funeral Sermons from Brunswick-Wolfenbuettel555Casting Her Widowhood: The Contemporary and Posthumous Portraits of Caterina Sforza776A Widow's Tears, A Queen's Ambition: The Variable History of Marie de Medici's Bereavement937Conceptualizing the Kaiserinwitwe: Empress Maria Theresia and Her Portraits1098Individual Fame and Family Honor: The Tomb of Dogaressa Agnes da Mosto Venier1299Margaret of Austria and the Encoding of Power in Patronage: The Funerary Foundation at Brou14510A Widow Building in Elizabethan England: Bess of Hardwick at Hardwick Hall16111Constructing Convents in Sixteenth-Century Castile: Toledan Widows and Patterns of Patronage17712Trecento Rome: The Poetics and Politics of Widowhood19713Framing Widows: Mourning, Gender and Portraiture in Early Modern Florence21114Contested Narratives: Elisabeth of Austria and a Relic of St. Leopold25315Last Rites: Mourning Identities (?)251Index257
