Patronage, Gender and the Arts in Early Modern Italy

The articles in "Patronage, Gender & the Arts in Early Modern Italy" celebrate the work and legacy of Carolyn Valone, professor of Art History, teacher, mentor and friend to many. Valone's publications on "matrons as patrons" and "pie donne" became influential, ground-breaking work in the 1990s. Her continuing research on women as patrons of art and architecture has pioneered a methodological approach that many scholars have followed. Contributions include:
Katherine A. McIver & Cynthia Stollhans, Introduction. Brenda Preyer, The "Wife's Room" in Florentine Palaces of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries. Katherine A. McIver, Locating Power: Women in the Urban Fabric of Sixteenth-Century Rome. Kimberly L. Dennis, A Palace Built by a Princess? Olimpia Maidalchini Pamphilj and the Construction of Palazzo Pamphilj in Piazza Navona. Lisa Passaglia Bauman, The Rhetoric of Power: Della Rovere Palaces and Processional Routes in Late Fifteenth-Century Rome. Sheila ffolliott, Artemisia Conquers Rhodes: Problems in the Representation of Female Heroics in the Age of Catherine de' Medici. Anne Jacobson Schutte, Elite Matrons as Founders of Religious Institutions: Ludovica Torelli and Eleonora Ramirez Montalvo. Marilyn Dunn, Nuns, Agents and Agency: Art Patronage in the Post-Tridentine Convent. Kimberlyn Montford, Musical Marketing in the Female Monasteries of Early Modern Rome. Suzanne B. Butters, A Monster's Plea. Meghan Callahan, Preaching in a Poor Space: Savonarolan Influence at Sister Domenica's Convent of la Crocetta in Renaissance Florence. Cynthia Stollhans, The Pious Act of an Impious Woman: The Courtesan Fiammetta as Art Patron in Renaissance Rome. Elizabeth S. Cohen, More Trials for Artemisia Gentileschi: Her Life, Love and Letters in 1620. Michael Sherberg, Mr. Cellini Goes to Rome. Craig A. Monson, "Un Monsignore troppo abbondo contro le monache": Alfonso Paleotti Meets His Match. Gretchen E. Meyers, Suis manibus fecerat: Queen Dido as a Producer of Ceremonial Textiles. Elissa Weaver, What to Wear in the Decameron and Why It Matters.

Includes a Bibliography of Carolyn Valone's Works and a Complete Index.

History of art, cultural history, urban studies.
376 pages, 53 illustrations.

Katherine A. McIver, one of the editors of this volume, is Professor Emerita of Art History at the University of Alabama, Birmingham. She is the author of "Women, Art, and Architecture in Northern Italy, 1520-1580: Negotiating Power" (Ashgate, 2006, winner of the Society for the Study of Early Modern Women Book Award), editor of, and contributor to, "Art and Music in the Early Modern Period" (Ashgate, 2003) and of "Wives, Widows, Mistresses," and "Nuns in Early Modern Italy: Making the Invisible Visible through Art and Patronage" (Ashgate, 2012). She is co-editor of and contributor to "The Ashgate Research Companion to Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe" (2013), and of "Sexualities, Textualities, Art and Music in Early Modern Italy" (Ashgate, 2014). She has also published articles and essays on the artistic patronage of women and about food and dining in Renaissance Italy.
Cynthia Stollhans, an editor of this volume, received an M.A. in Art History from Saint Louis University, working under Carolyn Valone, and a Ph.D. from Northwestern University, working under Olan Rand (with Dr. Valone as a reader). She is now Professor of Art History at Saint Louis University, where she teaches a variety of courses in Italian Renaissance Art. She is the author of "St. Catherine of Alexandria in Renaissance Art: Case Studies in Patronage" (Ashgate, 2014) and has published in a variety of journals, including "The Sixteenth Century Journal," "Women's Art Journal" and "Early Modern Women: An International Journal." Currently, she works on Borgia courtesans and mistresses as art patrons in early modern Rome.