364 Italian Bookshelf - Ibiblio

“Italian Bookshelf” Annali d’ italianistica 24 (2006) 407
early modern periods, the Medici widows required justification of their status as rulers.
Following on from work concentrating on female patronage in the fields of musicology
and art history, found, for instance, in the publications of William Prizer and Cynthia
Lawrence, Kelley Harness examines the women’s use of music, spectacles, theatre, and
art in order to validate and reinforce their position (William Prizer, “Isabella d’Este and
Lucrezia Borgia as Patrons of Music: The Frottola at Mantua and Ferrara,” Journal of the
American Musicological Society 38 (1985): 1-33; Cynthia Lawrence, ed., Women and Art
in Early Modern Europe: Patrons, Collectors, and Connoisseurs, University Park, PA:
Pennsylvania State UP, 1997). Harness also contributes to the literature on the role of
convents in early modern Italy, for instance, by Robert Kendrick and Elissa Weaver
(Robert L. Kendrick, Celestial Sirens: Nuns and Their Music in Early Modern Milan,
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996; Elissa B. Weaver, Convent Theatre in Early Modern
Italy: Spiritual Fun and Learning for Women, Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2002). In a
further examination of the patronage of Medici women, she considers the commissions of
the convent of la Crocetta, evaluating the influence of the Medici Princess Maria
Maddalena (1600-33), Christine of Lorraine’s daughter, on the cultural activities of the
convent after her arrival there in 1621.
Harness begins her analysis with the means of image projection adopted by the
Medici grand dukes. Continuing in this tradition of myth-building through culture and
adapting it to their needs, the female regents used pictorial, musical, and textual
productions to show positive models of spiritual and political leadership by women.
These exemplars, be they virgins or viragos, were always portrayed with their virtue, the
basis of female honour, beyond question. They ranged from Judith to Saints Ursula,
Agatha, and Catherine of Alexandria, to Matilda of Canossa and Isabella of Castile. In
Chapter 2 the author concentrates on Maria Magdalena’s highly active patronage and
studies the engaging depiction of heroines from biblical, hagiographical, and historical
sources in the rooms of the Archduchess at her residence, Villa Poggio Imperiale.
Appendix A helpfully provides a summary of the characters in the Audience Room
frescoes, although this could usefully have been extended to include other women with
whom the Medici stateswomen wished to identify themselves.
The use of female exemplars in theatrical productions and spectacles is then
explored, and various types are seen, each with a message of female honour and strength,
able to be exploited in the communication of politically pertinent messages, “symbolic
manifestations of statecraft” (61). Among the dramatis personae are virgin martyrs
(chapter 3); biblical characters (chapter 4); women from the epic-chivalric tradition, such
as Melissa (chapter 5); and figures from mythology, such as Venus (chapter 6).
Chapters 7 and 8 concentrate on the Monastero di Santa Croce, known as la
Crocetta. When she entered the convent, Princess Maria Maddalena, in the words of
Benedetto Barchetti in a letter to Andrea Cioli, “lo fece con condizione che ella dovesse
havere tutto quello che haveva ne Pitti” (317) and her arrival had an effect on the
patronage patterns of the institution. Indeed, Harness describes la Crocetta in the years
until the death of the princess as “a satellite court” (287). A relationship is seen between
the presence of the princess and the use of performances, particularly during the
convent’s rites of passage ceremonies, directed toward providing models of behaviour,
the idealisation of convent life, and celebration of the apparent rejection of temporal
power in taking the veil. Two plays of Jacopo Cicognini — also author of Il martirio di
Sant’Agata performed at the behest of the regents in 1622 — which are linked to la