A Convent Tale
by P Renee Baernstein (9780415927178)

Cloistered in an Italian library, leafing through dusty sixteenth-century manuscripts, historian P. Renee Baernstein stumbled on a mystery: The nuns of San Paolo, a vital part of community life in Milan, always busy with missionary or charity work, were suddenly in 1552 forced by the Inquisition to remain behind the thick stone walls of the convent. Why this abrupt clausura? How did the nuns respond to their new isolation? An absorbing work of historical reconstruction, "A Convent Tale" paints a rich portrait of remarkable women forced to change, adapt and survive in the Counter-reformation world of Renaissance Italy. Baernstein traces how the nuns, stripped of their mission to transform Milan into a New Jerusalem, redirected their energies to securing their own families' political gain and status in the community. Female solidarity broke down, and the San Paolo convent evolved from a radical, egalitarian experiment under the charismatic leadership of the mystic Paola Antonia Negri to a privileged palace where wealthy Milanese families sent their daughters and promoted their public image. Capturing the texture and conflict of monastic life - from dynastic battles to squabbles over who would wash the dishes - "A Convent Tale" shows how these forgotten daughters broke down the walls of confinement but remained captives of class and family loyalties.

USD $38.95

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