In late sixteenth-century Venice, nearly 60 percent of all patrician women joined convents, and only a minority of these women did so voluntarily. In trying to

This well-illustrated and innovative book analyses convent culture in sixteenth-century Italy through the medium of three unpublished nuns' chronicles. It uses

This book is a study of convent theatre in Italy, an all-female tradition. Widespread in the early modern period, but virtually forgotten today, this activity p

The field of Venetian studies has experienced a significant expansion in recent years, and the Companion to Venetian History, 1400-1797 provides a single volume