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Virgins of Venice: Enclosed Lives and Broken Vows in the Renaissance Convent
 
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Virgins of Venice: Enclosed Lives and Broken Vows in the Renaissance Convent (Hardcover)

by Mary Laven (Author)
4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Hardcover: 320 pages
  • Publisher: Viking (4 Jul 2002)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0670896357
  • ISBN-13: 978-0670896356
  • Product Dimensions: 21.8 x 14.5 x 2.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 692,141 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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  • See Complete Table of Contents

Product Description

Product Description

A portrait of 16th and 17th century Italian convent life, set in the vibrant culture of late Renaissance Venice. Early 16th century Venice had 50 convents and about 3000 nuns. Far from being places of religious devotion, the convents were often little more than dumping-grounds for unmarried women fron the upper ranks of Venetian society. Often entering a convent at seven years old, these young women remained emotionally and socially attached to their families and to their way of life outside the convent. Supported by their private incomes, the nuns ate, dressed and behaved as gentlewomen. In contravention of their vows they followed the latest fashions in hair-styles and footwear, kept lap-dogs and threw parties for their relations. But in the 16th and 17th centuries the counter reformation was to change all that. Threatened by the advance of protestantism, the Catholic Church set about reforming its own institutions. A new state magistracy rapidly turned its attentions to policing the nuns' behaviour, relentlessly pursuing transgressors on both sides of the convent wall.


About the Author

Mary Laven is a Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge. This is her first book.

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Customer Reviews

2 Reviews
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13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Disposable daughters and intransigent clergy, 10 Oct 2002
By A Customer
I had read about the book in a review in the paper, and though I am not a big non fiction reader, this subject was unusual enough to tempt me. Mary Laven takes the reader back to 15th and 16th century Venice, when it was capital city of its own empire and pretender to the Pope's throne. It was a city filled with convents, where dowries to marry daughters with were so steep that most placed several girls in convents instead. The book deals with how these girls coped with their forced vocations, and how the clergy handled their rule breaking. It is a thorough description of a small topic, though hampered by the lack of papers and writings available, both from the nuns' viewpoints and their families. It was well written, and a pleasant read, but lacked diaries from the convents etc, though this is due to lack of material. The self censorship of the clergy and nuns mean a large amount of the book consists of reading between the lines, and this was somewhat frustrating. The simultaneous lack of power of these women and their control by the clergy, and the higher level of autonomy they had compared with married women was certainly food for thought.
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4.0 out of 5 stars Enlightening and provocative, 1 May 2009
By Roman Clodia (London) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   
This review is from: Virgins of Venice: Enclosed Lives and Broken Vows in the Renaissance Convent (Paperback)
Despite the rather tongue-in-cheek title (I was slightly embarrassed reading this on the tube!)this is an excellent 'alternative' history uncovering the simultaneous autonomy and constraint of Venetian convent women in the C16th-C17th.

Based on the author's PhD thesis this straddles perfectly the divide between rigorous scholarship and popular social history: the notes and bibliography give scholars the evidence and references they need, but the narrative is never broken up by irritating footnotes and academic paraphenalia.

One of the most interesting things for me was the extent of similarity between convent women and the famous Venetian courtesans. Both were nominally marginalised and excluded from contemporary social structures and yet carved out their own autonomy in a kind of shadow-society that mirrored the overt one.

Fascinating, enlightening, human and gently amusing, this is a great read.
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