Convent Spaces and Religious Women: A Look at a Seventeenth-Century Dichotomy
A dissertation presented to
the faculty of
the College of Fine Arts of Ohio University
In partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree
Doctor of Philosophy
Elizabeth A. Jones
March 2008
2
© 2008
Elizabeth A. Jones
All Rights Reserved 3
This dissertation titled
Convent Spaces and Religious Women:
A Look at a Seventeenth-Century Dichotomy
by
ELIZABETH A. JONES
has been approved for
the School of Interdisciplinary Arts
and the College of Fine Arts by
Charles S. Buchanan
Associate Professor of the School of Interdisciplinary Arts
Charles A. McWeeny
Dean, College of Fine Arts 4
ABSTRACT
JONES, ELIZABETH A., Ph.D, March 2008, Interdisciplinary Arts
Convent Spaces and Religious Women: A Look at a Seventeenth-Century Dichotomy
(204 pp.)
Director of Dissertation: Charles S. Buchanan
Santa Maria dei Sette Dolori is a seventeenth-century Roman convent that was built between 1642-1667 and was founded by a woman, Duchess Camilla Virginia
Savelli Farnese, the wife of Duke Pietro Farnese. It remains as a paradigm that seventeenth-century female monasteries were spaces of freedom and peace for religious women, where the nuns exerted their agency (that is, the power to discern and to choose).
They were not penitentiaries with inmates, as some have considered them to be. Camilla's agency created a place in which women could seek the ancient Christian pursuit of purity of heart and experience spiritual perfection. The women at S.M. dei Sette Dolori were not unique. They were following in the footsteps of many women before them as far back as
Mary, the sister of Lazarus whom Jesus raised from the dead. Indeed, the dichotomous nature of convents – confinement and freedom – is a fundamental element of Christian monasticism.
This dissertation will contribute to current scholarship regarding female monasticism
in order to support and highlight the religious women who exerted their agency to choose a
life they so desired; to explicate further how the dichotomous nature of convents is endemic
to true ascetic monasticism; and to untangle some of the misperceptions imposed upon this
lifestyle. Two art forms will be examined: Santa Maria dei Sette Dolori represents 5
seventeenth-century female monasticism, and Giacomo Puccini’s opera, Suor Angelica,
represents the persistent and pervading misinterpretations and misconceptions of
seventeenth-century convent life as incarceration. An interdisciplinary approach will be
employed, utilizing architectural analysis and theory, social history, archival examination,
musicology, and feminist theory and rhetoric. Applying these methodologies to the specific
artworks mentioned above will expose misinterpretations, clarify misunderstandings, and offer alternative meanings, thus exhibiting that the convent is not a prison and its women are not inmates.
Approved: ______
Charles S. Buchanan
Associate Professor of the School of Interdisciplinary Arts 6
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Such an endeavor as this dissertation could not have been accomplished without the assistance and support of many individuals. My committee chair, Dr. Charles S.
Buchanan, was an invaluable source of scholarly wisdom and academic excellence throughout the process. My topic emerged out of a conversation we had about convent architecture, and from there my passion grew. The other committee members from whom
I garnered wisdom are Dr. Dora Wilson, Dr. William Condee and Dr. Benita Blessing.
Dr. Wilson encouraged me to think “outside the box.” Dr. Condee advised me about life’s priorities. Dr. Blessing helped guide me in my research. Dr. Alessandra Raegno graciously helped me with Italian translation editing and assisting with communicating with my contacts in Rome. Maria Milano, my Italian instructor, was integral in assisting me in Italian conversation and translation. Dr. Ernie Pinson was invaluable as the editor of my first draft, words of gratitude pale in comparison to his wisdom and effort.
In Rome, I extend heartfelt gratitude to the following people: Fr. Patrick Carroll and Fr. Phillip Allen, as well as Fr. Ubaldo and Odir Diaz of the Order of the Servants of
Mary at San Marcello and their School of Theology at St. Alexis Falconieri International
College – I treasure their selfless guidance and friendship; Sisters Agnese, Lorenza and
Father Enrico Heinrich at S.M. dei Sette Dolori – they were gracious to me while I worked in their archive; Mother General Maria Rafaela Funari of the Congregazione
Suore Oblate del Bambino Gesù who gave me permission to visit the convent archive;
Sister Catherine Mary at the Vatican Library; kind Giuseppe at Sant’Agostino; and my special friends Anna Dolciotti and Elena Garro. Sharon Payne helped me immensely 7 during my first visit to Rome as a guide and translator. Kirstin Noreen from Louisiana
State University assisted me with initial contacts at Santa Maria dei Sette Dolori. I am especially grateful to Dr. Marilyn Dunn who contributed to my archival research in the
U.S., and Dr. Carolyn Valone for her input and encouragement during my second visit to
Rome to study the monastery archive.
I wish to also thank Heather Pinson whose friendship and support – emotional, mental and financial – is immeasurable; Pamela Rossi-Keen for her personal and academic insights and inspiration; and Liz Ruchti for her encouragement and guidance with my writing. I am ever grateful to my Mom, Dad and my brother Karl for always believing in me to do great things. Rachael and Joshua, my daughter and son – they saw in me what I hope they see in themselves. To my husband Howard – a Ph.D. should be conferred upon him for all he has walked me through these past five and a half years. His unwavering support and love when I was ready to quit, or was unlovable, remained true and strong. I am forever indebted to God for this man – he is my example of God. And ultimately, I am grateful for God’s faithfulness to guide me through the wisdom and leadership of the many people listed above. 8
To Howard, My husband and best friend
9
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
Abstract...... 4
Acknowledgments...... 6
List of Figures...... 11
Introduction...... 13
Chapter One − Monastic Origins Echoed in the Catholic Renewal...... 23
Asceticism...... 29
Virginity...... 35
From Anchorite to Coenobite ...... 38
From the Laura to the Monastery ...... 52
Early Ammas: Religious Women in Early Christianity ...... 56
Macrina the Elder: Sister of St. Basil of Caesarea and St. Gregory of
Nyssa...... 64
Pachomius’ Sister Mary at Tabennesi...... 68
Paula – the Friend of St. Jerome ...... 70
Spiritual Resolve in Female Asketes ...... 72
Sette Dolori echoes ancient Christian ideals within Tridentine dictates... 76
Chapter Two – Seventeenth-Century Roman Conventual Space ...... 79
Borromini: His Influences and Style in S.M. dei Sette Dolori ...... 82
The Façade, Atrium and Church...... 95
The Cloister and Living Quarters ...... 116 10
Chapter Three – The Voices of the Women ...... 131
Suor Angelica – its history and its musical legacy ...... 135
Voices heard from S.M. dei Sette Dolori and twentieth-century fiction ...... 154
The Suor Angelica Dichotomy ...... 167
Conclusion –Through Twenty-First-Century Lenses ...... 172
Echoes...... 172
Space...... 178
Voices ...... 185
Final analysis ...... 187
Bibliography ...... 190
11
LIST OF FIGURES
Page
Figure 1: Laura of St. Marcarius ...... 41
Figure 2: Map of Tabennesi...... 48
Figure 3: Rendition of the Pachomian fold...... 54
Figure 4: Dêr Abû Makâr monastery plan ...... 56
Figure 5: S.M. dei Sette Dolori – drawing ...... 79
Figure 6: S.M. dei Sette Dolori – façade ...... 88
Figure 7: Oratorio dei Filippin – façade ...... 89
Figure 8: San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane – façade...... 89
Figure 9: Collegio di Propaganda Fide – façade ...... 90
Figure 10: San Carlino - plan...... 91
Figure 11: Oratorio dei Filippini - plan ...... 91
Figure 12: Oratorio dei Filippini – entrance and loggia ...... 92
Figure 13: S.M. dei Sette Dolori & Hadrian’s Small Baths - plans ...... 94
Figure 14: St. Ivo - plan ...... 96
Figure 15: St. Peter’s - plan ...... 96
Figure 16: S.M. dei Sette Dolori – church plan ...... 97
Figure 17: S.M. dei Sette Dolori – church interior ...... 101
Figure 18: S.M. dei Sette Dolori – façade ...... 103
Figure 19: Window of Palazzo Baberini ...... 104
Figure 20: S.M. dei Sette Dolori – nave and atrium plan ...... 106
12
Figure 21: Canopus at Hadrian’s Villa ...... 108
Figure 22: S.M. dei Sette Dolori – cornice ...... 108
Figure 23: S.M. dei Sette Dolori – church entrance ...... 109
Figure 24: S.M. dei Sette Dolori – nave – rhythm diagram...... 111
Figure 25: S.M. dei Sette Dolori – church – small windows above altar ...... 112
Figure 26: S.M. dei Sette Dolori – nave ceiling ...... 113
Figure 27: S.M. dei Sette Dolori – isometric drawing ...... 114
Figure 28: S.M. dei Sette Dolori – church...... 116
Figure 29: Ancient Roman domus - plan...... 118
Figure 30: St. Gall - plan...... 120
Figure 31: S.M. dei Sette Dolori – enclosed arcade of the cloister ...... 126
Figure 32: S.M. dei Sette Dolori – fountain...... 127
Figure 33: S.M. dei Sette Dolori – barred windows of living quarters...... 127
Figure 34: S.M. dei Sette Dolori – aerial view ...... 128
Figure 35: S.M. dei Sette Dolori – NW wall of complex ...... 129
Figure 36: Via Garibaldi – S.M. dei Sette Dolori on the left...... 131
Figure 37: Via Garibaldi – S.M. de Sette Dolori entrance on the right ...... 132
Figure 38: S.M. dei Sette Dolori – main gate ...... 132
Figure 39: S.M. dei Sette Dolori – Coro...... 165
13
INTRODUCTION
Santa Maria dei Sette Dolori is a seventeenth-century Roman convent that was built between 1642-1667 and was founded by a woman, Duchess Camilla Virginia
Savelli Farnese, the wife of Duke Pietro Farnese. It remains as a paradigm that
seventeenth-century female monasteries were spaces of freedom and peace for religious
women, where the nuns exerted their agency (that is, the power to discern and to choose).
Thus they were not like penitentiaries with inmates, as some have considered them.
Camilla's agency created a place in which women could seek the ancient Christian pursuit
of purity of heart and experience spiritual perfection. The women at S.M. dei Sette Dolori
were not unique. They were following in the footsteps of many women before them as far
back as Mary, the sister of Lazarus, whom Jesus raised from the dead. The dichotomous
nature of convents–confinement and freedom–is a fundamental element of Christian
monasticism, a vital aspect of asceticism manifest in the deserts of Egypt, Syria and
ancient lands of Israel after the death of Jesus.
Historical foundations of monasticism notwithstanding, there is a preponderance
of twentieth- and twenty-first century scholarship, driven in part by second-wave
feminists, that focuses on the patriarchal and socio-religious power traditions and practices
that imposed sanctions on religious women because they were women. Consequently, many
of these scholars consider the conventual way of life to be unjust incarceration and the
women unwilling inmates. Such anachronistic judgments preclude ancient Christian ascetic
and monastic goals and negate any agency by the religious women of the seventeenth-
century. Misconceptions and assumptions of this magnitude are perpetuated not only in 14
recent scholarship, but also in other art forms, like opera, for example. Suor Angelica,
composed by Giacomo Puccini with a libretto by Giovacchino Forzano written in the second
decade of the twentieth century, illustrates the persistence of a romanticized view that embodies popular assumptions and stereotypes of convent life. This opera is set in a seventeenth-century convent and details the life of one nun, who is forced to take vows due to an indiscretion. Suor Angelica underscores the notion that seventeenth-century convents solely imprisoned women and controlled their lives, a common yet distorted view. Indeed,
Forzano’s and Puccini’s romanticized vision of conventual life, taken out of context, typifies
the continuation of a misinterpreted view of women and their convents.
For this reason, the purpose of this dissertation is to contribute to scholarship
regarding female monasticism in order to support and highlight the religious women who
exerted their agency to choose a life they so desired; to explicate further how the
dichotomous nature of convents is endemic to true ascetic monasticism; and to untangle
some of the misperceptions imposed upon this lifestyle. To accomplish these goals, two
particular artistic media are examined: architecture and opera. Upon first glance, the
foreboding structure of S.M. dei Sette Dolori, enclosing a cloistered lifestyle, appears to
exude a sense of incarceration. Yet, further examination demonstrates that these same
high walls and buildings provided women the freedom to pursue a life solely focused on
the God whom they served, free from worldly temptations and distractions. Suor
Angelica will be set up as the antithesis of S.M. dei Sette Dolori. It is an artwork that
exposes the persistent stereotypes that give the distorted and one-sided view of
seventeenth-century convent life as incarceration. 15
This dissertation employs an interdisciplinary approach, utilizing architectural
analysis and theory, social history, archival examination, musicology, and feminist theory
and rhetoric. Applying these methodologies to the specific artworks mentioned above will expose misinterpretations, clarify misunderstandings, and offer alternative meanings, thus exhibiting that the convent is not a prison and its women are not inmates.
Chapter One introduces the dynamics between the history of ancient Christian asceticism and monasticism and the spiritual and temporal goals of the Council of Trent, detailing the dichotomic nature of spiritual freedom. There is a persistent thread of
Christian ascetic and monastic ideals, fundamental beliefs that dictate behavior, beginning with Jesus’ life and his disciples, and continue through the subsequent two millennia. At various times when these original standards became weakened by tradition and apathy, various reformations arose to return to the primary monastic goals and lifestyle. Because this thread is pervasive and essential for understanding certain reforms and the passion of the foundress, Camilla, this chapter follows the trajectory of that thread from its beginning to the founding of S.M. dei Sette Dolori. The Council of Trent was not convened in a vacuum, and S.M. dei Sette Dolori was not founded without a profound look to the founding fathers of Christianity. Lives of the earliest Christian monks and nuns are examined, and through this examination, we observe the consistent thread that began with the life, death and resurrection of Jesus found in the four Gospels and the writings of his disciples. In the first three to four hundred years after the death of
Jesus, these disciples followed the examples of the original Apostles, interpreting the meaning of true discipleship and a life dedicated to spiritual comprehension and devotion 16
to God. Some of these individuals blazed a trail in the deserts of Egypt, Syria and the
land of the Hebrews.
From these people and their exploits, a foundation for asceticism and ultimately
communal monasticism emerged. The work of certain Christian men and women, whom
we would call monks and nuns today, set forth rules of order that mitigated the
environment in which they lived. Eventually enclosed communities, guarded by high
walls, were formed; in many cases, they were self-subsistent within their protective
boundaries. Consequently, the ground plan utilized in the rebuilding of the ninth-century
Carolingian monastery of St. Gall reveals a monastic system that was codified with precision.
Subsequent developments in the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance lay the groundwork for seventeenth-century monasticism. The ebb and flow of heresy and reformation throughout the centuries came to a head when in 1517 Friar Martin Luther nailed a challenge on the door of Wittenberg Church. From that moment, the Roman
Catholic Church found itself in the throws of a reformation that far exceeded prior
eruptions of reform. After waiting twenty-eight years, the Church leadership realized that
this new protestation would not disappear and that Luther’s grievances had to be
addressed. Hence, the Council of Trent (1545-1563) was convened to analyze, review
and reform Church doctrines and policies.
The canons and decrees that were set forth by the convening body of priests,
bishops, cardinals and five different popes, transformed the face of Catholicism,
including monasticism. As we shall see, Camilla negotiated Church policy and episcopal 17 leadership wisely and with great fortitude. Her desire to become a nun at an early age influenced her decisions as an adult. And with the help of powerful, religious relatives, she was able to establish S.M. dei Sette Dolori, its constitution, rules and architecture, in the manner she had envisioned. S.M. dei Sette Dolori exemplifies seventeenth-century
Roman female monasticism.
S.M. dei Sette Dolori stands not only as a model for female monasticism, but also as an archetype of female agency. There is a preponderance of twenty-first century scholarship that views seventeenth-century female monasticism through presumptive lenses that exclude the possibility for religious women to possess the power of choice.
For the most part, much of what is written about nuns and convents during the seventeenth century reveals only the patriarchal hegemony of the Roman Catholic
Church over religious women and their communities. Specifically, convents are considered prisons and the women as inmates. Highly charged terms such as these impose an anachronistic judgment upon a culture in another era, deny other alternatives, and blind the view of historical context. With limited sight, balanced observations are blurred, and thus conjecture becomes truth.
The opera, Suor Angelica, is an example of fiction that makes romanticized assumptions about a culture three hundred years ago. Its audiences, with little knowledge about seventeenth-century female monastics, leave the theater appalled by the sad lives of religious women, and the overwhelming presence of death. To the uneducated spectator, the opera’s fiction becomes fact. Audiences who ponder the state of religious women in that particular century conclude that seventeenth-century religious women were devoid of 18
empowerment, unable to make choices for themselves, and hopelessly unhappy. As a
result, notions of imprisonment continue to overshadow authentic spiritual enrichment.
Much of the scholarship misinterprets conventual life by focusing on pertaining to the physical confinement of nuns. Hence, the dichotomic feature of physical imprisonment in seventeenth-century Roman conventual space is discussed in Chapter
Two. It begins with an examination of the architect who designed S.M. dei Sette Dolori,
Francesco Borromini (1599-1667).1 It is important to understand Borromini’s artistic
genius, which was informed by his upbringing, training, professional relationships, and
especially his personality. His primary mentor was his cousin, Carlo Maderno, in whose
studio he learned marble sculpture and ironwork. Other notable influences include
contemporary and Renaissance architects: Pellegrino Pellegrini, called Tibaldi (1527-
1596), a Bolognese architect who spent twenty one years in Milan (1564-1585), and
whose work influenced Borromini as a young man; Francesco Maria Riccino (1583-
1658) a close contemporary with Borromini; Michelangelo (1475-1564), the epitome of
a Renaissance man whom Borromini studied and after whom he modeled some of his
own works; and Giacomo Barozzi Vignola (1507-1573), who was influenced by and
worked with Michelangelo. One particular professional relationship that challenged
Borromini was with Lorenzo Bernini. The difficulties Borromini had with Bernini were
not so much related to Borromini’s talent and skill as an architect, but rather with his lack
1 Anthony Blunt, Borromini (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ Press, 1979); Paolo Portoghesi, L’angelo della storia: teorie e linguaggi dell’architecttura, 1st ed. (Roma: BariLaterza, 1982); Paolo Portoghesi, “L’Opus Architectonicum” del Borromini,” Essays in the History of Architecture Presented to Rudolf Wittkower, Ed. Douglas Fraser, Howard Hibbard and Milton J, (Lewine. London: Phaidon Press, 1967); Paolo Portoghesis, Roma Barocca: The History of an Architectonic Culture (MIT Press, 1970); Paolo Portoghesi, The Rome of Borromini: Architecture as Language (New York: George Braziller, 1968).
19
of social graces and political maneuvering in which Bernini’s charismatic personality
excelled. Borromini lost commissions and remunerations because of Bernini’s aggressive
character. In fact, Borromini’s melancholic personality also contributed to his
professional shortcomings. Despite his struggles with Bernini, Borromini demonstrated
his architectural genius, and his works epitomized the Baroque style.
What Borromini lost by Bernini’s power of persuasion, he gained by commissions
from meek and gentle monks and nuns. Patrons such as the Filippini and the nuns at S.M.
dei Sette Dolori allowed Borromini the opportunity to focus on his craft and not be concerned with episcopal and papal whims. Herein lies the difference between
Borromini’s various works. Architectural projects commissioned by the church leadership required a certain degree of pretension in their designs; papal patrons insisted upon a certain amount of extravagance and spectacle. S. Ivo is an example, and
Borromini was equal to the task. Also, San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane exhibits a dramatic display. Through their unique and sensational structural forms, both structures manifest the Baroque ideal of theatricality and the dramatic play of space. But humble patrons allowed Borromini to design spaces of simple elegance with organic unity.
Hence, Chapter Two also includes comparisons of these particular structures, since they reveal an important aspect of seventeenth-century monastic architecture, which pertains to perceived differences between male and female monasteries. Essentially, some scholarship proposes that the inequity between male monasteries and nunneries is evident in the marked differences between their architectural structures; the former incorporate 20 more ornamentation, while scarce funds and effort were put into the latter.2 However, in
Borromini’s structures, the difference lies in the humility and finances of the patron.
Furthermore, Chapter Two examines specific architectural features of S.M. dei
Sette Dolori: its façade, church, cloister and living quarters. The cloister requires closer scrutiny that must include an etymological study. In antiquity, the term cloister originally indicated an architectural configuration, specifically a peristyle court of a Greek house, or a colonnade atrium in a Roman house. Later, it was adopted as a Christian term that suggested bolt, bar or key that secured the gate or door, a barrier. Thus it became a sacred and confined space. By the Middle Ages, it had evolved into a broad passage or arcade surrounding an open square or rectangular space accessible by surrounding buildings.3
Eventually, the cloister was a structure to contain people. Scholarship points out that the idea of the cloister, and its many meanings, distinguishes male and female monastic architecture and ultimately promotes a contradictory treatment of religious men and women.4
2 Nicole Cannariato, “Curves, Spectacle and Gender at San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane,” Montage 2006- 2007. 26 June 2007
Chapter Three focuses on the voices of the women of S.M. dei Sette Dolori.
Sections of Camilla’s Constitution for the convent are highlighted, and then compared to the fictional characterization of seventeenth-century convent life.5 It is in this chapter that
the reality of seventeenth-century female monasticism comes to life through S.M. dei
Sette Dolori, while its antithesis, Suor Angelica, is examined against historic fact. In
addition, discussion about Suor Angelica will include background details on the librettist,
Giovacchino Forzano, and the composer, Giacomo Puccini; information concerning Suor
Angelica’s place in opera history; and a synopsis of the libretto coupled with an analysis
of the musical setting.6
This chapter illustrates the stark difference between a contextual view of
conventual life evident in S.M. dei Sette Dolori and misconceptions perpetuated within
the fictional depiction in Suor Angelica. Moreover, Suor Angelica is analyzed as a
dichotomy. The librettist’s interpretation of seventeenth-century conventual life and the composer’s musical setting are contradictory. Both librettist and composer asserted their particular perspectives, experiences and knowledge onto the opera, and thereby created a dichotomic work of art that at once portrays physical imprisonment using text, and rendering spiritual attainment with music. Consequently, Suor Angelica, the antithesis of
5 S.M. dei Sette Dolori Archives (SDA); Costituzioni delle Mobili Oblate di S. Maria de’ Sette Dolori fondato dalla Sig.ra Duchessa Camilla Virginia Savelli Farnese – nell’anno 1668, re-written by Maria Fortunata Maggio. SDA. 6 Julian Budden, Puccini: his Life and Works (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2002); William Berger, Puccini Without Excuses: A Refreshing Reassessment of the World’s Most Popular Composer (NY: Vintage Books, 2005); Vincent Seligman, Puccini Among Friends New York: The Macmillan Company, 1938); Giuseppe Adami, ed, Letters of Giacomo Puccini: Mainly Connected with the Composition and Production of his Operas, Trans. Ena Makin, (NY: AMS Press, 1971); Arnaldo Fraccaroli La Vita di Giacomo Puccini (Milano: G. Ricordi & C. Editori, 1925); Forzano, Giovacchino, Come li ho conosciuti Torino: Edizione Radio Italiano, 1957); Giovacchino Forzano, Libretto, Suor Angelica, Music by Giacomo Puccini, Trans. Edoardo Petri (New York: G. Ricordi & Co, 1918).
22
the female monastic model found in S.M. dei Sette Dolori, exemplifies the dichotomy of seventeenth-century convent spaces and religious women. More important, the dichotomic components illuminated in this dissertation – physical confinement and spiritual freedom – are offered up as contradictory positions that are not mutually exclusive.
The Conclusion emphasizes the integral aspects of spiritual perfection pursued, spaces in which this pursuit is accomplished, and the testimony of women who deliberately chose a monastic way of life. Ancient ideals of Christian asceticism survived through various eruptions of reform and revival into the seventeenth century. But this ideal did not cease. It continues today. Anachronistic views of female monasticism do not negate the existence of this ancient ideal in the twenty-first century. Religious women in
Rome still choose to live in a community, separated from the world so that they may serve God and pray for mankind. Furthermore, scores of religious women who have made this choice live in the United States. The voices of twenty-first century nuns echo the words and sentiments of the nuns in the seventeenth century. In a sense, the women of today validate and confirm their sisters from 350 years ago. Religious women assert their will and choose to live behind high walls, secluded from the world and cloistered, and there they find peace and spiritual freedom. In spite of nay-sayers who call these religious women inmates and their communities prisons, nuns remain in their place, continuing to pray for the world, including those who do not understand.
23
CHAPTER ONE − MONASTIC ORIGINS ECHOED IN THE CATHOLIC RENEWAL
“It is thus a study deeply influenced by the knowledge that institutions are also human beings, not just abstract entities, and that it therefore behooves us, as human beings, to understand how institutions think, how they remember and forget”.7 Susanna Elm
Duchess Camilla Virginia Savelli Farnese founded Santa Maria dei Sette Dolori
in 1642 under the Rule of St. Augustine, one of the original orders established in ancient
Christianity. St. Augustine was a converted man in the late patristic period who strove to
follow the paths of the early Christian fathers and mothers regarding a total abandonment
to an ascetic lifestyle. However, Augustine recognized the need to combine the ascetic
life with aiding the infirm and helping the poor and downtrodden. Much debate erupted
from St. Augustine’s “unorthodox” view of an ascetic, monastic lifestyle. Augustine
represented then, as now, a spiritual pursuit that incorporated both an ascent to know and
serve God personally and to serve mankind more fully.
The founding of S.M. dei Sette Dolori took place in post-Tridentine baroque
Rome. The Council of Trent (1545-1563), the pinnacle of the Catholic Renewal, set forth
overarching decrees and canons that wrought changes within the Church’s infrastructure,
constraining uncontrolled religious orders, and improving some areas of failing
leadership and policies. The Council of Trent began by settling two agendas: (1) Emperor
Charles V (1500-1558) wanted the Council to succeed in making reforms to end
corruption in the Church and bring German Catholics back into the fold; (2) Pope Paul III
desired to set doctrine in favor of placing the power under the rule of the papacy, in other
7 Susnanna Elm, The Virgins of God: the Making of Asceticism in Late Antiquity (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1994) vii. 24 words, himself.8 In these spiritual and temporal disputations of the Council of Trent, re- establishing guidelines for monasteries and convents was discussed at length in the twenty-fifth session. As discussed below, heresies within ancient monastic orders that had evolved during the Middle Ages and Renaissance were dealt with unequivocally, and new orders were evidence of correction and redirection from the papacy and within various existing orders.
Those under the Rule of St. Augustine were scrutinized more intensely than other patristic orders, because Martin Luther was an Augustinian. Luther’s appeal was for change, for Church reform, to vacate declining moral behavior and unscriptural doctrines as he enumerated in his 95 Theses Against Indulgences, and nailed them to the door on the Wittenberg church.9 He did not desire to create the schism that followed. Even so, his spark of dissent gave rise to Inquisitional consideration against other orders under this rule. Yet, Augustinians, such as Girolamo Seripando, aided in the survival of the order after the Reformation.10 Seripando and other Augustinians remained loyal to the papacy
8 Hsia 12. 9 Luther’s intention was to address his grievances against the buying and selling of indulgences. Two papal bulls created such indulgences: Unigenitus of Clement VI in 1343 and the Savator noster by Sixtus IV in 1476. By 1517, the indulgences became the means to increase financial support and stability for pope Leo X to pay for the new St. Peter’s Cathedral in Rome, as well as line the pockets of ecclesiastics throughout the Roman Catholic realm. In 1516, Luther had already made comments from the pulpit regarding the problems precipitated by securing souls from purgatory not through prayer, but by a simple financial transaction; grace was bought and sold. What brought Luther to nail his grievances on the church door was the effect of indulgences on his congregation. The Dominican Johann Tetzel did not sell his indulgences at Luther’s church, but close enough for Luther’s parishioners to easily travel to acquire hope for their loved ones. Luther’s protest was not against the church at large, but the Dominicans who were zealous for the revenues procured by the indulgences. Nailing the theses to the church door was an act to invite debate between the Dominicans and Augustinians. But what was perceived was not a call for debate, but a political attack against church and national authority. See Carl Truman, “Luther and the Reformation in Germany,” Reformation World, ed. Andrew Pettegree (London: Routledge, 2000) 73-96. 10 See Francesco C. Cesareo, A Shepherd in Their Midst: The Episcopacy of Girolamo Seripando (1554- 1563), Vol 21, The Augustinian Series (Villanova, PA: Augustinian Press, 1999). 25 to the extent that they attended the Council of Trent during the 1546 sessions concerning justification.11
The Catholic Renewal, known primarily as the Counter Reformation, is promoted as the manifestation of Catholic introspection resulting from the damaging effects of
Martin Luther’s 95 theses, which culminated in the massive reorganization and birth of
Protestantism. However, Luther was not the first public voice of dissent, nor was the call for reformation isolated to the early sixteenth century. A desire for church reform erupted at different times throughout the Middle Ages and in the Renaissance.12 So, for the purposes of this thesis, the tremors of Catholic Renewal began long before Luther nailed his 95 theses on the door of Castle Church in Wittenberg Germany (1517), and its culminating eruption was the Council of Trent. Before we examine the profound effects of the Council of Trent, let us observe the evident discontent within the Church prior to 1517.
Renewal first came in the form of new religious orders, as well as the restructuring of existing religious orders prior to the Protestant Reformation. G. Roger
Huddleston explains that reform in religious orders is essentially a rejection of careless
11 See Hubert Jedin, History of the Council of Trent, 2 vols, trans. Dom Ernest Graf (Frieburg: Herder & Co, 1957-58; Hubert Jedin, “Catholic Reformation or Counter-Reformation?” Counter-Reformation: The Essential Readings Ed. David M. Luebke (Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub, 1999; John Bossy, ed, The Spirit of the Counter-Reformation by Late H. Outram Evennett (Notre Dame: Univ of Notre Dame Press, 1970; R. Po-chia Hsia The World of Catholic Renewal 1540-1770 (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ Press, 1998). 12 John Wycliffe and John Huss led the most noticeable occurrences in the fifteenth century. Both were university professors, Oxford and Prague, respectively, yet their deviant views were condemned in the Council of Constance and they were subsequently burned at the stake for heresy. William Tyndale supported vernacular translations of the Bible. Since the seventh century, there had been partial and complete English versions of the Bible, but Tyndale was the first to utilize the innovation of moveable type – his was the first translation of the Bible in a language other than Latin in printed form. The dissemination of such a momentous (devastating according to the Catholic Church) printed text aided the swift distribution of biblical confirmation of Luther’s concerns about church inconsistencies and abuses. Tyndale was also burnt at the stake. 26
practices and a return to the rigorous nascent observances.13 Martin D.W. Jones echoes
this sentiment to reorganize and revitalize religious orders in the fifteenth century. True
holiness could only be obtained by regaining exacting observances instituted by the
ancient fathers and mothers who lived lives of austerity, humility, poverty and prayer.14
Thus during the Renaissance epoch, medieval orders that were under the rule of St.
Benedict, St. Dominic and St. Francis abhorred the lackadaisical discipline that had evolved through the centuries and sought to return to their ancient Christian roots. New orders that arose from existing ones were called Observant, such as Observant
Franciscans (Capuchins). 15
After 1517, renewed fervor amongst male and female monastics created offshoots
from previous orders as well as new organizations established by a group of ascetic
charismatic leaders. Ignatius Loyola was one of these leaders. He began his spiritual
journey in 1521. This dynamic leader founded one of the most renowned groups, the
Society of Jesus, or Jesuits, which the Holy See accepted in 1540.16 Second in order of
importance and influence to the Jesuits are the Capuchins, approved in 1528. They were
a movement that emerged from the Observant Franciscans. Others include the Theatines,
or the Congregation of Clerks Regular founded in 1524; the Barnabites (1530); Somaschi
in Italy (1532); the Lazarists in Paris (1580-1660); and new female orders, including the
Angeliche (1545), Ursulines (1612), and Visitadines (1572-1641).17
13 G. Roger Huddleston, The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. XII (New York: Robert Appleton Co, 1911). 14 Martin D. W. Jones, The Counter Reformation: Religion and Society in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1995). 15 Hsia 28. 16 Bossy 47 and Hsia 27. 17 Hsia 27-28; Jones 37; Michael A Mullett, The Catholic Reformation, (London: Routledge, 1999) 74. 27
Such diverse congregations and orders emerged in northern and central Italy out
of the turmoil of the sixteenth century – the warfare between the Habsburgs and the
Valois. Their like-minded purpose was to confront the ills of urban society by ministering
to the poor, orphans and destitute women. By virtue of their noble and patrician
patronage, they sought to repair the frayed social composition, and redistribute both the
material and spiritual wealth amongst rich and poor alike.18 Ultimately, by their
fundamental asceticism, they countered the lax and worldly behavior and practices of the established clergy and congregations. This fundamentalism stemmed from the desire to return to ancient Christian practices of ascetic and individual piety. Camilla also had a strong desire to pursue monastic practices and found a convent. Just like the reformers before and after the Council of Trent, she sought the simplicity of the celibate and austere life of the ancient ammas and abbas. For that reason, it is important to comprehend the
ancient Christian ideal of asceticism and its subsequent adaptation of monasticism, and to
understand what motivated people to attain such a way of life.
But before we study the ancient past, it is important to realize the necessity of
studying the etymology of words. Such a study reveals the significance of cultural norms
at a specific time in history and helps us avoid looking through a glazed window, a lens
which may skew aspects of a past place or event. 19 As Ruth A. Tucker clearly states,
“Any history suffers when it develops out of a personal philosophy, be it feminist,
18 Hsia 28. 19 Paul Meyveart states, “Tracing the use of words in the literary sources opens up for us a window to the past, both in respect to what has vanished and to what may permanently endure.” Meyvaert 58. 28
Marxist, or liberationist.”20 In other words it is best to preclude an anachronistic view
whose purpose is to justify a position or theory. So, in order to examine monasticism in
the seventeenth century, there must first be an understanding of the origins of the
asceticism and its variation in early Christian monastic lifestyle, to observe the
continuing thread of monastic principles that began with the life and death of Jesus and
the subsequent lives of his disciples. When surveying this thread, certain questions must
be answered in order to comprehend such principles. What is asceticism? Was its practice
concurrent with the birth of monasticism? What would that existence look like? What is
the earliest known example of an ascetic way of life? Where would this practice be found? Who and why would someone choose a monastic life? Did women participate and how? Scholarly inquiry concerning asceticism and monasticism emerges from multiple disciplines – theology, sociology, art history, women’s studies, and anthropology.
Researchers have combed over the extant letters and documents written by ancient (the first four centuries after Christ’s death) and medieval monastics; these reveal the lives of ascetics both male and female.21
20 Ruth A. Tucker and Walter L. Liefeld, Daughters of the Church:Women and Ministry from New Testament Times to the Present (Grand Rapids: Academie Books, 1987) 13. 21 In his book Desert Christians: An Introduction to the Literature of Early Monasticism, William Harmless, S.J. articulately and thoroughly examines extant literature written by the desert abbas and ammas from the ancient beginnings of Christianity and its subsequent use of monasticism. Harmless makes it clear that what historians a century ago perceived as accurate accounts of the founders of Christian monasticism and all its forms may in fact be superceded by the silences within, the omission of data evident in the extant papyri of ancient and early medieval ascetics and monastics. Thus new scholarship has concluded that there is no clear cut time, place or persons to which or whom we can point as the “first ascetic, or monk.” However, this discourse will address aspects of early ascetic men and women and monastic lifestyles as they relate to this thesis. William Harmless, Desert Christians: An Introduction to the Literature of Early Monasticism (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2004). 29
Asceticism
Asceticism and monasticism are often misunderstood as synonymous.
22Monasticism is a Latin term dating from the fifth century, which signifies the practice of a
communal life of monks and nuns who have taken particular vows. Monasticism was a
product of the ascetic lifestyle. The word asceticism is a word originally derived from the
Greek words askesis (to exercise), askein (practice) and asketes (monk or hermit) and the medieval Latin word asceticus. Askesis and askein imply “voluntary discipline of the self to benefit the soul.”23 It is a moral training for the soul accomplished most often by extreme
physical and mental exercise, akin to that of an athlete.24 In ancient Christian literature
asceticism is used to describe extreme self-denial and exercise.25 Much of the extant
earliest writings by and about ancient asketes refer to Christian hermits living in Upper
Egypt.
An ancient Christian askete lived a solitary and austere life. It was a lifestyle that
renounced the world, and denied oneself physical and emotional comforts in order to
achieve salvation and a depth of understanding of God. The life of the desert anchorite
consisted of disorientation, apatheia, solitude, hospitality, few relationships, humility,
suffering, compassion, prayer, silence and listening.26 Disorientation resulted from the
22 Asceticism originally refers to an eremitic existence, a solitary lifestyle. Monasticism brought about the coenobitic lifestyle, an ascetic spiritual life within a community setting of like-minded individuals. 23 J. Duncan M. Derrett, “Primitive Christianity as an Ascetic Movement”, Asceticism, Wimbush, Vincent L. and Richard Valantasis, eds. Asceticism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995) 88. 24 References to athleticism and asceticism are evident in Plato’s Republic (430E – 404A) and Phaedo 638ff, 64D, 66C and 67A; Aristophanes Plutus 585; Plutarch Moralia 561A and 1105C; Apostle Paul, 1 Cor. 9:24-26, 1 Tm. 4:7-10, 2 Tm. 2:5, Heb. 12:1-2 to name only a few. 25 In other ancient religions or cultures (Buddhist, Jewish, Hindi) an ascetic lifestyle would not deny the body to its detriment and death, but only as a means to self-control. 26 Swan, Laura, The Forgotten Desert Mothers: Sayings, Lives, and Stories of Early Christian Women (New York: Paulist Press, 2001) 24-31. 30
desert itself. Its location stripped the askete from everything related to his/her prior life, all that would separate themselves from God. Reorientation proceeded out of what the askete learned from each new experience, helped to purify the askete and “cultivate humility, compassion, purity of heart, and apatheia.”27 Apatheia, the goal of every askete, is the
essential quality of an internal spiritual life. Swan describes it as “a mature mindfulness, a
grounded sensitivity, and a keen attention to one’s inner world as well as to the world in
which one has journeyed.”28 Achieving such purity of heart meant having self-control over all passions and emotions, as well as an ability to maintain a mind devoid of impure
thoughts and distractions.
Fulfillment of purity of heart was, according to the desert fathers and mothers, a
result of the desert life. While solitude was easy to find in the vast desolation surrounding
the Nile River, hospitality was a traditional aspect of their lives; relationships with other
asketes and visiting pilgrims were part of the experience. Each guest was treated as if s/he
were Christ himself. With great humility, the monk or nun would serve their guests;
perhaps they might break their silence for a moment, but always with generosity. Before
coenobitic monasticism, monks would occasionally visit other monks, especially to inquire
a word from an abba/amma. 29
27 Swan 25. 28 Swan 25. 29 The term, desert father, refers to the anchorite abba in the Nile Delta, Egypt. Abbas were revered and looked upon as the elder, or father. The word abba is the Aramaic word for father. Jesus himself used this term in Mark 14:36 as he prayed in the garden of Gethsemane. Paul used abba to describe the adoption of the Spirit as children of God in Romans 8:12-17, and again in Galations 4:6 Paul talks of sonship: “And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hears, crying out, ‘Abba, Father!’”, referring to Jesus’ cry in Gethsemane. The Desert Abbas were honored as if they were priests, looked up to as godly mentors; few were ordained. The desert life was similar to purifying gold and silver. The precious metals are melted in extreme heat until the dross rises to the surface and can be removed. Likewise, the heat of self-denial, and internal emotional and mental struggles – discussed below – brings about the 31
While pursuing purity of heart through suffering and hospitality, one also gains humility; it was an indication of spiritual maturity: “The humility of a deeply listening and
docile heart enables one to learn even from an apparently disastrous experience.”30
Suffering is not limited to the self-denial of physical comforts, but results from the internal struggle with one’s passions and emotions. For some monks and nuns, there were battles with their own demons – believed to be one of the sources of evil and degenerate thoughts.
From mental and physical wrangling, the askete learned compassion for others; they gained a capacity to acutely understand their internal struggles without judgment or cruel criticism.
Much of what has been discussed about the life of an askete was accomplished through specific daily practices: prayer, evensongs – reciting the psalms, and silence. One
Greek ascetic, named Evagrius Pontus (c. 345-399), used the phrase “pray without ceasing” found in Paul’s epistle 1 Thessalonians 5:17, to admonish his fellows to:
Pray with fear and trembling, with effort, with vigilance and wakefulness.
This is the way you should pray, especially because of our malicious and
mischievous invisible enemies who would treat us insolently. When they
see us engaged in prayer, then do they oppose us vigorously, insinuating
into our mind things which one ought not to entertain or think about
during the time of prayer, in order that they may lead our mind away
purification of the soul. Abba is the word for father in the New Testament Greek. But this was not an ordained priest. The term connotes “respect for a venerable and charismatic elder.” Amma is the term for a female elder. Harmless 125 30 Swan 26. 32
captive and render the petition and supplication of our prayer useless,
empty, and profitless.31
Among other things, prayer was the yearning of the heart for God; it was a plea for forgiveness; it was a petition for help in time of need; and it was conversation, which meant the askete would wait in silence, waiting and listening for God’s reply. The askete
was not expecting an audible voice, but the intimate awareness of God’s presence and
thoughts shared.
Although skeptics could construe such a life as a dark and negative existence,
proponents of asceticism described it as freedom, beauty and joy.32 There is freedom in
active self-control and not fearing what others can take from you. Thus it is freedom from any external or internal power or domination. There is beauty in the soul of the monk and nun as their ascetic journey brings them to a state of perfection and humility in Christ. And there is happiness and joy in the boundlessness of seeking the presence of their God. These depictions of an ascetic life seem contrary to the contemporary observations: “it signifies not freedom but submission to irksome rules; not beauty but harsh rigor; not joy but gloomy austerity.”33 Ware speaks in defense of asceticism by examining two aspects:
anachoresis34 and enkrateia. The former means a flight in order to escape, or a flight
31 Robert E. Sinkewicz, trans. Evagrius of Pontus: The Greek Ascetic Corpus (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2003) 11. 32 Kallistos Ware, “The Way of the Ascetics: Negative or Affirmative?” Asceticism, Wimbush, Vincent L. and Richard Valantasis, eds. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995) 4. To emphasize freedom found in asceticism, Ware quotes Nicolas Berdyaev, a Russian Orthodox philosopher who states asceticism is freedom to “command oneself;” Roman Catholic Raimundo Pannikar who claims asceticism brings freedom from fear; Alexander Solzehitsyn’s character Bobynin from The First Circle, who expressed an ascetic attitude uttering that there is freedom from the power of others; and Pavel Florensky who said asceticism produces “not a good but a beautiful personality.” Ware 3. 33 Ware 4. 34 Anchorite is the English version of the Latin translation of anachorete. The female term is anchoress. 33
followed by a return, and the latter signifies the “repression or the redirection of instinctive
urges.”35 Ware cites observations from scholars such as Emile Durkheim, who state that the
repression of enkrateia is “violence to our natural appetite.”36 Nonetheless, Ware argues
that the redirection of our instinctive urges produces a transfiguration of the soul. Further, it
behooves society to encourage and allow enkrateia for its own self-preservation from
violence of its individual members, whether or not it is hostile to our natural appetites.
Natural desires that go unchecked or unchanneled can be destructive to the collective
corpus of society.
Anachoresis is exemplified by the words of one of the desert fathers: “Abba Isaiah
questioned Abba Macarius (c. 300-390) saying, ‘Give me a word.’ The old man said to
him, ‘Flee from men.’ Abba Isaiah said to him, ‘What does it mean to flee from men?’ The
old man said, ‘It means to sit in your cell and weep for your sins’.”37 Asketes would flee to isolation not far from their home village. In most cases, monks and nuns would live on the fringes of their home villages where they found isolation in a one-room hut, or cell, or could dwelt in a house with other asketes. The location of the isolation was not as important as the urgent need for seclusion. Flight from the material world, bodily desires, and passions of the soul were the key emphases. Ware contends that even though it appears that people selfishly ran away from society to attain their salvation with God, in most cases the hermit became an abba or amma – a wise man or woman attuned to the spirit of God.
Their wisdom or fame was proclaimed by word of mouth. Would-be disciples then flocked
35 Ware 4. 36 Emile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (New York: The Free Press, 1965) 356. 37 The Sayings of the Desert Fathers: The Alphabetical Collection. Marcarius 27. Trans. Benedicta Ward SLG (London: A.R. Mowbray & Co. Ltd, 1975). This is a translation of Apophthegmata Patrum. 34 to the abba/amma, requesting a word that would aid them in also finding wisdom. Asketes who chose an anchoritic lifestyle either became abbas in desert hermitages or on the outskirts of the villages, where they had an impact on those people who came to seek their wisdom.
Anachoresis represents the departure from the sins and temptations of the world by escaping to some isolated locale, whereas enkrateia entails the battle with one’s own passions and sins. In medieval monasticism enkrateia would be codified within vows of poverty, chastity (celibacy) and obedience. Depriving the body of its desires, and minimizing one’s needs to those most essential for survival, frees the monk and nun to fight their demons on a spiritual level and to contemplate and repent from their own sinful inclinations. Concurrently, the monk meditates on the holiness of God, reflecting on His memorized words. After some years, a number for which there is no formula, the isolated hermit, at least in theory, is transfigured. Wisdom takes the place of uncontrolled passion, a wisdom forged from the fires of battles with demons and thoughts. Ware shows that not all asketes seek violent mortification of their bodies, but used moderation in order to simplify their bodily needs. The ends that justified the means were not so severe, but were appropriate for the desired results.38
Both characteristics of asceticism, anachoresis and enkrateia, are aspects found in seventeenth-century monasticism, and specifically in Camilla’s life-long pursuit of holiness. The degree of severity varies, but the spirit of the askete is evident in Camilla’s biography, which will be introduced more fully in chapter three.
38 Ware 9-11. 35
Virginity
The focal point of ancient Christian enkrateia is abstinence from sexual activity,
either imagined or practiced. Ultimate bodily self-control is epitomized in a celibate life.
Celibacy was considered the supreme sacrifice. The foundation for this strongly held belief
in early Christianity was built upon the solitary life of Jesus and some of the writings of St.
Paul. Jesus’ life exemplified the purest form of an askete. Although he did not restrict his eating and drinking, he associated with the poor, was himself at times homeless, “embraced a life of suffering,” and was believed to have remained abstinent, a virgin himself.39
Followers after Jesus naturally wished to imitate Him, and take up the call from these words to His disciples: “Then, speaking to all, he said, 'If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross every day and follow me.”40
Apparently, then, to deny the body of physical, as well as mental passions, promises the believer a place in Jesus’ kingdom.
Jesus speaks directly concerning celibacy in Matthew 19:11-12, not as a directive, but as a lifestyle choice. “But he replied, 'It is not everyone who can accept what I have said, but only those to whom it is granted. There are eunuchs born so from their mother's womb, there are eunuchs made so by human agency and there are eunuchs who have made themselves so for the sake of the kingdom of Heaven. Let anyone accept this who can’.” Here Jesus gives a choice. But added to Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 7:7-9 (see also 32-35), strict followers of Jesus, asketes, would deem celibacy as the standard of
39 Laurie Guy, Introducing Early Christianity: A Topical Survey of Its Life, Beliefs and Practices (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2004) 135. References in scripture: association with the poor – Luke 4:16-21, 6:24; homelessness – Matthew 8:20, Luke 9:58; suffering – Luke 9:22. Unless otherwise stated, all scripture references are in the Catholic Bible. 40 Luke 9:23. 36
living that would insure godliness and faithfulness to their God: “For I wish that all men
were even as I myself. […] But I say to the unmarried and to the widows: It is good for them if they remain even as I am; but if they cannot exercise self-control, let them marry.
For it is better to marry than to burn with passion.”41 In verses 32-35 he bolsters his case
by saying that an unmarried celibate cares more for the work of God and “how he may
please him.” The married soul must concern itself with the needs of its spouse, and
therefore takes the soul away from the things of God.
Interestingly, other translations add the terms “I wish” or “I would like that” for
Paul’s initial words in verse 7. Thus commentators contend that this was not a command
directly from God, but Paul’s personal choice and opinion. Paul makes it clear that for him, to be married is a distraction from God. Yet, Christian followers in the first and second centuries would heed these words as from God himself, and would follow them implicitly. Consequently, virginity became a means by which a follower of Christ could be like their savior; this would be their cross to bear that they may follow him.
We should bear in mind that the goal of the askete was to be perpetually in the
presence of God, saved from sin and observed in a spiritual plane since the body was a
hindrance. Again, there is a sense of joy and happiness in self-denial or abstinence,
because the outcome would be heaven on earth. It is evident in various writings of that
era that early Christian asketes interpreted the words of Jesus and Paul as clearly
pronouncing the ideal state for a devout follower of Jesus Christ. Subsequently, celibacy
and virginity became the ultimate choice and goal for the devout Christian. As time
41 Earlier in the same chapter he makes the case that marriage is better than immorality, fornication. Even married couples should abstain for times of prayer and fasting only for short periods of time, lest they fall into temptation. 37 passed and interpretations were spoken, this concept evolved from a simple personal choice to a church-sanctioned vow that became mandatory for monks and nuns in the fourth and fifth centuries.
As a result of the extreme sacrifices made by the celibate askete during the first four centuries, such individuals were venerated and given highest honor and respect. Virgins were protected by the church and highly thought of by their village, so much, in fact, that they were seen as the protectors of the village in which they lived. Villagers believed that the prayers of intercession by the virgins could protect them. And pity was bestowed upon the village without virgins, knowing that such a community was susceptible to evil outside forces, natural or supernatural, that could destroy it.
Honor was also bestowed upon these godly people by the great Christian leaders of the time. Athenagoras (c. 295-373), a philosopher of Athens converted to Christianity in the second half of the second century, wrote: “You would find many among us, both men and women, growing old unmarried, in hope of living in closer communion with God. […] remaining in virginity and in the state of an eunuch brings us nearer to God, while the indulgence of carnal [thoughts] and desire leads away from him.”42 Cyprian, bishop of
Carthage, in his third-century treatise entitled “The Dress of Virgins” praises their virginity and exhorts them to:
Hold fast, O virgins! Hold fast what you have begun to be; hold fast what
you shall be. A great reward awaits you, a great recompense of virtue, the
42 The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Athenagoras, “A Plea for the Christians,” Vol. 2, eds Rev. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (American reprint of the Edinburgh Edition. Authorized Edition. Buffalo: The Christian Literature Co., 1887) 146. Subsequent citations of the Ante-Nicene Fathers will be referenced as ANF. For example, this particular footnote is ANF 2, XXXIII. 38
immense advantage of chastity. […] That which we shall be, you have
already begun to be. You possess already in this world the glory of the
resurrection. You pass through the world without the contagion of the
world; in that you continue chaste and virgins, you are equal to the angels
of God. Only let your virginity remain and endure substantial and
uninjured; and as it began bravely, let it persevere continuously, […]. Let
it look towards God and heaven, […] the eyes uplifted to things above
[…]43
As Cyprian addresses female asketes, he expresses a pre-medieval Christian view of their supremacy and devotion to God, a strong sentiment characterized by the lives of the
ancient fathers and mothers. In the same treatise, Cyprian goes further to place a virgin
“second in grace” to the Christian martyrs: “By this pathway the martyrs progress, the
virgins pass, the just of all kinds advance. […] The first fruit for the martyrs is a hundred-
fold; the second is yours, sixty-fold. As with the martyrs there is no thought of the flesh and of the world, no small, and trifling, and delicate encounter; so also in you, whose reward is second in grace, […].”44
From Anchorite to Coenobite
One renowned anchorite was Abba (St.) Anthony (c. 251-356). At one time
considered the father of anchorites, Anthony, an uneducated, yet wealthy Copt, was raised
along the Nile River by Christian parents.45 Much of what we know about Anthony is
43 ANF 5: II, 22 44 Cyprian ANF 5: II, 21. See same discussion in Guy, 137-140. 45 Much of the histories written about asceticism emerged in the nineteenth century when attempts were made to interpret the extant writings of desert Christians. The consensus claims that St. Anthony was the first 39
46 found in The Life of Anthony written by Athanasius between 356 and 358 CE. Anthony
was born in 251 to wealthy parents, after whose death he was left with his unmarried sister
and was financially well off. Athanasius tells us how one day on the way to church,
Anthony was meditating on the acts of the early Christians’ selfless giving and sharing of
possessions. Then at church he heard a sermon about the words of Jesus concerning the
rich young ruler. This impressed Anthony so deeply that he immediately sold all his family’s wealth and possessions, gave most of it to the poor, set aside some for his sister,
and put her in the care of “respected and faithful virgins” to be “raised in virginity.”47
What makes Anthony stand out from other anchorites was not that he was the first anchorite, but that he sought guidance from an old man who practiced the solitary life. Nor does his uniqueness derive from the epithet “father of monks” by Athanasius; there were already hermitages in Egypt called laura (discussed further below), which bordered on monasticism. Rather it was that Anthony did not live on the fringe of his home village, but sought solitude in the “great desert.”48 To live in the desert was the ultimate sacrifice – no temptations, no outside interference, no help from others, and this closely followed the example of Jesus who spent forty days and nights in the desert. Ware describes the
anchorite who, although separated from society, still made an impact on humanity from his
anchorite father, Pachomius was the founder of the coenobite community of asketes, and Egypt was the birthplace of both desert existences. Yet the evidence used to make these conclusions are the same proofs that indicate earlier examples of these forms of life. In 370, St. Jerome wrote in The Life of Paul of Thebes argued that Antony was certainly not the first monk: Amathas and Macarius, Antony’s disciples (of whom the former buried this master’s body), affirm to this day that a certain Paul of Thebes was the originator of the practice, though not of the name, of the solitary life, and this is the view I also take.” Jerome, The Life of Paul of Thebes, prologue, qtd in Harmless 105. 46 Harmless 58-62. 47 Cited in Harmless from the Life of Antony CS 400:136. See also The Life of Antony trans. Tim Vivian and Apostolos N. Athanassakis (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Pub.) 2003. 48 Harmless 60. Biblical examples cited by Ossa Raymond Sowers are Elijah, Elisha and John the Baptist. See Sowers, “Medieval Monastic Planning: Its Origins in the Christian East and Later Development in Western Europe,” diss., Columbia Univ., 1951. 40
cell. Just as Christ touched the lives of millions, so Anthony likewise touched the lives of
others. Even while living in his cell in the desert, and later in the mountains of the desert,
his life drew disciples.49 He guided many men to a holy life through anachoresis and
enkrateia.
Anthony’s enkrateic life, immortalized in the writing of Athanasius, was an
extreme ascetic lifestyle, battling against demonic temptations, working wonders
(thaumaturgy) and a transfiguration into a sage – a man who could confound philosophers
and counsel kings. He depicted Anthony as a wise illiterate who was “God-taught”
(theodidaktos).50 Anthony became the model of the anachoresis. Anecdotes of Anthony’s
life aided others who desired to be selfless Christians.
The growing numbers of disciples that congregated to an abba or amma create a
different schema for the desert landscape, called a laura (see Fig. 1). Originally, the
additional people who flocked to an isolated abba did not live with the wise elder, but lived
in their huts, or cells far enough away from others. The elder was consulted occasionally,
spoken to either through the door of his cell, or in person as a guest. However, there were
abbas who had the gift of administration and created what would later become monasteries.
Such changes in ascetic governance dynamics developed as numbers of monks and nuns
increased in proximity to each other, creating the precursor for the monastery. According to
Harmless, a monastery is a contradiction because the word monk comes from the word
monachos, and literally means, “one who lives alone,” yet in a monastery monks and nuns
49 Harmless 66. 50 Harmless 67. Contrary to this depiction, letters attributed to Anthony reveal an intelligent man adept in philosophy and aware of current schisms in the Christian church. 41
live in community.51 Yet, even though the monastery is thus a paradox, it yet describes a
lifestyle of individuals seeking a solitary life with God, but with the benefits of a
community.
Fig. 1. Laura of St. Marcarius from Hugh G. Evelyn White, The Monasteries of The Wâdi ‘N Natrûn Part III – The Architecture and Archaeology (New York: Arno Press, 1933) Plate II.
The one-hundred fifty year progression from the solitary anchorite, living in individual cells and geographically separated from other anchorites, to groups of anchorites
51 Harmless 115 42
in a community setting, represents the birth of monasticism. To use the term birth implies a specific time and place. Yet, there is no clear delineation of time and place for the origin of monasticism. There was a more gradual development concerning communities of monks and nuns. And although much scholarship prior to the mid-twentieth century regarded
Egypt as the birthplace of monasticism, subsequent findings have revealed significant evidence to the contrary, specifically in Syria and Israel. Harmless points out that conventional histories found in textbooks and encyclopedias written from the nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century claim that St. Anthony was the founder of Christian monasticism, Egypt is the birthplace of Christian monasticism, and that Pachomius was the founder of coenobitic monasticism. It is arguable whether Egypt is the place where ancient
Christian asceticism and monasticism began, and whether Anthony and Pachomius were the true, or sole founders of their forms of ascetic Christian practice. Even though the scope of such discussion is outside this dissertation, John Cassian claimed he knew the naissance of Christian monasticism, an assertion based upon his interpretation of scripture.52
John Cassian (c.360-435) claimed an earlier starting point than that of the second
century. A monk of the mid-fourth century, Cassian was born in 360 possibly in Southern
Gaul. An ascetic, he traveled to Palestine and Egypt as a pilgrim seeking the keys to true
Christian asceticism. During a long pilgrimage, Cassian traveled with his friend Germanus,
settling for a time in Egypt between c. 385-400. In his Conferences, volume 18, Cassian
asserts that the establishment of Christianity and monasticism were simultaneous; he
52 See Harmless 317-458. 43
substantiates his assumption by referring to the communal life mentioned in Acts.53 After
Christ’s death and resurrection, his followers shared their possessions so that no one lacked. They prayed in the temple and met at each other’s homes. Cassian further claims that evangelization of the Gentiles deteriorated the first fervor of the early Christians.
Consequently, certain numbers set themselves apart and dwelt in remote places:
The discipline of the cenobites took its rise at the time of the apostolic preaching.
For such was the whole multitude of believers in Jerusalem as described in the Acts of the
Apostles […], but at the death of the apostles, the multitude of believers began to grow lukewarm […]. Those in whom the apostolic fervor still existed, however, were mindful of that earlier perfection. Abandoning their towns and the company of those who believed that the negligence of a more careless life was unlawful for both themselves and the church of
God, they began to live in rural and more secluded places and to practice privately and individually what they remembered had been taught by the apostles […]. So it was that there flourished the discipline which we have said came from the disciples who removed themselves from contamination. […] Consequently they are called cenobites from their common fellowship, and their cells and dwelling places are called cenobia. This alone was the most ancient reference to a kind of monk, first not only in time but also in grace, and
53 Acts 2:42-47 “These remained faithful to the teaching of the apostles, to the brotherhood, to the breaking of bread and to the prayers. And everyone was filled with awe; the apostles worked many signs and miracles. And all who shared the faith owned everything in common; they sold their goods and possessions and distributed the proceeds among themselves according to what each one needed. Each day, with one heart, they regularly went to the Temple but met in their houses for the breaking of bread; they shared their food gladly and generously; they praised God and were looked up to by everyone. Day by day the Lord added to their community those destined to be saved.” 4:33-35 “The apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus with great power, and they were all accorded great respect. None of their members was ever in want, as all those who owned land or houses would sell them, and bring the money from the sale of them, to present it to the apostles; it was then distributed to any who might be in need.” 44
which remained inviolable throughout the years, up until the era of Abba Paul and Abba
Anthony. 54
Thus, Cassian also stressed that coenobites predated anchorites. As explained by
Harmless, the ancients did not trust novelty, hence Cassian’s take on the history of
monasticism is borne out of the need to provide proof of old established roots to this institution.55
Notwithstanding Cassian’s interpretation of events from the first two hundred years
of Christianity, sources such as Harmless and Goehring are basic to my discussion here.
While Pachomius may not be the first to establish a coenobitic community in the desert of
the Nile Delta, he was a pioneer. His organizational skills created a monastic rule that
became a model for medieval religious communities. Pachomius was born in Upper Egypt
in 292 in the town of Latopolis south of Thebes to pagan parents who, although they were
from peasant lineage, were relatively comfortable financially. In 312 he was conscripted
into Constantine’s Roman army, but was held with other new recruits as captives, left in
prison, tired, hungry and frightened.56 One evening, a group of villagers came with food
and drink. Struck by their kindness, he asked his fellow soldiers who these people were.
They replied that these “Christians were merciful to everyone, including strangers.”57 In
response, Pachomius asked what a Christian was. “They told him, ‘they are men who bear
the name of Christ, the only begotten Son of God, and they do good to everyone, putting
54 John Cassian, John Cassian: The Conferences, trans. Boniface Ramsey, O.P. (New York: Paulist Press, 1997) 637-638. Abba Paul the Simple was a disciple of Abba Anthony who lived during the fourth century. 55 Harmless, 417. 56 Harmless, 118. 57 “The First Greek Life of Pachomius,” Cistercian Studies Series vol. 45-47, trans. Armand Veilleux (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1969) 300. Subsequent citations of The Life of Pachomius will be referenced as CS. For example, this particular footnote is CS 45:300. 45
their hope in Him who made heaven and earth and us men.’”58 Upon hearing this “his heart
was set on fire with the fear of God and with joy,” and he was converted to Christianity.59
After Constantine defeated his enemies, the conscripts were freed. Pachomius (292-
346) journeyed to the Upper Thebaid.60 It was there that he was baptized in Seneset, Upper
Egypt, in 313. He had a dream on the night of his baptism: “dew from heaven descended upon him. When the dew had collected in his right hand and turned into solid honey and
the honey had dropped onto the ground, he heard someone say to him, ‘and spread its
sweetness over the whole earth.’”61 According to Coptic sources, he then served the needs
of villagers for three years, after which he decided to become a monk. He thus submitted
himself to Palamon,62 a local anchorite who led a small group, teaching a severe asceticism
described in The First Greek Life of Pachomius: “In summer I fast daily and in winter I eat
every other day. By the grace of God I eat nothing but bread and salt. I am not in the habit
of using oil and wine. I keep vigil as I was taught, always spending half the night and often
the whole night in prayer and reciting of the words of God.” 63 Their days were filled with
prayer vigils, concurrent with manual labor, which “consisted of spinning and weaving hair
sacks.”64 Work was not extraneous, but a vital part of their vigils: “In their work they toiled not for themselves but they remembered the poor as the apostle says.”65 Again, as we
58 CS 45:300. 59 CS 45:300. 60 Thebaid, so named after the ancient capital of Thebes, is a region of Upper Egypt located along the Nile River south of the Nile Delta. It was so Two of Pachomius’ koinonii – Tabennesi and Pbow – were north of Thebes and east of Nag Hammadi. 61 CS 45:301. 62 Palamon was a well-revered anchorite mentioned in the histories, but no particular dates are given and little else about him is known. 63 CS 45:301. 64 CS 45:301. 65 CS 45:302. 46
learned in Anthony’s life, Pachomius sought out an anchorite, which informs us that
monastic traditions predate both patristic leaders.
Two distinct experiences defined Pachomius’ calling to establish a coenobite community. The first was while he was gathering wood near the abandoned village of
Tabennesi. While he was praying, he heard a voice calling him: “Stay here and build a monastery; for many will come to you to become monks.”66 Therefore, in 323 he parted
from his mentor and moved to Tabennesi (see Fig. 2). Soon his brother, John, joined him to
become a monk. His second experience, described in The First Greek Life, occured on an
island with his brother. Alone keeping vigil, an angel appeared to him and spoke these
words three times: “The will of God is to minister to the race of men in order to reconcile
them to himself.”67 Contrary to Anthony’s life, Pachomius was called to a life of humble
service to humanity not in utter seclusion, but in community.
Pachomius and his brother parted ways over a disagreement about the solitary life;
John considered it a conceit to allow large numbers of people to join them. And people did
begin to arrive; soon there were a hundred. The project had its challenges. One Coptic
recension, The Sahidic Life mentions that his first community failed, and he had to start
over. In any case, his mission came to fruition. He served the monks, cooking, answering
visitors, caring for the sick and encouraging the young monks to pray. He would tell them:
“Strive, brothers, to attain to that to which you have been called: to recite psalms and
teachings from other parts of the Scriptures, especially the Gospel. As for me, it is by
66 CS 45:305 67 CS 45:311-312. 47
serving God and you according to God’s commandment that I find rest.”68 By his example, the monks learned humility and self-sacrifice. Pachomius did not use the term monastery; that would evolve in the Middle Ages. He called the community koinonia, a Greek term meaning communion or fellowship, which he adopted from the New Testament. His vision was realized; it was a success, and he compiled the first known monastic rules solely from scripture.69
68 CS 45:312. 69 Harmless 120. 48
Fig. 2. Map of Tabennesi from William Harmless, Desert Christians: An Introduction to the Literature of Early Monas- ticism (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2004) 123.
As the archimandrite of the Tabennessoit Order, Pachomius composed a well- organized community equipped with the accoutrements of a centralized system of government that is not seen again until the Cistercian and Mendicant orders.70 The forerunner to the Rules of St. Augustine and St. Benedict, Pachomius’ system demonstrates
70 Sowers 79, from E.C. Butler, ed., The Lausiac History of Palladius, vol. 1 (Cambridge, 1898, 1904) 235. An archimandrite is the superior in a monastery, corresponding to an abbot or abbess. 49
that he was a meticulous administrator. He established an organizational order based upon
the scriptures: “They lived a cenobitic life. So he established for them in a rule an
irreproachable lifestyle and traditions profitable for their souls. These he took from the
Holy Scriptures: proper measure in clothing, equality in food, and decent sleeping
arrangements.”71 In St. Jerome’s preface to his Latin translation, he states that the precepts
of Pachomius, and his successors, Theodore (d.368) and Horsiesios (d.387), “were the first
in the Thebaid and Egypt to lay the foundations of cenobitic life according to the precept of
God and of the angel who was sent by God for this very purpose.”72
Pachomius’ rule was divided into four books: Precepts, the Precepts and Institutes,
the Precepts and Judgments, and the Precepts and Laws. The first known monastic rule,
Pachomius’ is not as eloquent as Basil of Caesarea’s Long Rules, nor does it have the restraint of Benedict’s Rule.73 Nevertheless, Pachomius’ four books reveal the work performed and the living arrangements. Daily routines may be implicitly referred to, but
Pachomius sets the ground rules in great detail; he explains how an uninitiated enters the
assembly and the punishment for stealing.”74 And Pachomius is very clear about the most
important aspects of monastic life – spiritual integrity and focus: “Love is the fulfilling of
the law for those who know that the time has come for us to wake up and that our salvation
is nearer now than it was when we came to the faith; the night is almost over, it will soon
be daylight; let us give up the works of darkness which are strifes, slanders, hatreds, and
71 CS 45:313. 72 CS 46:141. 73 Harmless 124. 74 CS 46:145, 170. 50
the pride of a swollen mind.”75 However mundane a rule may seem, each teaches a
profound, fundamental lesson. For example, the following two rules, numbers 71 and 72
from the first book Precepts edify the monks about respecting each other’s work and not appropriating authority for themselves: “No one shall take vegetables from the garden
unless he is given them by the gardener; No one on his own authority shall take palm
leaves for basket-plaiting, except the one in charge of the palms.”76
Most monks were skilled in various crafts, and “brothers of the same craft” lived in the same house under one housemaster. Weavers of linen and those who wove mats were of the same family; the various crafts also included tailors, carriage makers, fullers and shoemakers.77 But all were to plait rushes. The monks would plait as they prayed in
their cells or at synaxis (an assembly for liturgy of scripture reading and prayer and also
the name for corporate service).78 Therefore, monasteries under the rule of Pachomius
were self-sustaining, due in part to the monk’s abilities to make goods to sell, such as
braided reeds, which allowed them to purchase food to practice hospitality.
Throughout their work talking was not allowed, nor were the monks allowed to
look upon one another. Rather, their focus was on their prayers and duties. On Sundays,
after synaxis, they were allowed to “discuss among themselves the instruction they heard
from their housemasters.”79 Their lives were highly regimented. For instance, the
75 CS 46:175. 76 CS 46:158. From Precepts, no.’s 71 and 72. 77 CS 46:142. 78 Although the practice of working with the hands while praying was not unusual in Egypt in the third and fourth centuries, it was not practiced in medieval monasteries with such vigor. 79 CS 46:148. 51 beginning of Precepts describes in detail what one should do before during and after synaxis:
As soon as he hears the sound of the trumpet calling [the brother] to the
synaxis, he shall leave his cell, reciting something from the Scriptures
until he reaches the door of the synaxis. And when he begins to walk into
the synaxis room, going to his place of sitting and standing, he should not
tread upon the rushes which have been dipped in water in preparation for
the plaiting of ropes […You shall not] sit idle in the synaxis, but with a
quick hand you shall prepare ropes for the warps of mats, [… and] when
the one who stands first on the step, reciting by heart something from
Scripture, claps with his hand for prayer to be concluded, no one should
delay in rising but all shall get up together. Let no one look at another
twisting ropes or praying; let him rather be intent on his own work with
eyes cast down. These are the precepts of life handed down to us by the
elders.80
Living in a koinonia not only allowed ascetics to seek an inner life of solitude, but also taught them to learn to live appropriately with others. In so doing, Pachomius’ calling to minister to the world could come true. In these communities, each person affected the other, even if they were in silence. The inner wrangling of envy, anger, greed, and selfishness could be chiseled away piece by piece by the presence of others:
80 CS 46:145-146. 52
“Iron is sharpened by iron, one person is sharpened by contact with another,”81 and so
simultaneously continues to strive to imitate the selfless life of Christ.
From the Laura to the Monastery
The physical layout and structures of the Pachomian monasteries laid the
framework for the medieval monastery. These basic monastic complex elements and
principles apply to, and are evident in the seventeenth-century S.M. dei Sette Dolori. Cells
remained the one constant for an ascetic, whether anchorite or coenobite. The four walls of
the cell enclosed the lives of the monks and nuns in a secure space protected from the
outside world. The monks and nuns were shielded from external forces by the four walls of
their cells, creating an intimate space that nurtured the inner-life, and a private place of
personal freedom to talk to God.82 Furnishings were at a minimum: a mat or bare floor for a
bed, perhaps a table, and a chair. As Sower defined it: “[…] the nature of a hermit’s call determined his choice of shelter.”83 In other words, the personal sacrifice and ascetic
intensity was evident by the austerity of the askete’s cell. For the most part, the cell
remained the same in its purpose and presence. However, changes were made to the cell
configurations in the laura design, as will be discussed below.
Just as the cell was a haven from external forces, so the high walls of the compound
were a macrocosm of the cell, encircling the community and protecting its inhabitants from
the outside world. High walls around the compound were a distinctive feature of the
Pachomian monastery.84 Such walls were an architectural design that addressed the unique
81 Proverbs 27:17. 82 Sowers 31-33. 83 Sowers 21. 84 Harmless 125. 53
needs of a monastic community. Walter Horn affirms this concept: “– not so much in
response to brigandry […], but rather because the wall as a symbol of monastic self-
determination, shelter – a barrier against contamination by the impure and noisy world
outside – and an aid in establishing a corporate morale and in supervising monastic
chastity.”85 In addition, Sowers points out that the wall altered the dynamics of ascetic life;
cells shared a common enkrateia: “Limited space regularized the placing of buildings, formalized departures, aided the weakening brother, encouraged communal action and readjusted anchoritic viewpoints.”86 He further concludes that the function of the wall was
two-fold: protection and definition.87
In his preface to the Pachomian Rule, Jerome (342-419) summarizes the
infrastructure of the community:
They have in each monastery fathers and stewards, weekly servers,
ministers, and a master of each house. A house has, more or less, forty
brothers who obey the master and, according to the number of brothers,
there are thirty or forty houses in one monastery, and three or four houses
are federated into a tribe. They either go to work together or they succeed
each other in the weekly service according to their rank.88
The cells were no longer individual, separate, but placed together and positioned in parallel lines with a common meeting room attached (see Fig. 3).89 Each set of cells was a
85 Walter Horn, “On the Origins of the Medieval Cloister,” Gesta 12 ½ (1973): 13. 86 Sowers 43. 87 Sowers 58. 88 CS 46:142. 89 There are no extant drawings of Pachomius’ monasteries. However, we have extant drawings of the laura and the plan for Abba Macarius’ community Dêr Abû Makâr found in Hugh G. Evelyn White, The Monasteries of The Wâdi ‘N Natrûn: Part III – The Architecture and Archaeology (NY: Arno Press, 1933). 54
common house supervised by the housemaster. The common corridor resembled the
future cloister, an open area surrounded on three or four sides by a colonnade and living
quarters.90 According to Sowers, this common house plan is unique to the Pachomian
rule; it is not evident in excavated pharaonic, Hellenistic or Coptic archetypes.91
Fig. 3. A rendition of the Pachomian fold or house from Walter Horn "On the Origins of the Medieval Cloister," Gesta (12 ½ 1973) 16. When the number of coenobites at Tabennesi reached one hundred, a church was built. And when the Pachomian monastery was in its ultimate form, there was a gatehouse, the only penetration through the looming walls, which was given only by the permission of
90 Further discussion on the cloister found in chapter 4. 91 Sowers 75. 55
the porter. A guesthouse was close to the exit to prohibit unwelcome outside influences.
There was also a kitchen, a bakery, dining hall, or refectory, an infirmary, and an assembly
hall.92 Surrounding the community were fields for agricultural necessities appropriate to their skills.
This once-thriving spiritual commune was the prototype for future monasticism.
However, even though his successors, Theodore and Horsiesios, effectively maintained and built upon the wisdom and regulations of Pachomius after his death, it is evident that
subsequent orders who followed and appropriated his rule were unable to command the
leadership necessary to sustain such a community much past the fifth century.
In Figure 4, we see the evolution of Dêr Abû Makâr from laura to a monastic plan
more evolved than the Pachomian fold. Dêr Abû Makâr is a monastic complex located in the Wâdi ‘N Natrûn, or the Natrûn Valley, west of the Nile Delta. It is believed to be the site of abba Marcarius, and constructed around the third century. More advanced than the
Pachomian fold, it reveals the evolution of monastic structures, and more resembles those of the seventeenth century.
92 Harmless 125. 56
Fig. 4. Dêr Abû Makâr monastery plan from Hugh G. Evelyn White, The Monasteries of The Wâdi ‘N Natrûn Part III – The Architecture and Archaeology (New York: Arno Press, 1933) Plate III.
Early Ammas: Religious Women in Early Christianity
William Harmless and Gillian Clark both preface their discussions of ancient female asceticism by stating that much of what was written about them was viewed and composed by men. The voices of women were not heard directly but through carefully spoken hearsay. Granted, these male authors revered certain female elders of their day, yet their works are from a male point of view. An in-depth discussion on the absence of female voices and bias writings of men about women is beyond the scope of this dissertation. It is mentioned here, however, because the source material must be understood from an accurate and balanced perspective. We can ascertain through the writings of the ancient Christian 57
men how various female asketes lived out their austere lives, why they chose such paths in
life, and how the men who told their stories revered them.
First we should ascertain the differences in the ascetic life of a woman as
distinguished from her male counterpart. The foundation laid above indicates the basic
lifestyles of the solitary anchorite and the coenobite. Women were in tandem with their
male neighbors; they had similar goals for the ascetic way of life. Truly, many women
ascetics of ancient Christian times indicate their sincere desire to follow God in keeping
with the traditions of the female disciples of Jesus. Yet even though there are many
similarities obvious in the first perusal, underneath the surface one finds subtle nuances
of difference. Indeed, their choice was at times highly regulated and restricted. What some religious women have persevered and accomplished, in order to fulfill the calling they believed was from God, far exceeds that of most male monks.
Two of the main issues that women had to overcome were how they were perceived and, thus, how their virginity held deeper meaning and significance arising from their sexual distinction. Ancient society categorized women by their physical differences, and ultimately their place in relation to man. For example, one particular myth that persisted for centuries was the Greek physician Galen’s (129- c.200 or 216)
position on the differences between men and women. He promulgated pseudo-medical
proof that women were “failed males.”93 Anatomical and medical theories by Galen prevailed well into the late Middle Ages, and some of his findings are still referred to,
93 Peter Brown, Body and Society (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1988) 10. Here Brown is setting the scene for ancient misconceptions of female essence and being in ancient Greece. Woman Defamed and Woman Defended: An Anthology of Medieval Texts by Alcuin Blamires is an excellent source on the “otherness” of women written by ancient and medieval religious and secular authorities. 58
perhaps only by name, in certain twenty-first century medical texts. As a result, his
theories influenced Greek secular thinking regarding the efficacy of women.94 Galen’s views were assigned considerable authority to support social forces aligned to lower the value and position of women in the enlightened Greek civilization and beyond.
In the Roman Empire, predominantly upper class Roman women experienced more freedom and respect in the marketplace and, to some degree, in politics. Family lines were preserved through the daughters, to whom the family wealth was bequeathed.
And in Etruscan families, women enjoyed at least equal rights to men in a somewhat matriarchal society. In such a milieu of divergent ideologies regarding women in society,
Christianity was born.
It is important to note how Jesus treated the women surrounding Him and how women were treated in general in that time period. This, after all, was the beginning of
Christian principles for the nunnery. Under the control of Roman soldiers, Jews were allowed a modicum of control in their own governance within their theocracy, but no further. Religious leaders, the Pharisees and Sadducees, policed religious laws. In
Judaism, the binary schism between men and women was founded on the story of Eve and reinforced by social norms in which women were secondary citizens. But the ministry of Jesus displayed a wanton disregard for their laws governing the woman’s place; he put into question their traditions, which was evident in the freedom with which women were considered his disciples. In Judaism, women were not allowed to converse with the rabbis. Jesus’ followers, however, included women. One particular incident
94 Since the nineteenth-century, such theories on racial physical differences were perceived as plausible for denigrating people of color, and subsequently used by Hitler to marginalize gypsies and Jews. 59
describes Jesus’ attitude toward women and their pursuit of God. Jesus’ good friend and
supporter, Lazarus, had two sisters, Martha and Mary. In Luke 10:38-42, Mary complains
that she has to do all the busy work alone, while Mary does nothing but listens to Jesus.
Jesus replied by praising Mary for doing the better thing, sitting at his feet yearning to
hear his words.95 It is clear that Jesus condoned and admired the passion Mary showed by
listening to his teachings. That she did not fulfill the usually female household duties was
not at issue, and thereby made a precedent that gave women permission to seek God
beyond their traditional place in society. There were also other women mentioned in the
Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and subsequent epistles indicating their important role
in the Christian life. As we will see in chapter three, women in seventeenth-century
monasticism still desired to sit at Jesus’ feet, as it were, in sweet communion.
In spite to Jesus’ example, twentieth- and twenty-first-century feminist historians
point to and faithfully vilify the Apostle Paul. In their essay, “Sanctity and Power: The
dual Pursuit of Medieval Women,” Jo Ann McNamara and Suzanne F. Wemple represent
predominating sentiments; they cite several scriptures believed to be written by Paul and
gave a cursory explanation for his alleged misogyny. McNamara and Wemple concede,
as do others, that within the framework of Christianity, Paul does write that there is
equality among the sexes, as well as race and creeds. For example, he states that “There
can be neither Jew nor Greek, there can be neither slave nor freeman, there can be neither
95 Luke 10:38-42. “Now it happened as they went that He entered a certain village; and a certain woman named Martha welcomed Him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who also sat at Jesus’ feet and heard His word. But Martha was distracted with much serving, and she approached Him and said, “Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Therefore tell her to help me.” And Jesus answered and said to her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things. But one thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be taken away from her.” 60
male nor female-for you are all one in Christ Jesus” 96 But feminist scholars downplay
this passage and focus on others, such as 1 Corinthians 11, in which Paul discusses how
women should have their heads covered and men their heads uncovered. He also presents his views about women in the church and marriage.97 Specifically, in 1 Corinthians 14:
33-35 he admonishes women to be silent in Christian assemblies and wait to ask their
husband questions when they return home. And in Ephesians 5:22-24, women are to
submit to their husbands because the husband is the head of the woman as Christ is head
of the church. It is this last statement that many feminists deride. However, it is the one of
the leading scriptures that the patristic fathers used to make doctrine about women.
Nonetheless, it is true that many arguments regarding this and other Pauline statements
about women are misinterpreted. Clearly, it is important to understand the context in
which these statements were made.98
In spite of the freedom women experienced in their ancient Christian community,
the Church polity under the leadership of Tertullian (c. 155-230), Chrysostom (349 –
c.407) and Augustine (354-430), focused on the significant differences between male and
female ascetics. These disparities are evident within the dogma of the fallen female, and the
difference between female virginity versus male celibacy. Such conclusions appear to be
96 Galatians 3:26-28. 97 See 1 Corinthians 14:34 and Ephesians 5:22 respectively. 98 In the interest of this discourse, I am focusing on the hermeneutical examination and not translation scholarship. The latter requires a larger format to discuss possible translation errors, or misinterpreted idioms of the time period, and such in-depth study does not necessarily aid in supporting my thesis. Further hermeneutical exegesis on these and other Pauline passages reveal that Paul’s letters to various churches focused on particular misbehavior in the church. Paul states in verse 33 in 1 Corinthians 14, “God is a God not of disorder but of peace,” and therefore certain people should refrain from doing things that would disrupt the service. In many cases in Paul’s letters, individuals were admonished by name, both men and women. Therefore there is a need to not just read, but study scripture in order to understand significance and meaning. 61 logical based upon the position of women in society. For example, St. Augustine expanded upon Galen’s premise in order to make it clear that women were the lesser because they represent the carnal nature of man.99 He postulated that if man is made in the image of God, then he simultaneously represents both spirit and corporeal body. Therefore, woman was created to be at his side, taking upon her the role of body, and leaving the man free in the spirit, and promoting the idea that the woman is essentially the helpmeet and necessary for procreation.100 Augustine utilizes one particular scripture to support his assumption; in 1
Corinthians 11: 3-12: “[...] the head of every man is Christ, the head of woman is man, and the head of Christ is God .”101 Thus, he sets up a soul-body dualism that positions woman
as both subordinate in the natural order of man, and as carnal in the disorder of sin.102 The former placed women in a position in society that burdened them with undo fault and forced upon them an unequal place in society. The latter gives Augustine the platform to discuss virginity.
Following the deduction that women are the carnal representations of mankind, patristic fathers were able to blame the fall of man solely upon woman. In order to avoid
99 Rosemary Ruether, “Misogynism and Feminism in the Fathers of the Church,” Religion and Sexism (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1974) 156-57. 100 Ruether 156. 101 “But I should like you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of woman is man, and the head of Christ is God. For any man to pray or to prophesy with his head covered shows disrespect for his head. And for a woman to pray or prophesy with her head uncovered shows disrespect for her head; it is exactly the same as if she had her hair shaved off. Indeed, if a woman does go without a veil, she should have her hair cut off too; but if it is a shameful thing for a woman to have her hair cut off or shaved off, then she should wear a veil. But for a man it is not right to have his head covered, since he is the image of God and reflects God's glory; but woman is the reflection of man's glory. For man did not come from woman; no, woman came from man; nor was man created for the sake of woman, but woman for the sake of man: and this is why it is right for a woman to wear on her head a sign of the authority over her, because of the angels. However, in the Lord, though woman is nothing without man, man is nothing without woman; and though woman came from man, so does every man come from a woman, and everything comes from God.” 102 Ruether 156. 62
discussions on the impotence of Adam, women were branded as the root of all man’s ills –
it is the woman’s fault man cannot control himself, a tragedy described by John
Chrysostom. He likens men to a “fiercely-glaring lion” who becomes sheared and maimed
to its shame and is no longer looked upon with anything but disdain, so much so, in fact,
that even a child can conquer him. All this is attributed to women: “They render [men]
softer, more hot-headed, shameful, mindless, irascible, insolent, importunate, ignoble,
crude, servile, niggardly, reckless, nonsensical, and to sum it all up, the women take all
their corrupting feminine customs and stamp them into the souls of these men.”103 Hence,
women become the scapegoats for the sins of men.
Consequently, in his writing On the Dress of Women, Tertullian admonishes women to dress modestly because of their nature. At once when women realize that they are women, they should don mourning garments and repent as “Eve in order to expiate more fully [...] that which woman derives from Eve – the ignominy [...] of original sin and the odium of being the cause of the fall of the human race.” In a barrage of charges,
Tertullian continues to condemn women for retaining this guilt because they heeded the
Devil’s lies and plucked the fruit; thus being the first to break divine law and seduced
Adam, “whom the Devil was not strong enough to attack. But he didn’t stop there. Women are the reason the Son of God had to die.”104
Since the woman was subordinate to man, subjugated to his authority, and
denigrated as the source of man’s sins, it follows that a woman’s virginity is a difficult
103 Elizabeth A. Clark, Ascetic Piety and Women’s Faith: Essays on late Ancient Christianity (Lewiston: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1986) 26. Quoted from John Chrysostom, Instruction and Refutation Directed Against Those Men Cohabiting With Virgins. 104 Tertullian, “The Apparel of Women,” I, 1, 1-2, Disciplinary, Moral and Ascetical Works, trans. Rudolph Arbesmann, et al (New York: Father of the Church, 1959). 63
thing to accomplish. In other words, because woman is inferior to man and has corrupted
humanity, for woman to attain the utmost spiritual maturity, she had to not only transcend
her earthly body, as the men did, but also deny her entire female nature.105 Ruether goes
further to say that if woman was fundamentally a carnal body with depraved and sensual
characteristics of mind, she was either irredeemable, or she would have to take on the
nature of man.106 This transformation is mentioned in the testimonies about ancient female
monastics written by male writers. For instance, in the fifth-century biography of Melania
the Younger, Palladius describes this transformation:
For who would be able to recount in a clear and worthy manner the manly deeds of this
blessed woman? I mean of course her utter renunciation of worldly things, her ardor for
the orthodox faith (an ardor hotter than fire), her unsurpassable beneficence, her intense
vigils, her persistence in lying on the ground, her ill-treatment and ceaseless ascetic
discipline of her soul as well as of her body, her gentleness and temperance that vie with
the incorporeal powers, the cheapness of her clothing, and even more than these, her
humility, the mother of all good things.107
The androcentric ideologies and doctrines of the patristic fathers can only reconcile a
woman’s virginity and pursuit of perfection with her female nature by taking away her
nature and imposing male characteristics upon her.
105 Ruth P. Liebowitz, “Virgins in the Service of Christ: The Dispute Over an Active Apostolate for Women During the Counter-Reformation,” Women of Spirit: Female Leadership in the Jewish and Christian Traditions, eds. Rosemary Ruether and Eleanor McLaughlin (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979) 134. 106 Ruether 160. 107 Qtd in Gillian Clark, “Women and Asceticism in Late Antiquity: The Refusal of Status and Gender,” Asceticism, eds. Vincent L. Wimbush and Richard Valantasis (New York: Oxford Univ Press, 1995) 34. 64
Ironically, Chrysostom, corresponded with a close female friend, Olympias (368-?), identified by Palladius in his book The Lausiac History as “The most revered and emulous
Olympias […]”108 Indeed, several ancient patristics had close ties to female ascetics,
powerful yet humble women who led austere lives and guided other women to do the same.
In order to show the differences in the way women were received throughout history (to wit
– seventeenth-century concepts of ascetic vows as contrasted with the present), we will
need to observe the treatment of three women in ancient patristic history: the sister of St.
Basil (c. 329-379) – Macrina the Elder, Pachomius’ sister Mary, and Jerome’s dear friend
Paula. Here we will examine the similarities and distinctions between the male and female
anchoritic and coenobitic lifestyles. These holy women are not highlighted here because
they are considered the most holy, nor are they the quorum of spiritual women of ancient
Christianity, yet they represent those who had a profound impact on not only the religious female but also the religious male.
Macrina the Elder: Sister of St. Basil of Caesarea and St. Gregory of Nyssa
History gives way to Herstory109; sources on Basil that have been recently
scrutinized reveal that he is not the founder of monasticism at Cappadocia, but rather
followed in the footsteps of his sister Macrina (before 324-379) and younger brother
Naucratios (330-357).110 Basil was studying abroad and touring ascetic settings in the
108 Palladius, The Lausiac History, 56, trans. Robert T. Meyer (New York: Newman Press, 1964) 137. 109 The term Herstory is an alteration of history (his story), and is prevalent in feminist language. Its use emphasizes the role of women in history, and/or told from a woman’s point of view. 110 See William Harmless discusses this in chapter “Monastic Origins: Perspectives, Discoveries, and Disputed Questions” in his book Desert Christians: An Introduction to the Literature of Early Monasticism 431-32, 441, 431; Susanna Elm, Virgins of God: The making of Asceticism in Late Antiquity (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994) Part I 25-26. Both agree that Basil’s place in history, as the founder of monasticism in Cappadocia, is inaccurate. Rather, his older sister Macrina and his brother Naucratios influenced his ministry and asceticism. Perhaps, the hubris that Basil possessed prior to his conversion prevailed 65
Middle East while each of his siblings began monastic experiments. Basil continued
Naucratios’ monastery after his untimely death in a hunting accident. Macrina, Basil’s older sister was the influence and inspiration for her male siblings. Another brother,
Gregory of Nyssa (d. 385-386), wrote Macrina’s vita. This biography is written in the
form of a letter to an audience that is unknown. It is not a chronological telling of his
sister’s life, and it hints of influences of Greek philosophical biographies and legends of
martyrs.
In Gregory’s narrative, Macrina’s spiritual journey began at birth. At a very
young age she was educated with scripture, and performed the psalter religiously
throughout the day.111 According to Gregory, Macrina’s beauty was renowned in her
region. Approaching the appropriate age for marriage, many men inquired of her father to
marry her. But her father betrothed her to a suitor of his choice, a man whose character he
knew and trusted. Tragically, the young man died before their marriage. But for Macrina,
she turned this heartbreak to her advantage. As other men once again sought for her hand,
she cleverly persuaded her father that even though her betrothed was dead, she still
considered them to be married: “[…] her judgment was that he was ‘living in God’ through hope for the resurrection and that he had ‘gone away’ and was not a corpse. It
was absurd, in her opinion, not to keep faith the a bridegroom who was on a journey.”112
She successfully pleaded her case, and the verdict ended in her favor.
somewhat in his self-attribution of monastic history. Or, as often occurs in historical texts, the authors, usually male, write history from the patriarchal point of view. 111 Gregory of Nyssa, “The Life of Saint Macrina,” qtd in Joan M. Peterson, trans. and ed., Handmaids of the Lord: Contemporary Descriptions of the Feminine Asceticism in the First Six Centuries, Cistercian Studies Series 143 (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1996) 53. 112 Gregory of Nyssa 55. 66
She pledged to stay with her mother, to help her with the household chores and with her siblings. Gregory states that “there was a fruitful exchange between them: the mother cared for her daughter’s soul and the daughter her mother’s body.”113 The work she performed in the house was beyond the acceptable spinning. She did the work of slaves, a practice that later became a foundational activity in her religious life. Macrina’s example of a pure heart and life led her mother towards “a more simple way of life, detached from material things.”114 For Macrina, this was her ideal of philosophy of life.
While her brother Basil was away visiting the holy monasteries in Egypt and
Israel, Macrina convinced her mother Emmelia to convert their house into a monastery.
Emmelia needed to make the next step: “abandon the conventions of social life” expected of women of the world, release the maids, regard herself as equal with the masses, involve herself with the virgins in their home, and share her life by “making sisters and equals out of slave-women and servants.”115
During this time, her younger brother Naucratios had found his way to that philosophy of life, sought the solitary life of poverty and began serving elderly men by providing them game for food. Sadly, another tragedy befell Macrina and her mother;
Naucratios and his best friend Chrysaphios died in a hunting accident. Emmelia was so overcome with grief that Macrina had to help her mother learn how to rise above female sentimentality and normal human nature to the “sublime and exalted spiritual character of the virgin.”116
113 Gregory of Nyssa 55. 114 Gregory of Nyssa 56. 115 Gregory of Nyssa 56-57. 116 Gregory of Nyssa 59. 67
Macrina and her mother, Emmelia, moved to her grandmother’s estate in Anessi,
Pontus, near Naucratios’ monastery in what is now northern Turkey; at Anessi Pontus is
where Macrina and Emmelia and their monastery remained. Also, after Basil was
converted to the same philosophy of life like Macrina and Naucratios, he dwelt near his
mother and sister in Naucratios’ monastery.
The rest of Gregory’s monograph tells of the birth of his youngest brother, Peter,
and the death of Macrina. His account of Macrina’s angelic presence on her wooden
deathbed is a touching eulogy of her saintly life. She was praying to God as she breathed
her last: “When she had completed the office and had indicated, by putting her hand to her face in making the sign of the cross, that she was reaching the end of her prayers, she gave a great, deep sigh and ended her life and her prayers at the same moment.”117
Throughout Gregory’s long letter, Macrina’s humility and angelic holiness is found in the silences and in the revelation of her strength. Macrina is never named the founder of the monastery. She is described as a faithful daughter encouraging and undergirding her mother by word and, more importantly, by her gentleness, meekness, inner strength in the face of adversity, and a complete selflessness that made her invisible. Such invisibility is not brought on by her “Otherness” as a woman, but as the quintessential askete, one who puts God above all and oneself last.
This short biography provides a glimpse of an austere female askete who cherished her commitment to God first. Her deathbed was a wooden board on the earthen floor. When
Gregory came to see her before she died, she mustered up all her strength to greet him properly – a feat that, according to Gregory, the average monk would not be able to endure:
117 Gregory of Nyssa 72. 68
“When she saw me close to the door, she raised herself by pressing on her elbow, but she was
unable to run towards me, because her strength had already been sapped by the fever.
However, she placed her hands firmly on the ground and fulfilled the office of coming to
meet me by raising herself up from her couch as far as she could.”118 She faithfully
performed her common monastic duty to greet distinguished guests, even on her deathbed.
Pachomius’ Sister Mary at Tabennesi
Gregory’s account also details a monachos lifestyle in which men and women are
in close proximity. This monastery was formed from a home where walls did not surround it per se, for the walls were invisible within the hearts of the souls who lived
there. Nevertheless, scholars describe Macrina’s “home” as a double monastery – a
monastery that houses both male and female asketes, either in a formal segregated fashion,
or in a less regimented manner. The double monastery allows for a symbiotic relationship,
a cooperative between two communities. One of the earliest examples of a double
monastery is at Tabennesi – Pachomius’ successful experiment. Pachomius’ sister Mary
(dates unknown) came to visit him at Tabennesi after fifteen years apart. He refused to
break his rule about seeing female guests. Instead, he sent the porter to speak with her: “I
see you have learned I am alive. Do not be distressed, however, because you have not seen
me. But if you wish to share in this holy life so that you may find mercy before God,
examine yourself on every point. The brothers will build a place for you to retire to. And
118 Gregory 64. 69
doubtless, for your sake the Lord will call others to you, and they will be saved because of
you.”119
Mary was brought to tears and agreed to the life she was offered by her brother.
Pachomius was pleased at this and ordered the monks to “build a monastery for her in that village, a short distance from his own monastery; it was to include a small oratory.”120 As Pachomius predicted, other women did flock to Mary’s monastery, and
“they practiced askesis eagerly with her, and she was their mother and their worthy elder until her death.”121 Not much else is written about Mary and her monastery, except in
regard to the increased number of women – to which Pachomius appointed Apa Peter
“whose speech was seasoned with salt to be their father and to preach frequently to them on the Scriptures for their souls’ salvation;” and funerary practices when a sister died.
Harmless explains that Pachomius’ “arrangement […] had significant effect. It meant that
women could enjoy and share in the security and economic benefits of the emerging
koinonia.”122 As mentioned in The Life of Pachomius, the women participated by weaving
woolen garments, blankets and other things, and by spinning raw flax for tunics.”123
Elm expounds upon this relationship and speaks to the role of the Pachomian
Rule, commenting on how it was put to pen once the population of women had increased.
Apa Peter was there to teach the ladies “The Rule” and guide them in their ascetic life.
Furthermore, Elm points out how the establishment of a female monastery near the
119 CS 45:49. This particular section of CS 45 is the Bohairic Life of Pachomius, one of the Coptic recensions written about the life of Pachomius. 120 CS 45:50. 121 CS 45:50. 122 Harmless 443. 123 CS 45:393 no. 134. 70
monks could alleviate another issue – if anchorites had families, what should they do
with them? As mentioned earlier, Antony placed his sister in the capable hands of pious
virgins so he could pursue his anachoresis. Basil also had a family, and Naucratios and
Macrina already had a healthy association between the female and male asketes. These familial alignments proved useful and mutually beneficial. According to Elm, the double monastery set up a model of the original family, where mothers, sisters, wives and daughters were cared for and supervised by male relatives. However, in double monasteries, ascetic brothers replaced the paterfamilias, and natural family ties were severed.124 Thus monastic rules and regulations reflect this practice. As each monastic rule evolved for the brothers, they were passed to the sisters, which implies that there was little difference between female and male communities.125
Paula – the Friend of St. Jerome
Mothers and sisters were not the only female relationships that faced the male
ascetic. When aristocracy meets askesis, wealthy widows took their place in Christian
ascetic history. Many women of means, bereft of their husbands, found in their religious
zeal new paths toward godliness. Well-established in aristocratic circles, women sought
philanthropic avenues for the prosperity left in their safekeeping. Some widows sought
something more; freed from marriage, women chose a life they otherwise would not have
chosen before. In a distinct maneuver, Macrina, though never married, considered herself
widowed, free from marital obligations, and still a virgin. But others who were married and
bore children found that they could still pursue a life of purity like the widows Jesus
124 Elm 292. 125 Elm 292. 71
himself spoke of and revered.126 St. Jerome became intimate friends with Paula (347-404),
a widow of Roman aristocracy who was left with five children. St. Marcella and her
followers influenced Paula; they were considered “the model of Christian widows.”127 She had become a devout student of the Bible, “eager for a mystical interpretation of it.”128
Jerome first met Paula in 382 when he went to the Council of Rome. He remained in Rome until 385, at which time he wrote her letters continuing to guide Paula in understanding the scriptures. His relationship with her was troublesome because of the prevailing principles about the dangers of women promulgated by Chrysostom and Tertullian mentioned earlier.
Paula soon followed Jerome, taking her daughter Eustochium with her. They settled in Bethlehem in 386. Here, Paula founded a convent and remained its superior till her death in 404. Much of what is known about Paula is found in Jerome’s letters. Indeed, some of the prefaces in Jerome’s translations and commentaries mention Paula’s influence. For example, he revised his first psalter at her request, which resulted in the Gallican Psalter.
She also encouraged him to translate Origen’s Homilies on Saint Luke’s Gospel. Both
Paula and her daughter Eustochium are mentioned in dedications to Jerome’s biblical works such as the preface to The Books of Kings.
In the first sentence of his letter to Eustochium (letter 108), Jerome describes his grief at the death of her mother and his dear friend: “IF ALL THE MEMBERS of my body were to be converted into tongues, and if each of my limbs were to be gifted with a human
126 Refer to the poor widow in Mark chapter 12 and Luke chapter 21, Anna in Luke chapter 2, Zarepath in Luke chapter 4. 127 Louis Saltet, “St. Paula,” The Catholic Encyclopedia, volume XI (New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1911). 128 Peterson 123. 72
voice, I could still do no justice to the virtues of the holy and venerable Paula.”129 Jerome then eloquently describes her life. The poor knew her for her generosity, so much so that her children’s inheritance was threatened. When her family approached her about her extreme philanthropy, she replied, “She was leaving to them a better inheritance in the mercy of Christ.”130 She opened her home to Christian prelates during the Roman Council.
She was so enthralled by their virtues that she pledged to forsake her family and wealth to
“go to the desert made famous by its Pauls and by its Antony.”131
According to Jerome, Paula established a monastery for men and “divided into
three companies and monasteries the numerous virgins whom she had gathered out of
different provinces, some of whom are of noble birth while others belonged to the middle
or lower classes.”132 She set up rules that ordered the liturgy for the day, including the work of making garments and meals. Paula was a wise leader; she understood that the needs of the individual also contributed to the good of the community. She supervised the monastery with intensity, yet she also was gentle and merciful. And although she was firm in the everyday aspects of monastic life, and especially the ladies’ spiritual education, she was also very kind and benevolent to the sick, serving them herself.
Spiritual Resolve in Female Asketes
From these brief excerpts into the lives of spiritual mothers of ancient Christianity, we get a glimpse of their fortitude and perseverance to strive for angelic perfection.
Regardless of the obstacles, whether physical, emotional or socially constructed, these
129 Peterson 126. 130 Peterson 129. 131 There were two influential Pauls: Paulinus, Bishop of Antioch, and Paul the Hermit. Peterson 129. 132 Peterson 147. 73
women reflect the austerity and sincerity of female asketes. They did not succumb to social standards regarding their sex, but sought the same godly life experienced by male anchorites. And even though it was necessary to obey the trappings of male rules and regulations, religious women did not view this as a hindrance or inequity. Their goals were
not held up by religious bureaucracy, but fulfilled within that infrastructure. Certainly, it
could be argued that these spiritual women were more faithful to their callings by enduring
a patriarchal convention, and better able to withstand any adversity more than their male
counterparts, as in the death of parents, siblings, spouses and children. This ability to
withstand adversity is seen in their obedience to wed and still lead a life of purity, receive
divine revelation even under the rule of men, and be equal to the task of extreme poverty
and virginity in order to achieve a life of perfection.
Ancient Christian ammas, from those walking with Jesus, to those living three
hundred years after his death, exemplify the resolve of spiritual women. Male dominance
notwithstanding, these female asketes proved that the rigorous ascetic life believed
necessary for salvation, was not solely a male enterprise. They were able to found a
community, establish its rules and maintain its existence. Even though the Rule of
Pachomius was lost for centuries, the spiritual posterity of religious mothers like Paula
remains. Women such as the three described here illustrate a spiritual tenacity that endured
into the seventeenth-century, exemplified by religious women like Camilla.
For the foundress of S.M. dei Sette Dolori, Camilla’s spiritual zeal coincided with
the spiritual fervor with which the Council of Trent cemented Catholic authority – not
that she consciously abided by its decrees, but she was in harmony with the overarching 74
desire to return to fundamental Christian practices of the first century. Even though
Camilla founded her convent for young women only, she procured suitable property,
mentored a small group of young women in the spiritual life, and composed the
Constitutions and Regulations herself with the same determination and single-
mindedness embodied in Paula, the friend of Jerome. Her childhood consisted of a noble
woman’s education including music, the arts, letters and general knowledge fit for an aristocratic lady of her day. In addition, she exhibited her proclivity for the spiritual life from her youth. She grew up in Palombara Sabina on the Savelli estate, much of which was owned by her father’s family. Growing up in the Castello dei Savelli did not hinder
her desire to visit the various churches scattered among rural monasteries and convents
that surrounded her protected fortress home. There was one particular chiesa that she
loved to visit, Madonna della Neve in the Convento dei PP. Minori Osservanti; she
would gaze “and sigh with her heart inflamed by love for the Madonna” at a painting of
the Virgin Mary with the inscription “O Holy Virgin pray for the blessings of the House
of Savelli.”133
Even though she would have chosen for herself a cloistered life, as was her
inclination, Camilla, in obedience to her parents, did marry at the age of nineteen Pietro
Farnese, the son of the well-known and wealthy Mario Farnese of Latera. As was the case
for many young women, Camilla’s marriage was an economical merger to bolster the
wavering Savelli fortune. Nonetheless, she was able to spend months at a time with her
sister-in-law Isabella Farnese (Suor Francesca Farnese di Gesù’ e Maria), and cousin
Clarice Marescotti (Santa Giacinta Marescotti).
133 “Virgo precor valet lustris Domus alma Sabella.” Bosi 19. 75
Suor Francesca founded convents of Poor Clares in Farnese, Albano, Palestrina and
Rome. It was during time spent with her sister-in-law that Camilla was inspired to establish
a convent. Suor Giacinta was a nun at S. Bernardino in Viterbo and also founded two
charitable confraternities: the Sacconi, which aided the infirm, and the Oblati di Maria, which assisted the elderly. She was instrumental in helping Camilla compose the rules of the convent.134 At their respective convents, Camilla absorbed the atmosphere of the
spiritual life of women and learned the practical and administrative aspects of establishing
and managing a convent. Suor Francesca and Santa Giacinta demonstrated to, and advised
Camilla on issues pertaining to personal piety, and guided and mentored young women.
Camilla gained tremendous insight into a life she had originally aspired to live.
Female philanthropy was a common practice prior to the seventeenth century. It
was a means for noble women to be involved with business outside the home, occupations
that were perceived as man’s work and therefore was otherwise unavailable to them.
Philanthropy was also another avenue for women who desired to be involved in religious
pursuits while married. Marilyn Dunn concisely illustrates the creative ways in which
wealthy women in seicento Rome utilized their husbands’ wealth in monetary ventures
involving art and architecture for the church. Specifically in Camilla’s case, she was given
the opportunity to found and build a convent and choose the architect. It was a place where
young women under her tutelage could live in safety and spiritual solitude. Her purposes
went beyond the traditional motivation of beautifying a church with art or just having
something to do beyond the estate walls. Camilla was driven to prepare a place for women
134 Marilyn Dunn, “Spiritual Philanthropists: Women as Convent Patrons in Seicento Rome,” Women and Art in Early Modern Europe: Patrons, Collectors, and Connoisseurs (University Park: Penn State Press, 1997) 164. 76 with a passion like her own, and ultimately where she could live if she were to survive her husband. Camilla’s husband Pietro did not readily hand over funds for her to begin her lifelong project. Much of his hesitation was due to monetary constraints, because he was already supporting one of his sister Isabella’s convents. Nevertheless, by 1658 Pietro donated 7,500 scudi to help with costs for S.M. dei Sette Dolori. Four years after his donation, he died. At sixty years old, Camilla was at last able to live in her convent.
S.M. dei Sette Dolori, was the fruition of Camilla’s spiritual dream and lifelong ambition to serve God. Camilla’s choice was one of only two, marriage or convent. And had she the opportunity to make the decision for herself, she would have chosen the life of a nun like her sister and cousin. However, her obedient spirit propelled her into a marriage that was not of her choosing; yet she did not protest. She found solace in her opportunity to establish an organization that resonated with her sensibilities. She wisely took Giacinta’s advice in writing the rules for the convent that both complied with Tridentine demands and satisfied her own expectations for the convent life.
Sette Dolori echoes ancient Christian ideals within Tridentine dictates
Camilla composed her constitution and regulations within the bounds of Tridentine canons and decrees, those that harmonized with the ancient Christians. In 1298, the papal bull of Boniface VIII, titled Periculoso, commanded that “the enclosure of nuns be restored wherever it has been violated and that it be preserved where it has not been violated;
[...]”135 Elizabeth Makowski explains how this papal bull was limited to female convents and strictly limited nuns from exiting their convent and visitors from entering. Previously,
135 Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent, trans. Rev. H.J. Schroeder, O.P. (St. Louis, MO: B. Herder Book Co., 1660) 220. 77
it was common that male and female monasteries were carefully protected from the outside
world with various fences or barriers. But this new law was specific to women. Obvious
tensions arose from this new regulation. However, over the next few centuries, the local
episcopacy did not enforce it as was intended. And when Pope Pious V reinvigorated the
Periculoso in the Twenty-fifth session of the Council of Trent, tensions arose once again.
For some convents, enforced encloisterment (clausura) created difficulties, and sometimes
it had severe consequences. Convents were no longer able to allow their appointed nuns to
leave to procure necessary provisions, thus endangering their economic stability. In some
cases, clausura resulted in near starvation for some monasteries, since they were unable to
go out and acquire dietary essentials. 136
Yet, for Camilla, mandatory clausura was not a difficulty to overcome. Clausura
was an essential part of the early monastics. And even though the Periculoso was mandate for women, seclusion is necessary to achieve the ancient monastic ideal of spiritual perfection and devotion. In the introduction to her constitution, she wrote: “I will say that if one embraces the religious life without a calling from God, it is better that one from that moment could return to the ancient freedom, otherwise the cloister will become for them as the depth of the ocean of worldly dangers.”137 Throughout the introduction, she clearly
explains the life devoted to God, the peace that comes from such a life, and how one can be a part of the convent community to fulfill one’s calling. The Constitution and the
136 Helen Hills, Invisible City: Architecture of Devotion in Seventeenth-Century Neapolitan Convents (NY: Oxford Univ Press, 2004). 137 “Dirò che se abbracciarono lo stato religioso senza vocazione, meglio sarebbe per esse giacchè il potranno tornare all’antica libertà, altrimenti il Chiostro diverrà loro un mare del mondo stesso più periglioso.” Costituzioni delle Mobili Oblate di S. Maria de’ Sette Dolori fondato dalla Sig.ra Duchessa Camilla Virginia Savelli Farnese – nell’anno 1668, re-written by Maria Fortunata Maggio, Archivio del S.M. dei Sette Dolori. 78
Regulations received a final approval from Pope Clemente X on 23 March 1671.138
Camilla successfully exerted her agency within the Church’s monastic system, finding that
Church’s requirements were in line with her plans within the walls of the monastery.
138 Camilla had written three constitutions: the first was approved by Pope Alessandro VII, Chigi (1655- 1667), the second by Pope Clemente IX (1667-1669), and the final by Pope Clemente X (1670-1676 ). At each rewrite, Camilla continued to enhance its power and authority. For instance, in 1663, she inserted a firm statement that would keep S.M. dei Sette Dolori directly under the authority of the Vicar of Rome and no other monastery, congregation or confraternity. “In perpetuo tanto nel temporale, quanto nel spirituale esso Monastero, sua Superiora, e Monache predette all’immediata giurisdizione, superiorità, visita, correzione, cura, e governo del prefato nostro Vicario in spiritualibus generale di Roma o in avenire esistente e del Pontefice Romano in tempo.” Qtd in Bosi La serva 69. 79
CHAPTER TWO – SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY ROMAN CONVENTUAL SPACE
“[...] surely the cloister is the symbol of a spiritual ideal, and, whether or not we accept the particular religious values that inspired it, it still remains for us a witness to the fact that the themes of spiritual freedom and physical limitation are ultimate themes [...].”139 Paul Meyvaert
Built between 1643-1667, S.M. dei Sette Dolori typifies seventeenth-century ecclesiastical architecture (see Fig. 5).
Fig. 5. S.M. dei Sette Dolori – the façade is seen on the right from Giuseppe Vasi (plate no. 159), Rome Art Lover. Roberto Piperno 2003.
139 Paul Meyvaert, “The Medieval Monastic Claustrum.” Gesta 12 ½ (1973): 58. 80
Erected almost half a century into the Baroque period, S.M. dei Sette Dolori exhibits aspects of that era: theatricality,140 movement, and tension. Notwithstanding it also fits
the profile of a prison, as convents are often defamed. Francesco Borromini was
Camilla’s architect of choice, even though Bernini was usually the papal favorite. But
Borromini’s style, as we shall see, fit better with the principles of a nunnery as set forth
by the Church. His geometric designs in S. Ivo and S. Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, and his
modified rectilinear floor plan of the Oratory of the Filippini reflect certain classical
architectural devices that easily conjoined with his distinctive Baroque sensibilities.141
Even though Borromini was not the superstar of seventeenth-century Roman architecture, his oeuvre was destined to provide a kind of unique living architecture that seemed to radiate the religious principles of the contemporaneous monastic community. Such a trait solidified a posterity that would come to overshadow Bernini’s edifices.
Borromini’s religious structures did not stray far from certain post-Tridentine ideals regarding monastic architecture. As mentioned before, monastic life was closely scrutinized during the Council of Trent. In order to eliminate heresy in various monasteries, it was deemed necessary not only to reaffirm the Periculoso, but also to concretely ensure the safety of religious men and women in communities. Safety for women inhabitants meant maintaining their purity, and this was two-fold: women must be protected from
140 Theatricality in Baroque art and architecture is defined as being dramatic, with a flair for the spectacular. This was part of the Tridentine decrees concerning the arts, which stipulated that the drama does not detract from the religious ritual, as this would appeal to prurient tendencies. Their purpose was to entice people to enter churches, to draw back those Catholics who were wooed by Protestant ideology. Once inside, the parishioner would be inundated with dramatic paintings and sculpture that depicted Biblical stories, especially of Jesus and Mary. Bernini’s David is one such example of dramatic and emotional intensity. 141 This is not an exhaustive list of Borromini’s works, but it represents what I consider some of his highest achievements in creativity and style, the Baroque Borrominian style. 81
themselves - they were deemed inferior to men and “equated with sin, carnality and the
body” as St. Augustine compared maleness and femaleness; and women must be protected
from the outside world. Compelled to advance the Council’s dictates concerning monastic
architecture, St. Charles Borromeo wrote his Instructiones fabricae et supellectilis
ecclesiasticae in 1577, fourteen years after the closing session of the Council of Trent.142
His work methodically breaks down every aspect of each building and even each room of ecclesiastical buildings, and particularly within a monastery. Keeping in mind that Camilla learned from her sister-in-law Suor Francesca how to exert power and influence, to exert her agency to found a convent, Camilla was shrewd to hire Borromini, for even though
Borromini adhered to Borromeo’s instructions, his distinctive style was not hindered, nor was Camilla’s architectural aspirations for her convent spoiled.
In this chapter we will see how Camilla did not lose her agency by the authority of
Borromeo, or by Borromini’s creative genius. In fact, Dunn affirms that nuns had the power to request a stricter enforcement of enclosure to avoid temptations of the secular world, as well as to exert a measure of control when they desired less enforcement by using various means of resistance.143 Camilla garnered great fortitude and firm resolve from her cousin Suor Giacinta and sister-in-law Suor Francesca di Gesù e Maria. Suor Giacinta not only showed Camilla how to ensure the best for her monastery concerning the constitution and regulations, but also suggested that Camilla’s monastery should be in Rome for two
142 Instructiones fabricae et supellectilis ecclesiasticae is the original Latin title. For an English translation see St. Charles Borromeo’s Instructions on Ecclesiastical Building, trans. George J. Wigley (London: C. Dolman, 1857). 143 Marilyn Dunn, “Spaces Shaped for Spiritual Perfection – Convent Architecture and Nuns in Early Modern Rome,” Architecture and the Politics of Gender in Early Modern Europe, ed. Helen Hills (Aldershot: Ashgate Pub Ltd, 2003) 161. 82
reasons. First, Camilla had already gathered young Roman ladies of like spiritual passions,
and Rome was the perfect place to realize the material and spiritual foundation of her new
congregation: second, Rome is the “Eternal City.”144 In her biography of Suor Francesca
Farnese di Gesù e Maria, Andrea Nicolleti reveals how Suor Francesca had purposely
scouted out different convents to understand how they were designed, and to gather
architectural and decorative ideas for her convent SS. Concezione ai Monti.145
Consequentially, Suor Francesca succeeded in exerting more energy into the design of this particular convent in Rome than the others she founded. Suor Francesca’s influence strengthened Camilla’s resolve to assert control upon the design and construction of S.M. dei Sette Dolori. And her choice of architect turned out to be a major stroke of genius.
Borromini: His Influences and Style in S.M. dei Sette Dolori
At a young age Borromini moved to Milan.146 It was in Lombardy that he was
exposed to such architects as Tibaldi (1527-96) and Francesco Maria Ricchino (1538-
1658). The latter is ascribed as a precursor to the Baroque style, as seen especially in his work on the façade of the Collegio Elvetico in Milan. Borromini arrived in Rome in 1619 where he was exposed to Michelangelo’s and Vignola’s architectural legacy, which heralded Catholic-Reformation ecclesiastical buildings. However, Borromini started his
Roman career as a decorative sculptor under the tutelage of his cousin Carlo Maderno. As
Maderno’s assistant, he was immediately propelled into the finishing work of St. Peter’s.
144 Bosi, La Serva 61 and idem S. Maria dei Sette Dolori (Rome: Marietti, 1971) 7-8. 145 Andrea Nicoletti, Vita della venerabile madre suor Francesca Farnese detta di Gesu Maria dell’Ordine di Santa Chiara (Rome: Giacomo Dragonelli, 1660), qtd in Dunn’s “Spaces Shaped for Spiritual Perfection – Convent Architecture and Nuns in Early Modern Rome,” Architecture and the Politics of Gender in Early Modern Europe, ed. Helen Hills (Aldershot: Ashgate Pub Ltd, 2003) 158. Also, on page 170 fn 39, Dunn states that Suor Francesca’s ideas were best expressed in SS. Concezione ai Monti. 146 The exact year is uncertain and ranges from 1608-1615. See Anthony Blunt, Borromini (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ Press, 1979) 13. 83
Borromini worked with, and excelled in, marble sculpting and ironwork, and began
architectural design in Maderno’s studio.147
It was Rome that made the most profound impact on Borromini’s melancholic
personality, and his creative work ethics were challenged by his professional
relationships, especially with Bernini. This particular relationship set in motion a shift in
Borromini’s commissions from papal patronage to that of humble monks and nuns. He
quickly found himself overbooked. Thus, let us look first at the circumstances and events
that formed his transformation and the monastic architecture that resulted.
The Palazzo Barberini commission was given to Maderno in 1627, who in turn
hired his nephew Borromini to assist. Sadly, Maderno died two years later. Instead of
Borromini taking his uncle’s place, Bernini was hired. Bernini was a younger, very
charismatic sculptor who had ambitions that exceeded his architectural prowess; his early skill and talent was in sculpture described by Blunt as “unparalleled virtuosity and inventiveness.”148 Bernini relied upon Borromini’s training and experience with
architectural design, including his aptitude with engineering and structural problems.
What could have been a creatively productive relationship was damaged beyond repair
when Bernini’s ambition and popularity overshadowed Borromini’s obvious genius;
Bernini received greater remuneration and public recognition for their collaborative work
147 Under Maderno, Borromini worked on the cherubs’ heads on the Porta Santa, the wrought-iron gates in the Cappela del SS.Sacramento in St. Peter’s, and the Fontana delle Api at the Vatican; at S. Andrea della Valle sculpted marble cherubs, and the lantern and dome. He was given the commission to direct the work on the Palazzo Barberini, the last major project of Maderno. Blunt 16-17. 148 It was Bernini’s youthful charm and magnetism, as well as his sculptural talent that helped him to gain the patronage of Pope Urban VIII. He lost papal favor during the leadership of Innocent X, but later proved himself a renaissance man living in the Baroque era: architect, sculptor, painter, poet, playwright – the former two gifts exhibited the ideals of the Catholic Reformation, the grand yet moderate theatrical style. Blunt 20. 84
on the Palazzo Barberini. Borromini was eclipsed not by Bernini’s talent, but by his
charisma, a personal trait not lost on Borromini; Borromini lacked the social graces
necessary for such political posturing.149 Even so, Borromini’s intense and anxious
character was balanced by his intense passion and devotion to his art.150 Contrary to
Bernini’s prowess at currying favor, Borromini spent his energies on continued
improvements and creative techniques for which he become so well-known.
In spite of Borromini’s troubled life and mistreatment by Bernini and others, his
legacy is our gain. Neglected by most papal commissions, he worked predominantly for
religious orders.151 Examples include the church and monastery of S. Carlo alle Quattro
Fontane, (Spanish Order of Trinitarians), S. Lucia in Selci and S.M. dei Sette Dolori
(austere Augustinian nuns), the dome and campanile of S. Andrea delle Fratte (Minums),
designs for S. Giovanni di Dio that were never executed (also known as S. Giovanni
Calabita, Padri Benfratelli of the Isola Teverina hospital), and the oratory and monastery of
S. Filippo Neri. Blunt argues that such patrons desired Borromini, not necessarily for his
architectural originality and creative complexity, but for his practical and economic
149 “He was melancholy, nervous and uncompromising, and these qualities soon turned to a neurotic fear of all human contacts and a suspicion of all people, which almost reached the stage of persecution mania,” Blunt 21. After the betrayal by Bernini, Borromini became more fearful that others would try to steal his ideas; therefore he destroyed many of his unfinished designs. He eventually took his own life. 150 Blunt 21. As is true with many an artist with emotional and mental proclivities to depression, obsessive compulsive tendencies and paranoia, these very idiosyncrasies breed the creative passion that burns within, at times results in untimely deaths. 151 The few papal commissions he received were: St. Peters as mentioned above, St. John the Lateran, S. Agnese, Collegio di Propaganda Fide, and S. Ivo. As mentioned in footnote 145, Pope Innocent X demoted Bernini from the position of papal architect, and replaced him with Borromini. During this time, Innocent X commissioned Borromini to redo the façade of the Palazzo Pamphili and S. Agnese located in the famous Piazza Navona. 85
accounting for their needs.152 But I contend that it was not only for his fiscal forethought,
but also for his obvious talent.
What is important to note is that Borromini and Bernini helped to establish the
Baroque style, the expression of confidence and assertiveness of the Roman Catholic
Church, which had become severe and imposing after the Counter-Reformation, and both
contributed to new and different styles in architecture153 Bernini worked on a grand scale
incorporating painting, sculpture and architecture to create a single entity, using dramatic
color and lighting effects, but relying on simple architectural forms. In stark contrast,
Borromini envisioned and constructed sculptural architecture, seemingly living and
organic in brick and stucco, yet less bombastic and on a smaller scale. To further illustrate the contrast between Bernini and Borromini, Blunt notes how Borromini usually worked with brick and stucco, and sometime travertine; he avoided color, so all his church interiors were painted white; his use of sculpture was limited to its incorporation into architectural decoration; and he used light for special emphasis, not for dramatic effect. Furthermore, Borromini showed his inventiveness by using only architectural techniques for effects. His spaces appear to coalesce. He accomplished this effect by manipulating space with curved walls and articulations using columns and niches; he used arches in unique fashion, sometimes mutating them three-dimensionally; and he invented extraordinary forms seen in his domes and lanterns, especially the lantern of S.
Ivo. Essentially, Borromini ingeniously invented architecture that exemplified the
Baroque ideal of movement in a most inspired expression without the interruptions of
152 Blunt 23. 153 Blunt 23. 86
color, opulent materials or drama. As Blunt succinctly states: “One look at Bernini’s
buildings with the eyes; one feels Borromini’s with the whole body.154
What is sad, yet not too surprising, is that the Borromini legacy we study and revere today was derided by many in his own time. In his guidebook to Rome, Fioravante
Martinelli brought more positive attention to Borromini’s architecture, thus championing his friend Borromini against Bernini supporters claiming Borromini as self-indulgent in his gross treatment of architecture.155 Beginning his first chapter, Blunt further states that
up until almost the twentieth century, Borromini was considered the greatest
insurrectionist of architecture – an epithet from his own time. Borromini was also
accused of abandoning the order of the ancients, and thus distracted many architects in
Italy and Central Europe for generations.156 Still, the rhetoric of divided forces paint
images of their enemies with broad strokes that perhaps obscure and/or exaggerate the
truth; one person’s licentiousness is another’s living and organic architecture.
Ironically, these false accusations of Borromini’s works have long since been
debunked because his Baroque style and ecclesiastical architecture echoed more of the true
nature and nuances of the ancients instead of the abstracted and watered-down classicism
of the Medieval and Renaissance eras. Borromini’s style and oeuvre illustrate an understanding of classical architectural ideas and incorporate a pastiche of forms in order to
create insightful ecclesiastical buildings. For Portoghesi, Borromini’s monastic architecture
reveals an architectural evolution from classical antiquity to the Baroque. He disagrees with
Alberti that such an architectural evolution from pagan architecture to Christian
154 Blunt 23. 155 Qtd in Blunt 26. 156 Blunt 13. 87
ecclesiastical buildings needed to “merely make literal translations of types and forms from
classical antiquity.”157 On the contrary, Borromini’s works demonstrate the successful amalgamation of combining new architectural ideas and forms that would encompass all the cultures from antiquity, through the Middle Ages, and into the age of new religious zeal.158
Architectural historians Norberg-Schulz and Portoghesi describe Borromini’s works as examples of organic structures or language systems, respectively, in order to define his use and manipulation of space. Their analyses provide us with some tools that are helpful in interpreting and reading his monastic architecture. Norberg-Schulz’s research focuses on the aspects of space and architecture. Architecture can define a space, but it goes further to create the locus of mediated space, negotiating inner and outer forces with concrete structure.159 In the creative
genius of Borromini, space is “handled”, a method on which the “principles of continuity, interdependence and variation” are integrated.160 The walls become the mediators between the
spaces on both sides, and, in essence, Borromini invents an innovative synthesis of spatial and
temporal dimensions. Consequently, space then becomes “the concrete constituent element of architectural design, [...] a living event, expressing the situation of man in the world.”161 Such
space exudes mystery and promotes a suggestive presence of the Eternal Spirit, and thereby
symbolizes the religious rituals and spiritual aspirations of its residents within.
How did he accomplish this? Below we shall see how Borromini inserted various
157 Portoghesi 163. 158 Portoghesi 163. 159 Christian Norberg-Schulz, Baroque Architecture (NY: Harry n. Abrams, Inc. Pub. 1971) 215 160 Norberg-Schulz 215. 161 Norberg-Schulz, 215. 88 classical architectural ideals, sometimes merged with geometrical forms,162 in order to produce organic structures that appear to move and breathe. Cases in point are the façades of S.M. dei Sette Dolori, the Oratorio dei Filippini, S. Carlino, and the Collegio
di Propaganda Fide, we see that Borromini created an undulating movement by utilizing
concave and convex shapes (see Fig.’s 6-9).
Fig. 6. S.M. dei Sette Dolori façade. Photo taken by Liz Jones.
162 Borromini’s fame rests to some extent on the marvelously intricate geometrical plans that stand behind the design of buildings like S. Carlino, S. Ivo, and S. Andrea dell Fratte. Buildings like the Casa dei Filippini, on the other hand, represent a different strain in his planning, one in which the design is worked out on top of a non-geometrical armature inherited along with the commission. These are his constrained designs, and the oratory, which had to be hammered out on the basis of a plan which Maruschelli left behind, prepared Borromini for the ordeal of the Lateran, where he was obliged to proceed “without altering the plan, without moving walls, and without disturbance of any sort.” Connors 98. 89
Fig. 7. Oratorio dei Filippini façade. Photo taken by Liz Jones.
Fig. 8. San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane façade. Photo taken by Howard Jones. 90
Fig. 9. Collegio di Propaganda Fide facade. Photo from http://www.tesoridiroma.net/ espanol/roma_borromini_e.html
In the interior of S. Carlino, Borromini used a modified rectangular plan, which
could also be construed as an altered Greek cross (see Fig. 10). In this plan, Borromini has
abstracted the straight lines into an elliptical format. But this does not apply solely to the
floor plan. His architectural decoration of the elevation includes three-quarter engaged
columns that accentuate and manifest a program of movement for the parishioners and
pilgrims. The merging of concave and convex curves conveys life and movement; the building in essence seems to breathe, and its heartbeat is that of the monks. 91
Fig. 10. San Carlino church plan similar to the Albert- ina drawing no. 175. Drawing from Paolo Portoghesi, The Rome of Borromini: Architecture as Language (NY: George Braziller, 1967) 45.
The Oratorio dei Filippini nave, though more modest than S. Carlino, is comprised of a vaulted ceiling, with its converging ribs combined with the twin porticoes and the canted corner pilasters, creating the optical illusion of an traditional longitudinal plan resembling a centralized space (see Fig. 11-12).163
Fig. 11. Oratoro dei Filippini church plan. Taken from Joseph Connors, Borromini and the Roman Oratory: Style and Society (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1980) plate 7.
163 Connors 31. 92
Fig. 12. Oratorio dei Filippini entrance and loggia. Taken from Joseph Connors, Borromini and the Roman Oratory: Style and Society (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1980) plate 34.
In the church of S.M. dei Sette Dolori we witness a greater degree of organicized treatment of architectonic structure and interior decoration, which will be discussed in more detail below.
Whereas Norberg-Schulz concentrates on Borromini’s treatment, Portoghesi views Borromini’s style as a language system similar to “poetic and prosaic discourse” 93 with which he “communicates with signs, symbols, rhythm, and antithesis.”164 Portoghesi perceives the linguistic tool of antithesis as the key in Borromini’s architectural language; observing that his use of convex and concave articulations coupled with columns and the absence of corners, Borromini communicates a polarity of values, opposing elements that accentuate the uniqueness of each element by their contrast.165 Such polarities are articulated in the flat and curved, convex and concave action of the walls and columns found in S.M. dei Sette Dolori. Moreover, these visual polarities are suggestive of the dichotomy inherent in female monasteries. In other words, the polarity of values in
Borromini’s architectural language mirrors the opposition of physical restraint and spiritual freedom – their contrast highlights their unique purpose and meaning.
Although Portoghesi perceives Borromini’s works as solely geometrical language, as opposed to Norberg-Schulz’s organic, living architecture, they both agree that Borromini was influenced by a contemporary event, the discovery of the small baths of Hadrian’s
Villa. Inspired by its concave and convex wall movement, Borromini incorporated a very similar design in the atrium, or vestibule of S.M. dei Sette Dolori (see Fig. 13).
164 Portoghesi 376. 165 Portoghesi, Language 376. 94
Fig. 13. Floor plans - Hadrian's Small Baths and the S.M. dei Sette Dolori plan from Paolo Portoghesi The Rome of Borromini: Architecture as Language (NY: George Braziller, 1968) 9.
Contradictions caused by the juxtaposition of opposites, such as convex and concave
architectural surfaces, reflect the neo-platonic philosophy of Nicholas Cusanus, as interpreted
by Athanasius Kircher. Nicholas Cusanus was a Renaissance theologian/philosopher whose
ideas were taken up by Athanasius Kircher, a prominent Jesuit scholar in Rome with whom
Borromini would have been in contact. Kircher became the chair of the mathematics department at the Collegio Romano at the behest of Cardinal Francesco Barberini in 1634, the same year Borromini accepted the commission for San Carlino. 95
Kircher described Cusanus’ ontological philosophy: “being is composed of a series of contradictions including God and Nothingness, light and darkness, potential and action, general and particular, masculine and feminine, ascension and descent,” and we can add constraint and freedom.166 Therefore, if contradictions compose life, then we could interpret
Borromini’s design as an illustration of the nuns’ lives, and perhaps the patron. The
nuns’ lives are contradictions, a polarity of values – of voluntary service to mankind
and the obligatory cloistering separated from mankind. As the ammas and abbas lived
by example, it was necessary to separate themselves from the world in order to save the world through prayer. The women of S.M. dei Sette Dolori chose to be hidden behind thick walls. Metaphorically, the church nave is an oyster shell, and the pearl represents the ladies that live therein. Although their shell of seclusion may hide them, their iridescence is the glow of nuns’ lives in search of spiritual perfection, faithful ritual performed to an audience of one.
The Façade, Atrium and Church
Although Blunt considered the church of S.M. dei Sette Dolori to be Borromini’s lesser work, he did acknowledge some merit.167 The comparison to S. Ivo is an unlikely
pairing; S. Ivo is a male monastery with a centrally-planned church, a modified version of
Michelangelo’s plan for St. Peter’s, whereas S.M. dei Sette Dolori is a modified basilican
plan (see Fig.’s 14-16). Essentially, this comparison of male versus female monasteries was
to done so to emphasize the disparity between male and female monastic architecture and
life.
166 John Hendrix, Architectural Forms and Philosophical Structures (NY: Peter Lang. 2003) 57. 167 Blunt 128. 96
Fig. 14. St. Ivo floor plan. Photo taken from http://www.usc.edu/dept/archit ecture/slide/ghirardo/CD2/037-CD2.jpg
Fig. 15. Plan for St. Peter’s (1546-64) by Michelangelo. Picture from Marilyn Stokstad, Art History, 2nd ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2002) 702. 97
Fig. 16. S.M. dei Sette Dolori church plan. Picture from Paolo Portoghesi, The Rome of Borromini: Architec- ture as Language (NY: George Braziller, 1967) 64.
S. Ivo also includes an ingenious dome, which adds a vertical movement dissimilar to
S.M. dei Sette Dolori.
S.M. dei Sette Dolori has been better compared and contrasted with S. Carlino,
another male monastery. Because the construction of S.M. dei Sette Dolori began a year
after Borrmini ceased work on S. Carlino, Cannariato perceives that the stylistic differences
between the two relates to gender bias and the constrained differences between male and
female monasteries.168 Prima facie, one might make that conclusion, but this particular
comparison is not tenable. Even though Borromini followed Borromeo’s regulations on the
design and construction of female monasteries, Borromini did not need to limit his creative talents to appease Borromeo’s dictates when he designed S.M. dei Sette Dolori. Indeed, in
168 Nicole Cannariato, “Curves, Spectacle and Gender at San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane,” Montage 2006- 2007. 26 June 2007
both S. Ivo and S. Carlino, the theatricality of the Baroque is quite evident. However, the
closest predecessor to S.M. dei Sette Dolori is the Oratorio dei Filippini, a male monastic order across the Tiber River near Piazza Navonna. What sets the Oratorio dei Filippini and
S.M. dei Sette Dolori apart from the others is their purpose, and their particular inhabitants.
Both complexes were monasteries whose residents sought an ancient austerity; they did not
require anything more in decoration and architecture than what they perceived as essential.
The austerity of the Oratorio and S.M. dei Sette Dolori is in stark contrast to the ostentatious decorations on the S. Carlino façade and in the church.
Borromini enjoyed working for patrons such as the Augustinian Oblates and initially the Filippini friars because he was fairly free to make creative architectural designs. Unfortunately, his relationship with the Filippini friars became strained because at times he felt bridled by the austere demands regarding ornamentation.169 Connors and
Blunt address the conflict between Borromini and the Filippini Friars about ornamentation.
And in his Opus, Borromini discusses this challenge, yet he reveals his respect for their
humble persistence: “I had to serve a Congregation of souls so meek that in the matter of
ornament they held my hand, and in places I had to obey their will rather than art.”
Eventually, Borromini lost his position with them in 1657 as a result of such
disagreements. Even though he felt that his artistic ideas were constrained, the nature of
such people was easier to deal with than the aristocrats, and episcopal and papal pomp; he
would have still preferred to acquiesce to the friars’ needs and desires than to bow to the
169 Connors cites the conflict between Borromini and the Filippini friars regarding ornamentation. In his Opus, Virgilio Spada mentions this tension in “Descrittione della nostra fabrica” found in G. Incisa della Rocchetta, “Un dialogo del p. Virgilio Spada sulla fabrica dei Filippini,” Archivio della Società Romana di Storia Patria (XC, 1967) 165-211. 99
capricious whims of the papacy. Yet, he respected the Filippini in spite of their tumultuous relationship as he tells us in his Opus Architectonicum: “Since the institution was called the
Congregation of the Oratory, it was judged necessary to build a façade as a visible symbol of the oratory and of the pious exercises held inside. Having a façade of its own would make it clear that this was the precious gem in the ring of the Congregation.”170
Concerning his relationship with the Augustinian Oblates at S.M. dei Sette Dolori,
even though he seemed to abandon them before the work on the façade was complete,
Borromini included in his Will that they should have the model of the their convent
complex.171 His abandonment was not due to any irresponsibility or dislike toward the women, but to his over-extended schedule and strained personality. When he began S.M. dei Sette Dolori in 1642, he was under pressure from the Filippini, was beginning work on
S. Ivo and had other pressing matters that wore on his frail soul.
Nonetheless, we know he complied with the initial demands made by Borromeo in chapter thirty-two of his Instructions:
Having explained the form of other Churches, we now come to the
instruction necessary for the Church of a convent of Nuns. This church may
be built so as to contain only one nave; [...]. Its size must be determined by
the site, and it may have a vaulted or a trabeated ceiling, and be arranged in
other respects as had been prescribed above. It has only one nave, its size is
170 Connors 32. 171 Bosi, La Serva 101. Unfortunately, the model’s whereabouts are unknown. 100
site-specific, it has a vaulted ceiling arranged in the orders for a regular
church, and there are two side chapels (see Fig. 17).172
Borromeo did leave room for some architectural and decorative creativity; yet it is
understood that all such embellishments maintain a modest decorum. Such dictated
details concerning a female monastery is, as argued by some scholars, a modified code of
clausura meted out by socio-religious constraints of seventeenth-century enclosure rules
for convents.173 Nonetheless, as Blunt stated above, there are specific aspects found in
S.M. dei Sette Dolori that are magnificent innovations that are absent from his other
works. And even Borrominian architectonic trademarks were recognized and accepted at
S.M. dei Sette Dolori as well as the Oratorio and other male monasteries.
The construction began in 1643, and 1646, an account signed by Borromini
reveals that the façade and the contiguous atrium, excluding the small chapel off the
atrium, as well as the church with its chapels, were completed in the rough. The
stuccowork was completed on the interior under Borromini’s direction during 1648-49.
However, the next phase from 1658 to 1665 was continued without the guidance of
Borromini, which proved detrimental to the continuation of his original plans. During
Borromini’s absence, the architect Antonio del Grande supervised the work and
172 Borromeo 124. 173 Scholars include Helen Hills, Roberta Gilcrest, Nicole Cannariato, to name but a few. Their rhetoric predominantly defends a stance of belligerent disdain about what is perceived as gendered socio-religious and socio-political dominance against the value of women in every arena of seventeenth-century life. Little is mentioned about the true desires of the women in context to their society as they saw it; rather, documents used to support their ideologies chiefly deal with all of the negative outcomes of monastic life. 101
Fig. 17. S.M. dei Sette Dolori church interior. The two side chapels are in the foreground on each side of the picture. Photo by Liz Jones.
Francesco Contini was responsible for the decoration of the interior, which was finished in 1667.174 Alterations to Borromini’s plans were made, which disregard for the overall
plan of the convent. Perhaps problems that the on-site architect likely had with the plans
had to be resolved in Borromini’s absence. Some modifications that were made included
the façade doors that were brutally inserted, the chapel that was added to the atrium and
174 As Blunt describes it: “The interior was disastrously restored in the nineteenth century, when Borromini’s white walls were painted bright colors, the columns with sham marbling and the vault with illusionist coffering.” Anthony Blunt, Borromini (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1979) 129-130. 102
the addition of the adjacent wing of the convent toward San Pietro in Montorio.175 Even though all of these circumstances resulted in an unfinished façade, the rough exterior has led some scholars to argue that this female monastery represents the lack of importance and value placed upon female religious.176 But the facts above prove otherwise.
Regardless of the inadequate changes that were made contrary to Borromini’s intentions, his trademark structural and decorative style can still be distinguished. As in his other commissions, Borromini was careful to follow the wishes and needs of the patron, combining his creative genius with the sentiment and personality of the future inhabitants. In other words, Borromini in essence gave Camilla what she asked and required of him. In S.M. dei Sette Dolori, Borromini was able to capture the simplicity of life and devout souls that would live there. S.M. dei Sette Dolori is an important
contribution to female monastic principles by which they have come to be identified –
simplicity and devotion to Christ.
First glance at the unfinished façade, one gets a sense of detachment from the
world, as in the life of the cloistered nuns; it is evident in the thick foreboding walls of
the façade, which is emphasized by the deeply recessed niches (see Fig. 18).
175 Paulo Portoghesi, The Rome of Borromini: Architecture as Language (NY: George Braziller, 1968) 62. 176 Canariato 10-12. 103
Fig. 18. S.M. dei Sette Dolori façade. Photo by Liz Jones.
Yet, at the same time, there is a sense of tranquility. The façade of the church and
convent parallels the Oblates’ circumstances; it is a masterpiece by Borromini that is
based on a simple gesture in the concave form. Conversely, two sharply edged piers that
flank the concave bay interrupt the façade, which is similar to the attic window
Borromini designed at the Palazzo Barberini (see Fig. 19).177 The similarity is between the entablature of the Barberini window and the pier-like structures at the edges of the
177 The similarity is between the entablature of the Barberini window and the pier-like
structures at the edges of the concave form in the S.M. dei Sette Dolori façade. In both
architectonic designs, he creates a uniquely interpreted classical form, as an entablature,
and projects it out at an approximately forty-five-degree angle, giving it an organic,
biomorphic quality. 104
concave form in the S.M. dei Sette Dolori façade. In both architectonic designs, he
creates a uniquely interpreted classical form, as an entablature, and projects it out at an
approximately forty-five-degree angle, giving it an organic, biomorphic quality. The
façade hides the active life found within.
Fig. 19. Window of the Palazzo Barberini by Borromini. Photo from Anthony Blunt, Borromini (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1979) 32.
Façade by definition is essentially the face of a building that puts forth its most
prominent features. Pertaining to people, a façade is the appearance of something that
may be false. In the case of the S.M. dei Sette Dolori façade, its unfinished appearance
avoids the potential pitfall of ostentation. And yet, the architectural articulations still
create intrigue and character, the weathered appearance of a soul braced against the
elements, facing the wind with dignity. 105
There have been questions as to why the façade was never finished, even in the nineteenth century when the church interior was inundated with colored marble veneer and gold leaf accents. One might assume Borromini did not take a woman patron seriously,
which might explain his absence and that inferior minds prevailed on the completion. This
assumption can be disproved when we consider the intensity of Borromini’s over-
committed schedule, and yet he labored over a model and sketches for the S.M. dei Sette
Dolori. So, Borromini’s absence does not explain the unfinished façade. What may have
been the primary, if not sole cause of the incompletion of the S.M. dei Sette Dolori was the
financial setbacks incurred by the Farnese family. Mario Bosi noted that Camilla was adept
at managing money, but the strained Farnese finances occasionally prohibited payments to
the workers, and often postponed the work. In a desperate act to continue the work, Camilla
at one point had to pawn a precious necklace.178 Piero, concerned for this wife’s welfare,
sold feudal property in 1658. Camilla also had control of her dowry; a portion of her
father’s estate, and an inheritance from her mother that she left to the convent.179 After
Piero’s death in 1662, Camilla chose to live out her days at the S.M. dei Sette Dolori, but
never took the nun’s habit; she never felt she was worthy. Despite monies from her dowry
and father’s estate, there still may have been a shortage for the convent in light of her own
living expenses.
The atrium space is intriguing. In contrast to the façade, the atrium seems more
alive and full of movement, yet the façade and atrium structures work in tandem, as the
façade is concave, the immediate interior wall of the atrium adjacent to the façade is
178 Dunn 166. 179 Dunn 166. 106
convex. Once again, Borromini has created organic movement not only within in one
space, but they work together as an organic whole determining each other as if contracting
and expanding. The façade and atrium are not static but acts as two active forces. (see Fig.
20).180 The pulsating juxtaposition of convex and concave articulations forms a
“complementary relationship between the interior and exterior.”181 And so it is with the
interior and exterior of the convent of nuns; they, too, must have a psychological
pulsation between the interior and exterior being (spirit and flesh) of each nun, and each
must form an internal complementary relationship with the external world for that is why
they exist inside a convent. The juxtaposition of physical restraint and yet spiritual
freedom are the opposites that complement each other, work together, existing as a
unified whole, just like the façade and atrium.
Fig. 20. S.M. dei Sette Dolori floor plan of nave and atrium. Photo from Paolo Portoghesi The Rome of Borromini: Architecture as Language (NY: George Braziller,
180 Christian Norberg-Schulz, Baroque Architecture (NY: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers, 1971) 214. 181 “The principle of pulsating juxtaposition was to have a fundamental importance for the further development of Baroque architecture. It must be distinguished from the principle of spatial interpenetration. Instead of penetrating into each other, the spatial elements expand and contract as they were made of elastic material. The principle of pulsating juxtaposition also leads to a complementary relationship between interior and exterior.” Norberg-Schulz 214. 107
1968) 64.
Like the atrium and façade, the nave space is also a combination of multiple forms.
It is a longitudinal plan made into an octagonal, or semi-oval, space. Unlike the Oratory of the Filippini whose corners are articulated by pilasters, the corners in S.M. dei Sette Dolori disappear into smooth concave surfaces, each interrupted by niches and flanked by a giant order of Corinthian columns. The columns are not freestanding but rather are dialectically placed in relation to the wall.182 This dialectic also includes the lateral chapels on each side of the nave with deceptively shallow coffered vaults, a popular trick of the eye of
Borromini’s, and a trabeated-arcuated cornice that uniquely bends with the concave corners. It is quite possible that Borromini had observed the Canopus at the site of
Hadrian’s Villa; at the behest of Cardinal Ippolito d’Este in the sixteenth century, the architect-archaeologist Pierro Ligorio had uncovered it (see Fig. 21).183 The continuous cornice in the S.M. dei Sette Dolori is almost an exact transcription of the Canopus; the trabeated-arcuated entablature of the Canopus is very similar to the S.M. dei Sette Dolori cornice in the nave (see Fig. 22).
182 Portoghesi Language 9. 183 Wilhelmina F. Jashemski, Eugenia Salza, Prina Ricotti, and John Foss, “Preliminary Excavations in the Gardens of Hadrian's Villa: The Canopus Area and the Piazza d'Oro” American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 96, No. 4. (Oct., 1992), pp. 579-597.
108
Fig. 21. Canopus at Hadrian's Villa. Photo from Shoji Hiramatsu, History of Roman Architecture
Fig. 22. S.M. dei Sette Dolori nave – close-up of the cornice (now green). The two small windows flank the arch of the High Altar. Photo by Liz Jones.
The trabeated-arcuated cornice also mirrors the entablature of the Barberini window. The cornice is uniquely interrupted only at the entrance to the nave where the arcuated cornice 109 splits into two volutes behind which the nun’s choir is placed, articulated by a grate (see
Fig. 23).
Fig. 23. S.M. dei Sette Dolori entrance into the church. Photo by Liz Jones.
Even though a grate clearly cover the women’s choir, and there is a curtain that can be closed from the inside to hide the women, Borromini still placed the women above the entrance to the church in a position to view the entire service, which is contrary to
Borromeo’s Instructions: the nun’s choir is to be directly across from, and at the same level as the altar from where the Eucharist is performed. In this manner the women were never to see or be seen by the congregation. Borromini thus used the accepted principle that living 110 quarters are to be on the second level out of view from the public and appropriated this function into the nuns’ choir. This brought in a very creative use of the broken entablature.
Portoghesi called the choir “an upper room.”184 The upper room was where Jesus shared his last meal before the Cross; it was where his disciples, both men and women, met praying and awaiting “the Promise.” It is a place connoting spiritual abandonment and contemplation. According to Borromeo, all the interior living and working quarters of the women were to be above out of sight so that they could not be distracted by the world around them, and also so that they would not be seen, invisible. Invisibility, also, can have two connotations: that of being ignored, and that of unseen authority, as in the invisible God. In this case, the women were watching over their community through uninterrupted prayer and supplications as the early monastics undertook in the desert.
The discourse of juxtaposed concave-convex treatments and continuous cornice creates a rhythmic order. Referring to Fig. 24, the continuous rhythmic ring can be reduced to the following:
a - b - a - - c - - a - b - a - - c - - a - b - a - - c - - a - b - a - - c - -
184 Portoghesi Language 63. 111
Fig. 24. S.M. dei Sette Dolori nave - Rhythm diagram from Paolo Portoghesi The Rome of Borromini: Architecture as Language (NY: George Braziller, 1968) 63.
The “a - b – a” section resembles a Serliana with an uninterrupted trabeated-
arcuated cornice.185 The interval “c” seems to act as a neutral link between the Serliana
sections in which the union of the ring is “relaxed,” a conclusion intimated by the
astragals that proceed from the base of the capitals to articulate the wall of the “a”
section, but is eliminated in the “c” sections.186 Borromini faced the challenge of fusing
the centralized and longitudinal church plan by surrounding the wall with this
homogeneous rhythmic system, thereby reducing the centrally-planned aspect and
creating a unitary and synthesized curvilinear-rectilinear nave. This is a typical Borromini
project created with a unitary sensibility; he created a unified organic whole made of
185 Portoghesi Language 63. 186 Portoghesi Language 63-64. Portoghesi also likens this rhythm to enjambment found in literary metric language, “what occurs when a sentence is not concluded at the end of a verse, but continues and ends in the first or first few words of the following verse.” 112 multiple forms. Once again his disegno reveals the philosophical influences of Kircher and his philosophy that being is composed of contradictions of multiple forms. The homogeneous rhythmic system found in the nave decoration illustrates the homogeneity and rhythm of the religious women, their religious ritual and care of the church.
One of the difficulties encountered in Borromini’s absence concerned illumination in the nave. There are presently four small windows above the cornice in the corner angles (see
Fig. 25), and four larger windows within the intervals between the Serlianas (see Fig. 26).
Fig. 25. S.M. dei Sette Dolori – small windows flanking High Altar vault. Photo by Liz Jones.
Also in Fig. 26, the vault of the nave was completed later, unfortunately without Borromini’s supervision, and thus it is not congruent with the brilliant masterpiece below. 113
Fig. 26. S.M. dei Sette Dolori nave ceiling. Each of the two smaller panels in the vault ends are where the four windows are centered between the ribs. Photo by Liz Jones.
The nave changes may have occurred at the same time the four larger windows were added. As we can see, these four windows interrupt the “architectonic structure of 114
Borromini’s façade,” and therefore are considered to be alterations to Borromini’s original plan (see Fig. 27).187
Fig. 27. Isometric drawing of Sette Dolori façade from Paolo Portoghesi, Roma Barocca: The History of an Architectonic Culture (MIT Press, 1970) 179.
As seen in drawing of Fig. 24, the four windows are not flanking the oculi; just the small
corner windows are visible. Only the oculi set in the lateral chapels are visible in Borromini’s
original drawings located at the Albertina.188 However, the oculi are insufficient for lighting
the nave, therefore considerations for alternate lighting must have taken place. It has been
suggested that the purpose of the elliptical projections on the façade that correspond to the
187 Portoghesi 64. 188 Albertina, Albertinaplatz 1, A- 1010 Wien, Austria. It is a museum in Vienna, Austria that houses one of the largest and most valuable collection of drawings by the masters, Borromini included. 115
lateral chapels may have been for lanterns to be used for indirect lighting.189 This would not
be unusual for a Borromini design. Yet, this too is supposition. More importantly, Camilla
would have asked to fix the problem; light is needed for the nuns to perform their duties, and thus these modifications were necessary.
Although gross modifications were perpetrated on the nave of the church in the nineteenth century, it originally incorporated Borrominian white walls, columns and architectural decorations (see Fig. 28).190 In its original form, it would have resembled the
Oratorio; pristine white with elegant simplicity that fits within the Borromeo guidelines, yet
also illustrates a heavenly setting for spiritual women.
189 Portoghesi, Language 64. 190 The white columns were covered with a marble travertine, as well as various accents on the walls. A green marble was also introduced within the trabeated entablature. Gold leaf was added as accents onto the Corinthian capitals, around windows and into the high altar – all contrary to Borromini’s trademark style. In spite of the color added in the nineteenth century, it remains a lovely space for religious ritual and contemplation. 116
Fig. 28. S.M. dei Sette Dolori church. Photo by Liz Jones.
The Cloister and Living Quarters
In current scholarship, the term cloister is symbolic and describes an enclosed existence for nuns. However, its original meaning has been modified. Historically, the cloister was one architectural aspect of the physical monastery. Paul Meyvaert situates the cloister, or the claustrum, in two periods, classical and medieval. Broadly speaking, in the
Middle Ages the claustrum was the center of a complex of buildings erected for those who chose to live a coenobitic lifestyle. According to Walter Horn and Paul Meyvaert, 117
claustrum was initially defined in Early Christian terms: “that of the bolt, bar or key that
secured the gate or door – a barrier. In a transferred way, it then came to designate the place
thus secured, a confined space, the rampart or wall that surrounds a camp or city.”191
Particularly, the claustra were “broad passages or galleries or covered arcades (covered with tiles or lead) surrounding an open square or rectangular space and giving direct access to all the buildings and apartments” in which monks and nuns would enter for tranquil moments of prayer and contemplation.192
By the Middle Ages, the claustrum signified a general religious or monastic
term.193 More specifically than Meyvaert, Walter Horn explicated the presumed roots of what became the medieval cloister. Horn’s poignant caveat was that there is no absolute certainty about the origins of the cloister. He identified reasonable architectural traditions in
classical Greek and Roman structures that would be easily appropriated by medieval monasteries. He cited the “peristyle court of the Greek house, the colonnade atrium of the
Roman house, the monumental galleried atria of the large Early Christian churches, and
certain semi-galleried courts attached to the flanks of Syrian churches.”194 The basic architectonic elements common to all four types are the arcaded open court spaces as is evident in the peristyle Greek house and Roman domestic atrium (see Fig. 29). The cloister resembles a peaceful place within the ancient domicile, and became a similar location within a monastery.
191 Meyvaert 53. 192 Meyvaert 53. 193 Meyvaert 53. 194 Horn 13. 118
Fig. 29. Plan of a typical Roman domus from Marilyn Stokstad, Art History ( Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2002) 263.
From the classical Greco-Roman domestic styles, Horn then relates the establishment of monks and their habitations from Egypt, such as the Abu Makar laura community, to the evolutions of the first coenobitic community in the upper Thebaid by
Pachomius of whom was discussed earlier. Because the birth of medieval cloisters is unclear, Horn proposes a possible and viable scenario regarding the fertile socio-economic soil from which the cloister could have grown. He sees the confluence of two historical trends: the ascendancy of the Benedictine monastic structure adumbrating the eremitic arrangement and the similarity between the former, and the agrarian feudalism that emerged north of the Alps.195 Benedictine monasteries revitalized the Pachomian model by creating self-sustaining compounds, independent of the outside world all together. St.
Benedict in chapter 66 of the Rule describes a self-sustaining environment to produce an economically independent compound.196 In other words, all the necessary elements
195 Horn 40. 196 Timothy Fry, ed. The Rule of St. Benedict in English (Collegeville, MN: The Litrugical Press, 1981) 4-5.
119
(environment to produce) required to subsist (economically independent) within the
monastery compound were present. Nevertheless, the formation of self-subsistent estates
brought in secular workers that threatened the monastic ideal of seclusion. Thus, the need
for enclosure for the monks precipitated the inner enclosure, allowing secular workers to
maintain the compound while the monks went about their daily spiritual routines within the
cloister.
Carolingian monasteries were not entirely independent, subsisting on the produce of
the land, the labor of the serfs and occasionally the monks, and also on the produce and
revenues of the neighboring estates.197 For example, the lands surrounding Lorsch (765-74)
reveals the vast economic and feudal holdings of the monastery. Consequently, the
Carolingian/Benedictine monastery highly resembled a feudal estate.
A prime example of the early use and formation of the cloister is found in the Plan of St. Gall (see Fig. 30). If we look closely at its plan (Fig. 30), we see the basic formation of the medieval cloister, as both an arcaded garden, and as a complex of enclosure. The cloister (in the concrete sense – arcaded garden) is surrounded by the church on the north side, the dormitory on the east side, the refectory on the south side and usually the Chapter
House on the west side (The plan of St. Gall shows a cellar instead of the Chapter House).
Becoming the accepted and normative configuration for monastic living, some have interpreted the placement of the buildings in various ways.
197 Horn 40. 120
Fig. 30. Plan of St. Gall. Picture from Roger Stalley, Early Medieval Architecture (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1999) 187.
One fascinating interpretation of the architectural symbolism intrinsic in the layout of the buildings surrounding the cloister is by William Durandus (13th c.) in his
Rationale Divinorum Officiorum according to which the church building symbolizes the 121
Church Triumphant and the claustrum signifies heavenly paradise. Certainly this is how
the ammas and abbas would have described it:
Just as the Church building symbolises the Church Triumphant, so is the
claustrum a symbol of the heavenly paradise, a paradise where all will live
together with one heart, rooted in the Love and Will of God, where all
possessions will be held in common, where love will make each one
possess in another whatever he may lack in himself. This image of
Paradise is given by those who dwell within the cloister. [...] And if you
wish to interpret the cloister in the moral sense, it symbolizes the
contemplation of the soul; for by dwelling within it, the soul shuts itself
off from the crowds of worldly thoughts and concentrates on the
mediation of heavenly things. The cloister also has four sides which stand
in turn for contempt of Self, Contempt of the World, Love of One’s
Neighbor and Love of God. [...] The buildings that surround the cloister
also have symbolic meaning: the Chapter House is the Secret of the Heart,
the refectory, Love of Holy Meditation, the dormitory, a Clean
Conscience, the cloister garden with its flowers and herbs, all the virtues,
the font of flowing water, the Gifts of the Spirit which quench the Soul’s
Thirst and extinguish the Fire of Eternal Punishment. 198
Durandus’ analysis notwithstanding, Meyvaert offers a succinct explanation regarding the symbolic meaning of the cloister when he states that “surely the cloister is the symbol of
198 Qtd in Meyvaert 58. See also Megan Cassidy-Welch, Monastic Spaces and their Meanings: Thirteenth- Century English Cistercian Monasteries (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols Publishers, 2001) 65-71 122
a spiritual ideal, and, whether or not we accept the particular religious values that inspired
it, it still remains for us a witness to the fact that the themes of spiritual freedom and
physical limitation are ultimate themes [...].”199 These seemingly polar opposites
represent varying meanings latent within the architecture: protection and yet constraint,
restriction and freedom simultaneously. Thus, theories on the origins of the claustrum are
inherently intertwined with religious function, such as prayer, contemplation and
worship, and spiritual connotations related to the pursuit of purity of heart, cultivating
humility and compassion, and thus must be approached not only from the formal aspects
of architectural scrutiny but contextual interpretations of meaning.
Some interpretations of meaning have shifted from male-centered ideological ones,
such as Durandus and Meyvaert, to feminist readings. Jutta Gisela Sperling reiterates
Durandus, but concludes that there is more than meets the eye concerning “enclosed
gardens” and “church triumphant.”200 What Sperling and others focus on is the literal and metaphoric aspects of clausura and virginity, especially for women. Sperling perceives clausura as a “circular concept, defined by reference to the other ‘enclosed gardens’ it was intended to guard. Its justification consisted in replacing the concept to be explained by a metaphorically related one already accepted as sacrosanct: clausura was legitimized by analogy to virginity. In material terms, it referred to the walls surrounding the convent. As an additional hymen, it prevented humans from accessing the nuns’ sacred interior spaces;
199 Meyvaert 58. 200 “Strict encloisterment was supposed to turn convents into the “enclosed gardens’ of paradise, into hermetically sealed oases of the sacred n the midst of bustling urban centers, into living metaphors of the inviolate and soon-to-be-unified church triumphant.” Jutta Gisela Sperling, Convents and the Body Politic in Late Renaissance Venice (Chicago: Univ Chicago Press, 1999) 119. 123
it was a fortification of their delicate bodily enclosures.”201 Thus, for Sperling, enclosed
gardens do not mean peaceful, and the church triumphant is the perpetrator of female
encloisterment.
Moreover, Helen Hills cites how conventual architecture metonymically represents
the female body in the following ways: its shape, need for protection and separation from
society; its interior contrasted with its modest exterior that conceals the richness of the
women’s dedication and virginity; and its correlation between women’s bodies and Christ’s
body.202 Indeed, the physical structure in which religious women live at once demonstrate
the dichotomy of their profession, that they are voluntarily confined so as to attain divine
spiritual freedom. Yet, Ruth Webb argues that language, text, my not be suitable to
describe an object. Using language can never truly represent a visual object.203 In spite of
Webb’s claim, language can inform us about objects, and it aids in our understanding of
conventual architecture.
Further investigation into various feminist scholarship reveals a tension that is
expressed regarding the material and immaterial aspects of architecture, in particular
encloistered spaces for women in the Middle Ages through the Baroque. These discussions
are found in the writings of a variety of scholars.204 They argue in general that the
201 “Although virginity in ancient Christianity seemed to be self-evident, for theologians of the late 16th to mid-17th centuries, there was a perceived need to articulate with great detail what constitutes virginity. Boundaries had to be set and understood regarding the virginal bodies of nuns. The forced clausura paradigm served to protect the sacred bodies within the walls.” Sperling 134. 202 Hills 161-81. 203 Ruth Webb, “The Aesthetics of Sacred Space: Narrative, Metaphor, and Motion in Ekphraseis of Church Buildings,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers, No. 53. (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Pub, 1999). 204 See, for example, Roberta Gilchrist, Gender and Material Culture: The Archaeology of Religious Women – this focuses on late medieval English convents, their architecture and communities. However, correlations can be found between her work and that of Baroque Italian convents, as not much had changed of significance; Patricia Ranft, Women and the Religious Life in Premodern Europe, which focuses on the 124
immaterial is contained and controlled by the material, and those who would support a
thesis of spiritual freedom within the bonds of architecture and church law are deemed
naïve. Moreover, they would maintain that Meyvaert’s conclusion that the cloister, and
monastic architecture by and large, represent both spiritual freedom and physical limitation, is nonsensical. Such a argument against Meyvaert’s idea negates ancient Christian ideology of seclusion and vows of poverty, chastity and obedience by both men and women.
Nevertheless, Dunn, herself a historian of women and space, calls for an
examination of female conventual life not solely through the decrees and canons imposed
upon nuns, but also through the eyes of the “women’s experience in their allotted space.”205
Dunn also echoes the mantra of solitary living, even for those in communities, in order to promote “spiritual perfection,” and also to counteract social problems within the “enclosed female communities,” such as “preventing social cliques and individual affectionate attachments.”206
Symbolic rhetoric aside, the architectural space called a cloister is an enclosure
within an enclosure, a garden area within the monastery, or conventual complex. As
described above, it is an open space within the compound surrounded by arcades with
columns or piers on three or four sides. It serves as a place for contemplation and prayer
that is outside under the sun and stars. In most cases, it includes vegetation, gardens,
beginning of monasticism to the end of the seventeenth century, specifically the religious atmosphere of religious women and including aspects of Papal decrees and monastic life; Diane Peacock Jezic, Women Composers: The Lost Tradition Found, which highlights women from the Middle Ages to twentieth- century female composers, yet includes only one woman from a convent that helps shed light on the condition of religious women and their musical practices. General writings on architecture, landscape architecture and urban planning include Doreen Massey, Space, Place and Gender (Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press, 1994); Gillian Rose, Feminism and Geography: The Limits of Geographical Knowledge (Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press, 1993). 205 Dunn 151. 206 Dunn 157. 125
flowers and a fountain. In particular, the cloister is the locus of movement for the nuns
from their living quarters, to their working spaces, and to their church. Their entrance and
egress to and from the church converges at the cloister/garden. Although the term cloister
denotes restriction, the physical manifestation of the cloister is a place of movement,
activity and spiritual growth.
At S.M. dei Sette Dolori, the cloister held a position not unlike its predecessors.
Obviously, the size and shape of a monastic compound was contingent upon the space
available, and so, too, the size and shape of the cloister. Because many of the drawings for
the monastery have been lost, we have to rely on drawings from the seventeenth century
and eyewitness reports from authors such as Mario Bosi.207 From the seventeenth-century
drawings to Bosi’s images in the mid-1940s to 2006, there have been considerable changes.
Suffice it to say, we can still see some of Borromini’s intentions and observe seventeenth-
century conventual design.
The present cloister has only one arcaded side. Opposite the arcade is a wall, to the
left is the church and to the right are living quarters. The arcade is not open, but closed;
each arch facing the cloister has tall windows encased in a wall with a corresponding groin
vault in the hallway (see Fig. 31).
207 Mario Bosi was commissioned by the vice president of L’Associazione Archeologica Romana in 1947 to write a book on Camilla Virginia Savelli Farnese and her convent S.M. dei Sette Dolori. He also was asked to produce another book about the convent as part of the series Le Chiese di Roma Illustrate in 1971. Although not given complete access to every room in the convent, he was able to describe, and photograph, many aspects other than the church and atrium, including certain artworks. 126
Fig. 31. S.M. dei Sette Dolori – enclosed arcade of the cloister. Photo by Liz Jones.
Across from each windowed arch is a doorway to a room. Each doorway has a window above that allows light to enter the rooms; these windows are decorated in a way that is doubtfully Borromini’s design. Today, the cloister has a circular fountain in the middle with vegetation in and around the fountain (see Fig. 32). The living quarters that face the cloister do not have bars on their windows. Bars are still seen, however, on the outside windows, surely remnants of seventeenth-century enclosure, and today, safety (see
Fig. 33). There is an upper section that Borromeo would have required for esteemed guests and episcopal visitors. But now, the five nuns that live there occupy much of that upper section far from current renovations.208
208 Unfortunately, from an historical perspective and sentiments of the nuns who live there, part of the monastery is being converted into rooms to rent. The construction has damaged the beauty of the cloister, with debris tossed about and stored without care by the workers. 127
Fig. 32. S.M. dei Sette Dolori cloister – fountain. Photo by Liz Jones.
Fig. 33. S.M. dei Sette Dolori – barred windows of living quarters. Photo by Liz Jones.
Looking at the drawing by G.B. Falda, there appears to have been a smaller cloister surrounded by living quarters with a fountain and surrounded by open arcaded hallways 128
(see Fig. 34). This particular image reveals how massive the complex was in the last half of
the seventeenth century. What is missing in this drawing is the high wall that continues from the right of the façade and curves to encase its entrance (see Fig. 35). Compared to the
Google Earth image, we can see how the convent complex has changed over the past three and one half centuries (see Appendix, Fig. 1). Bosi also includes a floor plan of the monastery drawn up by Giuseppe Perugini; however, it does not show the entire complex, but only the cloister, hallway, stairs to the living quarters, the atrium, vestibule, church and rooms that surround the church.
Fig. 34. Aerial view of S.M. dei Sette Dolori. Drawing by G.B. Falda (1676) found in Mario Bosi, S. Maria dei Sette Dolori, Le Chiese di Roma Illustrate 117 (Marietti: Roma, 1971) 43.
129
Fig. 35. The curved wall that embraces the entrance parking area of the S.M. dei Sette Dolori. Photo by Liz Jones.
Although drawings by Borromini are missing, and the model has been misplaced
over the centuries, we are still able to observe Borromini’s Baroque style intermixed with
modifications by Antonio del Grande, Francesco Contini, Antonio Carono and Bernardo
his son, and Domenico Bianchi, the last who helped with stucco. In spite of the nineteenth- century mutations, the organic movement of convex and concave of wall versus columns, blatantly embodies the genius of Borromini.
Camilla specifically chose Borromini to be her architect, and she was willing to wait for his design because she recognized his exceptional talents.209 Like the Filippini,
Camilla knew how she wanted the complex to be. Unlike the Filippini, she utilized his skill
209 “Acuistata quindi (1641) una piccolo fabbrica con annesso terreno edificabile soto e a ridosso di S. Pietro in Montorio, attese alla costruzione del vasto monaster e dell’annessa chiesa, per il cui disegno volle avvalersi dell-insigne architetto Borromini.” Bosi, Sette Dolori 8.
130 and unique techniques to her advantage; she undoubtedly gave Borromini the freedom to be creative and still remain safely within the confines of Borromeo’s standards.
Consequently, her church and atrium exceeds San Carlo in beauty and originality, and her monastery clearly exemplifies Baroque, post-Tridentine architecture. This last point is vital in recognizing Camilla’s ability to exert authority over her convent’s construction as well as the formulation of the Constitution as we shall see in chapter three.
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CHAPTER THREE – THE VOICES OF THE WOMEN
The Lord grant that you may yield loving submission to all these rules, as persons enamoured of spiritual beauty, and diffusing a sweet savour of Christ by means of a good conversation, not as bondwomen under the law, but as established in freedom under grace.210
Walking southeast on the Passeggiata del Gianicolo, then left down the Via di Porta
San Pancrazio, one encounters the Via Garibaldi. Straight-ahead is the foreboding high wall and barred windows of S.M. dei Sette Dolori (see Fig. 36). Turning left onto Via
Garibaldi, one follows the steep walls as the road curves 90° to the right. After the curve, is the cast iron entrance gate, which is as tall as the wall (see Figs. 37-39).
Fig. 36. Via di Porta San Pancrazio descends from the right across from the yellow Monastery walls. Photo by Liz Jones.
210 St. Augustine in his “Letter to Nuns” found in Philip Schaff, ed. A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, Vol. 1 (New York: Christian Literature Co. 1886) 568. Further abbreviated as NPNF. 132
Fig. 37. Via Garibaldi turned 90°. S.M. dei Sette Dolori wall in the right with gate its aedicule setting above the wall. Photo by Liz Jones
Fig. 38. Main gate to S.M. dei Sette Dolori. Photo by Howard Jones.
133
The tall wall and barred gate reinforces stereotypical and pejorative perceptions
concerning religious women. Most twentieth- and twenty-first century historians who have
studied primary documents and letters, such as those written about post-Tridentine monastic life by residents of monasteries and ecclesiastics, have focused on statements and stories that are perceived to be negative situations for women. As it happens, for some
women in Naples, for example, convent life was confining and often miserable; strictly enforced cloistered communities were sometimes in great need of supplies and ultimately the nuns were starving.211 Others have attested to and documented various aspects of
monastic life that devalued the existence of women in general, and subsequently their
quality of life.212 Church doctrine and decrees, such as the Periculoso, put women in their place, either in marriage beds, as maids or in convent cells. What we hear from current scholarship, then, is more about the conditions that portray the patriarchal domination of women. What is missing in much of this scholarship is more of the women’s voices from a wide variety of religious enclaves. We do not hear what the women are speaking to us
directly. Is it wise for us to assume all convents are alike? It is incumbent upon us to
approach each convent as unique, and not with preconceived ideas and misconceptions of
what we think we know, but with an ear to hear.
211 Helen Hills’ book The Invisible City grapples with post-Tridentine effects on female monastics particularly in Naples. 212 Here is a short list of sources that discuss the inequity asserted against women in history: Becoming Visible: Women in European History edited by Renate Bridenthal and Claudia Koonz (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co, 1977); Rizsidka Parker and Griselda Pollock, Old Mistresses: Women, Art & Ideology (New York: Pantheon Books, 1981); Rosemary Radford Ruether, ed, Religion and Sexism: Images of Women in the Jewish and Christian Traditions (NY: Simon and Schuster, 1974); Alcuin Blamires, et al, Woman Defamed and Woman Defended: An Anthology of Medieval Texts (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992); Will and Ariel Durrant, The Age of Napoleon: A History of European Civilization from 1789 to 1815 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1975); John Stuart Mill, “Subjection of Women,” Mill: Texts, Commentaries, Alan Ryan, ed (New York: W.W. Norton & Co, 1997) 133-215. 134
Carolyn Valone clearly articulates the challenges encountered when attempting to
recover the public voices of women living during the Renaissance, and attributes these
difficulties to the rhetoric of the male humanist tradition.213 Yet Valone later reveals that
some women did find their public voice in architectural patronage. Concerning patronage,
Marilyn Dunn tells us how women could exert a modicum of authority through patronage
of the arts and church architecture.214 Anne Winston-Allen explains how the voices of
religious women in Germany are manifested in active writing and work toward reform in the late Middle Ages.215 Pertaining to religious women and creativity, Craig Monson
recounts dynamic musical production in Bolognese convents in early modern Italy.216 In
each of these cases, women achieved and asserted agency in order to fulfill personal or
corporate goals. And in each account, the authors used primary documents written by the
women. It seems that there are scholars who have traced and found the voices of women
themselves.
The voices of the women at S.M. dei Sette Dolori in the seventeenth century are hidden within the walls of the on-site archive. There one finds the Constitution, written by
Camilla, and other documents regarding the function of the convent that demonstrate
Camilla’s tenacity in formulating a female monastery – why she chose the Rule of St.
213 Carolyn Valone, “Architecture as a Public Voice for Women in Sixteenth-Century Rome,” Renaissance Studies 15.3 (2001) 301. 214 Marilyn Dunn, “Spiritual Philanthropists: Women as Convent Patrons in Seicento Rome,” Women and Art in Early Modern Europe: Patrons, Collectors, and Connoisseurs, ed. Cynthia Lawrence (Univ. Park, PA: Penn State Univ. Press, 1997) 154-188. 215 Anne Winston-Allen, Convent Chronicles: Women Writing About Women and Reform in the Late Middle Ages (Univ. Park, PA: Penn State Univ. Press, 2004). 216 Craig Monson, Disembodied Voices: Music and Culture in an Early Modern Italian Convent (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1995). 135
Augustine, who was allowed in the monastery, and how encloistered they truly were.217
Hence, with the intention of learning from the voices of the women, this chapter compares first the visual setting and staging of Suor Angelica, then function of the architecture and the operations of S.M. dei Sette Dolori while evaluating the history and musical setting of the opera over and against the actual lives of the Oblates who dwelt in Camilla’s monastery.
Suor Angelica – its history and its musical legacy
S.M. dei Sette Dolori stands in stark contrast to the setting and staging of the Suor
Angelica libretto. In the final analysis, one is fact and the other is fiction. This section will study Suor Angelica as it potentially propagates stereotypes and misperceptions of convent life. Operas are known for their contemporary social commentary. Even so, Suor Angelica is a good example to observe how such misconceptions can continue to thrive, and how the uneducated public at large can make inferences from such demonstrations, whether they be fictional or not. Therefore, we will examine the libretto, its musical setting and the men who created them in order to reveals how fiction can suggest fact, and thereby influence and support popular opinion.
The one-act opera Suor Angelica, its libretto by Giovacchino Forzano and music composed by Giacomo Puccini, is the second of Puccini’s Il trittico (trilogy) inserted between Il tabarro and Gianni Schicchi. Suor Angelica’s premier was at the Metropolitan
Opera in New York, 14 December 1918. Combining three short operas into one night was an idea that had no precedent. It was Forzano who conceived of the connecting theme –
217 Other items found at the S.M. dei Sette Dolori archive are books that were read by sisters who have lived there, legal documents, certain Savelli records pertaining to Camilla and the convent, maps, letters, financial ledgers, maps and religious artifacts. 136
death – portrayed in each opera as brutality, sentimentality and cheerful cynicism,
respectively.218 Puccini viewed the centerpiece, Suor Angelica, as the fulfillment of a story,
which he longed to produce.
Suor Angelica is a fine illustration of the persistence of a romanticized view, and of popular assumptions and stereotypes, of convent life. Written in the second decade of the twentieth century, Suor Angelica is set in a late seventeenth-century convent and details the life of one sister forced to take vows due to an indiscretion. This opera underscores the notion
that seventeenth-century convents solely imprisoned women and controlled their lives – a
common and generalized anachronistic view.219 Certainly, Forzano’s and Puccini’s
romanticized theatrical production of conventual life are instrumental in presenting and propagating the continuation of a misinterpreted view of women, with their convents taken out of context.
It is important to note that Il trittico is a trilogy of three verismo operas, which were a short-lived genus of opera in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In
Italian, verismo means truth, and in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the term verismo pertained to the phase of naturalism evident in literature and music. Verismo operas were generally one act in which intense passions persist resulting in violence and death. With a backdrop of theatrical angst, Suor Angelica focuses more on the emotional turmoil within
Angelica and the brief moment of her life displayed on the stage. Within the framework of a
218 Julian Budden, Puccini: His Life and Works (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2002) 379. 219 Some historical writing on women and convents attempt to introduce caveats stating there were some women who were not oppressed, but in most such sources, these statements are asides, and portrayed as the exception, rare, and not the norm. This assertion would be a large undertaking, examining the hundreds of convents in Italy in the seventeenth century. Can we assume that Suor Giacinta, Suor Francesca and Camilla represent the minority, a minute portion of religious women of their day? I assert we can not. 137
convent story, all of the perceived cynical aspects of convent life are pressed together to
create the pressure required in verismo opera. What the audience experiences visually and
aurally implants certain ideas and stigmas.
Even though Suor Angelica has been paired with Cavalleria and Pagliacci, two famous
verismo operas, it defies categorization. For William Berger, to classify Suor Angelica as a
verismo opera is tenuous, and is labeled such because of its inherent verismo “feel [...] that is
hard to avoid.”220 Further, Berger agrees with Budden that Suor Angelica is best known as
sentimental. With such a highly charged and sentimental story, spectators could easily leave the theater with the idea that the convent was a place of banishment and despair, an intimate facet of Angelica’s tragic tale. From this drama, one could make assumptions and misconceptions that may be perceived as facts. Yet it is still a fiction based upon preconceived ideas of the librettist/playwright.
The protagonist was an aristocratic nun forced into the monastery for an indiscretion that resulted in the birth of an illegitimate child. She learns from a merciless relative that the child has died, and subsequently, concocts a poison in order to join the child in heaven. Immediately after consuming the liquid, she realizes her doom – damnation follows suicide. But the nun receives redemption from the Virgin Mary, who bids her come to heaven as she holds the hand of the nun’s child.
The librettist Forzano was trained in medicine and law. However, he found that he loved music and theater and consequently began his public career as a baritone. In his
220 William Berger, Puccini Without Excuses: A Refreshing Reassessment of the World’s Most Popular Composer (NY: Vintage Books, 2005) 248. 138
memoir, Come li ho conosciuti, Forzano explains how he met Puccini.221 While a student in
Firenze, he was first introduced to Puccini when he was speaking at Forzano’s school. This
lecture fueled a passion already within him for the theater and opera. Years later, Forzano
was involved with literary composition and journalism. He was the editor of the Florence
newspaper, La nazione for years. One day he was asked to do an interview with Puccini about his composition of La Fanciulla del West. During the interview, Puccini asked
Forzano whether journalism was what he liked to do. Forzano told him he planned to write a libretto for Puccini one day. More time passed and Forzano became famous for his plays as well as for his journalistic endeavors.222
The two artists met again and Puccini inquired whether Forzano would translate a
French libretto, La Houppelande, into Italian. Oddly enough, even though he was currently
adapting Two Little Wooden Shoes for Mascagni, Forzano replied to Puccini that he only
wrote original works. He then suggested Puccini consider approaching Ferdinando Martini
to translate the libretto. But during their very first meeting, Puccini discovered that
Martini’s verses were not conducive to musical settings, so Puccini set out to ask his old
friend Giuseppe Adami to do the job. Thus, the first of Puccini’s trilogy, Il tabarro was
born. Some music historians argue that Puccini conceived the trilogy idea. However, it is
clear in Forzano’s memoirs that he wrote to Puccini suggesting that he have three one-act
operas performed in one evening – one dramatic, one lyrical and one comedic.223 Forzano had conceived of a spoken play, Suor Angelica, set in a convent about a poor sister forced to the convent who loses her son and poisons herself so that she can be rejoined with her
221 Giovacchino Forzano, Come li ho conosciuti, (Torino: Edizione Radio Italiano, 1957) 25. 222 Forzano 26. 223 Forzano Come li 26. 139
dead son. When Puccini asked him whether he had some ideas for the other two operas,
Forzano told him about Suor Angelica for the lyrical opera. Forzano was surprised at
Puccini’s exuberant reaction. Puccini was enraptured by such a tale because one of his sisters was a nun, Iginia (Suor Giulia Enrichetta); she was the Mother Superior at the
Augustinian Monastero della Visitazione di Vicopelago.224
Forzano’s story was a topic Puccini had long wanted to compose. Religious music
held a sentimental place in his life.225 His ancestry is filled with church musicians, including his own childhood experiences as a choirboy and playing the organ. Even more so, the convent setting held a personal meaning because of Puccini’s older sister, Suor
Enrichetta. Seligman, a family friend of Puccini wrote how Puccini loved to visit
Vicopelago because “in those quiet, cloistered surroundings, his weary soul always found peace”.226 Not only did he find solace there, he also found women who were willing to listen to his music and give him feedback. He had shared his music from La Fanciulla del
West with his sister and her companions. So when he approached his sister about hearing
his Suor Angelica, Suor Enrichetta sought and procured permission for Puccini to visit
224 Unfortunately, there are inconsistencies concerning his two sisters. Some sources say that Ramelda lived in a convent in Lucca, but other sources state that Iginia was the only nun in his family. In a letter to his sister, Dide, Puccini comments: “Love to you and Ramelda, Otilia, Nitterti, and our nun.” This implies that only Iginia was the nun, for she was the fifth sister. Giuseppe Adami, ed. Letters of Giacomo Puccini: Mainly Connected with the Composition and Production of his Operas, Trans. Ena Makin (New York: AMS Press, 1971) 41. 225 After the first performance of Il Trittico, the reviews were so severe regarding Suor Angelica that the three operas were split up, and Suor Angelica eventually became less popular than the other two. This grieved Puccini because he held such a sentimental attachment to what he called his favorite opera. And as Vincent Seligman put it, “for sentimental reasons and from a natural desire to succor the weak, he never ceased to proclaim that Suor Angelica was the best of the three operas [...].” Vincent Seligman, Puccini Among Friends New York: The Macmillan Company, 1938) 285. 226 Seligman 272. 140
the convent and play the music for Suor Enrichetta and some of the other nuns there.227
Puccini’s good friend and colleague Adami described the mini concert in this manner:
The little nuns stood round, absorbed, breathless with attention. His sister turned the pages for him, while Giacomo played and explained the words of the songs to them.
Phase by phase, the opening episodes of the novices with their mistress and the monitor, the little scene of the wishes, and then the strange secret sadness of Sister Angelica, had interested and enthralled them. It may be that each of the listeners found in that music something of her own heart. When he reached the scene of the princess-aunt, Puccini stopped in embarrassment. He had to explain the heroine’s story, had to tell them of her past and the sin of love which had stained her fair fame, and of that son who had been taken away from her and whose death was now brutally announced. And there was worse to come. He had to tell them of the despairing suicide and the divine pardon of the miracle. . “It was not easy,” said Puccini. “Still, with as much tact and skill as I could summon, I explained it all. I saw many eyes that looked at me through tears. And when I came to the aria, Madonna, Madonna, salvami per amore di mio figlio! (Madonna,
Madonna, save me for the love of my son!) All the little nuns cried, with voices full of pity but firm in their decision, ‘Yes, yes, poor things!’” And so with human compassion and Christian charity the real nuns absolved their phantom sister.228
It is difficult to say whether the sisters of Vicopelago would have reacted differently if the story had only been read to them. When music is added to text, it can illustrate the words with sound in such a way that can move people from exaltation to the depths of
227 In fact, he also played other works for Iginia and some of the sisters at Vicopelago. 228 Giuseppe Adami, ed, Letters of Giacomo Puccini: Mainly Connected with the Composition and Production of his Operas, Trans. Ena Makin, (NY: AMS Press, 1971) 214-215. 141
despair, which may have been in large part the reason for the sisters’ profound reactions.
What follows is an examination of how Puccini brought Forzano’s plot and stage
directions to life through his musical setting.
The following is not an in-depth musical analysis, because the scope of this
dissertation is not based upon a strict musicological analysis of the opera. What is
important is the manner in which the story, accentuated by the music, resonates and
punctuates perceived anachronistic socio-religious norms imposed upon women’s
religious culture three hundred and fifty years before its conception. Yet, the following cursory analysis highlights Puccini’s use of emotive tonalities and subtle orchestral nuances in order to tell Forzano’s story in a way that was conducive to his own perception of twentieth-century convent life as he interpreted it from his sister’s monastery at Vicopelago.
Suor Angelica uniquely consists only of female voices. For some, the singleness of either all male or all female voices is monotonous. But for others, single voice choirs accentuate the music by virtue of their timbre, or their quality of sound. Obviously female voices present a distinct sound and sensation from that of the male voices, and vice versa.
Likewise, the lives of nuns will exude a particular atmosphere different from their male counterparts. Two other operas portraying religious themes with either all male or all female voices are Massenet’s Le jongleur, an all-male cast that also concludes with a miracle, and Giordano’s Mese Mariano, which also deals with an illegitimate child.229
However, of these three operas, only Suor Angelica remains confined within the convent walls, void of worldly intrusion. In spite of a spiritual theme linking these operas,
229 Budden 391. 142
Puccini’s is unique in his conception of sound and story. Contrary to Massenet’s
liturgical complex counterpoint, Puccini begins Suor Angelica with singular bell-chimes, while nuns off stage sing the Marian hymn Ave Maria,230 and then ends the opera with angelic voices and orchestral decrescendo. In between, Puccini uses orchestral instruments to mimic various sounds such as a bird singing and the musical interpretation of a bee sting. Nevertheless, other than using the orchestra for sound effects, his
orchestral treatments of the plot punctuates extreme emotions and accentuates portentous events that carry both story and audience to the ultimate catharsis from despair to hope.
For example, Puccini shifts from chanted melodic worship in the opening moments to recitative in the admonition to disobedient nuns; from melodic reminiscence of past miracles and a departed sister to joyful exclamations in musical banter for provisions received; and from a submission to self-denial in a wistful use of strings to Angelica’s proclamation that to die is life in a majestic and march-like orchestral statement. And all of this happens before the apex of the tale. This latter event is the first occasion for full orchestra to express its grandeur as it foreshadows the fulfillment of Angelica’s desire.
The full weight of the narrative does not unfold until halfway through the opera. But from there, the music, stage direction and libretto send the audience careening at a high velocity to the end. Through tears, the spectator sees the miracle at the very end as the orchestra and choir of nuns fades into a sobering, dramatic silence.
Puccini successfully expresses the libretto through a musical device called motif.
A motif is a short rhythmic and melodic idea that represents a person or thing, and is
recognizable throughout the musical production even when slightly transformed.
230 In scene one, an Advent chant is sung in Italian, not Latin. 143
Utilizing motifs allows a composer to thread various musical ideas throughout the story and thus create a unified whole. Puccini makes full use of certain musical motifs, especially those that represent character and symbolic themes. The Virgin Mary, perhaps the most important motif, is used throughout as a representation of solemn worship and remembrance. There is a nuanced construction that first appears in the discussion of the
annual miracle of the golden fountain that is then set as a peaceful tonality within the
impending announcement of Angelica’s long-awaited meeting with her aunt, the
Principessa, who has her own motif. Budden also points out that Puccini wrote his
longest single melody in Suor Angelica as essentially orchestral, but is also accompanied
at times with voices. This long melody continues for more than seventy bars and is
comprised of three distinct melodic phrases. The first phrase is solemn, yet with an
undercurrent of excitement; the second is an expression of Angelica’s angst; and the third
phrase is for orchestra alone, filled with a sense of resigned foreboding. The latter signals
the arrival of her aunt, the Principessa.231 After the upbeat scene when the cercatrici
arrive at the convent with provisions, the three motifs are initially heard when they ask
who was receiving a visitor.232 These three related motifs incorporated into that one
melody then reappear in the famous aria Senza mamma and continue to the end of the opera. Utilizing these themes creates a united whole and threads a sense of continuity, perhaps woven from Puccini’s own experiences and sensibilities with convent life.
231 Budden 396. 232 Cercatrici – sisters who are allowed to leave the convent to procure provisions. 144
The Principessa motif incorporates an ascending line that rises higher in pitch
with each repetition and comes to rest on an unrelated minor triad of muted horns.233 The
ascending notes relate her “glacial austerity” followed by her “heart of stone” signified
by the portentous triad held for one-and-one-third bars.234 This motif precedes the
Principessa’s entrance by twenty bars after the ominous announcement that she is at the
convent to visit Angelica. Conceding to the Abbess’ request to be mindful of her words
because the Virgin is listening, Suor Angelica appropriately invokes the Virgin Mary
motif but with the words “the blessed Lady hears me.”235
According to Puccini, the story is about passion, a mother’s love. In order to
understand Puccini’s point of view, let us look at a synopsis of the ensuing plot and a
description of Puccini’s musical representation of the story through his various motifs.236
In the scenes following the entrance of the Principessa, the audience is finally introduced to the story behind why Angelica is in the convent, and shows the family dynamic between Angelica and her aunt, all of which is vital preparation for the final scene. The entire scene with Angelica and her aunt is comprised of a combination of recitative dialogue and melodic soliloquy, including Angelica’s currying favor with her aunt, and the aunt’s condescension and insinuation of unforgiving condemnation. After learning she must sign away her inheritance because her sister, Anna Viola, is to be married,
Angelica asks whom Anna is going to marry. The Principessa coldly replies, “One who
233 Budden 397. 234 Budden 398. 235 Giovacchino Forzano, Libretto, Sour Angelica, music by Giacomo Puccini, vocal score in English and Italian (Milano: Casa Ricordi, 1999) 23. 236 Seligman 323-24. 145 for love pardons the sin of one who stained our family’s good name!”237 Angelica then inquires how the aunt can be so cruel. The aunt blasts how dare she accuse her, then attempts to show that she is sensitive. The aunt reveals how during prayers in her personal chapel she talks to her dead sister, Angelica’s mother, and at times senses her presence. This attempt to be warm-hearted dematerializes when she finishes this soliloquy by saying that after such mystical encounters only one word comes to mind,
“Expiate! Offer to the Virgin my justice!”238
With tender humility Angelica states she has offered everything to the Virgin, everything except her son, at which point she sings forcefully as the Principessa motif undergirds her tirade; for seven long years apart from her son with no word, how is her son? Pleading about the welfare of her son, Angelica notices that her aunt remains silent, and so, too, is the orchestra. Suddenly, she yells that she cannot bear the silence any more, demands that the aunt speak now or be cursed for all eternity, and repeats what the
Monitor warned earlier, that the Virgin is listening – she will be the aunt’s judge. Left with only a tremolo in the strings as if trembling from anticipation, the Principessa quietly and matter-of-factly states that two years ago the boy was stricken with a mortal sickness and that there was nothing they could do for him. Angelica breathes, “He’s dead?” Silence confirms the answer. Angelica screams and falls to the ground sobbing, at which point the orchestra crescendos to a cacophony of rolling chords played on the horns, then decrescendos into a gentle melody in the strings till only the bass violins are heard. Angelically, the other strings return with a repeated three note ascending motif that
237 “Chi per amore condonò la copa di cui macciaste il nostro bianco stemma!” Forzano Suor 63. 238 “Espiare! Offrite la alla Vergine la mia giustizia!” Forzano, Suor 67. 146 quietly transforms into the Principessa motif. It is during this long orchestral narration that Angelica continues to sob, and two sisters bring in a table with quill and ink and lay the legal forms down, which Angelica signs.
Again, the three-note ascending motif begins after everyone leaves Angelica alone sobbing in her hands. This motif is an integral part of the aria Senza mamma (without mother). During this aria Angelica is talking both about and to her son, grieving that he had lived and died without a mother. After the aria, the orchestra accompanies the following stage direction. While in a trance-like grief, the sisters come to her, gather her up and take her toward their cells. Not knowing the circumstances, they try to console her, and then they all disappear into their cells. A brief orchestral interlude recapitulates the theme from
Senza mamma and a melodic phrase that was sung earlier.
In the dark, Angelica emerges from the living quarters with a clay jar in her hand and begins to pick various herbs in the garden that she has tended lovingly for the past seven years. In an aria thanking the garden for its produce, she concocts a potion as she says farewell to the sisters and to the chapel that has brought her comfort. After telling her son she is coming to see him, she kisses the cross that stands in the garden and quickly takes the poison. Settling down, she drops the jar and waits in anticipation to see her son. But suddenly she realizes what she has done and cries aloud, “Ah, I am damned!” She has taken her own life, one of the deadliest sins of the soul. The ominous
Principessa motif is used robustly in her plea to the Madonna for forgiveness. As she begs for forgiveness over an undercurrent of the Principessa motif, the sisters in their cells can 147 be heard singing the Virgin Mary motif. Angelica breathes her last breath, beseeching the
Madonna to pardon her, when singing angels echo the Virgin motif:
“Regina Virginum, Salve, Maria!
Mater castissima, Salve Maria!
Regina Virginum, Salve, Maria!”239
As Angelica hears the choir of angels, the miracle is about to take place. Puccini’s chorus of nuns at this moment is breathtaking; they quietly begin portions of the Rosary in a resolute and reverent fashion. One senses that the impossible can happen; they are heralding supernatural forces that would soon intervene on her behalf. Throughout the remainder of the opera, these detached voices accompany Angelica, either her movements on the stage or her solo entreaty. Six measures before the miracle begins, the off-stage voices commence singing O gloriosa virginum.240 The gate to the chapel opens, and at the door the Virgin Mary appears with Angelica’s son at her side. As Forzano wrote in his libretto, the Virgin gently nudges the boy toward his mother in a sweet gesture.241 Angelica raises one arm towards him. With dramatic intensity, both with music and staging, the child takes three slow steps towards his mother. At the third step, Angelica slumps to the ground dying. The Miracle is complete; Angelica is forgiven her sin of suicide and is now in eternity with her son. As the stage fills with a mystical light, remnants from the golden light of the fountain on a night of miracles, the angelic choir finishes with a decrescendo on the
239 Virgin Queen, Hail, Maria/ Chaste Mother, Hail, Mary! These lyrics are not indicative of a Marian hymn, but portions taken from the Rosary. 240 Puccini uses this hymn, an adaptation by Pope Urban VIII in 1632, but only uses three of the four lines, adding instead portions once again from the Rosary. 241 “La Vergine, con un gesto dolcissimo sensa toccarlo, sospingerà il bimbo verso la moribonda.” Forzano, Suor 102. 148
name “Maria” while the orchestra concludes in pianissimo. It is not too hard to imagine
Puccini’s sister and the others listening quietly and weeping with sincere empathy for the
miracle of Angelica’s salvation and the Blessed Virgin Mary’s mercy.
In spite of the profound beauty of Puccini’s score, the public could not relate to its
apparent religiosity and thus the meaning and impact of the story. Critics were not shy to
put forth opinions as well. Even sixty years later, scholars scoff at Suor Angelica,
denouncing its value. One such critical scholar, John DiGaetani, wrote with a strong
undercurrent of cynicism that "Suor Angelica is not a pretty tale”; because the convent depicts a prison rather than a religious sanctuary.242 He asserts that the opera’s setting in the
last half of the seventeenth century illustrates the prevailing perception that convents “were
used as a female penitentiary by wealthy families.”243 In this case he is right; it illustrates a
prevailing “perception,” a misinterpreted, overarching perception in the twentieth and
twenty-first centuries. He supports this by highlighting the conflict between the Sister
Monitor and Sister Osmina. Penitence must be exacted for even the most seemingly minor offenses, and as the Monitor orders Osmina to her cell, the door slams. Oddly enough,
DiGaetani’s position aids the argument that such a brief representation has the power to have a small amount of truth that can produce a preponderance of assumptions and misperception; in this case the convent is solely a prison, a place of punishment.
Ultimately, DiGaetani refers to the locks and keys mentioned above. He observes that the emphasis on confinement is the overarching thesis of the opera; he notes that the convent is tightly closed, both doors and windows. However, DiGaetani goes further to
242 John Louis DiGaetani, Puccini the Thinker: The Composer’s Intellectual and Dramatic Development (Bern, Germany: Peter Lang Pub. Inc., 1987) 74. 243 DiGaetani 74. 149
equate the oppressive atmosphere of lock and key to the “omnipresence of death
throughout the opera,” which, he contends, parallels the ascetic nature of seventeenth-
century Catholicism – tempus fugit, memento mori (Time is fleeting, remember you are
mortal) – “the concept that man’s most important mission in life was to prepare for death
and its fearful consequences.”244 Perhaps that last statement reveals the lens through which he seems to see the glass half empty. Memento mori is a phrase used in ancient Rome, and an anecdote from an anonymous source tells how it was used to remind a particular triumphant Roman general of his humanity, his mortality. It echoes the classical Roman maxim carpe diem (seize the day), Henry David Thoreau’s dictum from his essay
“Walden”: “live deep and suck the marrow out of life”; and Robert Herrick’s first stanza of
“To the Virgins to Make Much of Time”:
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old time is still a-flying,
And this same flower that smiles today,
To-morrow will be dying.
All of these sayings are similar in that they remind us of our mortality, but they also encourage us to appreciate the time we have and to live wisely, or to the fullest.
Essentially, DiGaetani interprets the use of tempus fugit – memento mori spoken by the ammas and abbas as a statement of fear and futility of life, when in fact it represents the same sentiments of the ancient Romans, the seventeenth-century poet Robert Herrick, the nineteenth-century author Thoreau, and the twentieth-century Academy Award winning
244 DiGaetani correctly discerns Forzano’s trilogy theme. Yet his conjecture on this theme is one-sided. DiGaetani 75. 150
screenplay Dead Poets Society – that we should live each day to the fullest and with
purpose, because we are mortal and today may be our last. In terms of S.M. dei Sette
Dolori, Camilla’s vision for the monastery was that of a place of retreat and
contemplation, for all who would come to serve God in prayer and humility, and dwell in
harmony and in communion – the same attitude of the ancient ammas and abbas. There
was no death wish here, no fear of losing the moment, no regret of having traded the outside world for the internal life.
With the same cynicism, DiGactani mocks the fountain scene in which the nuns praise life-giving water, calling their song “pathetic.”245 To DiGaetani this enhances an
atmosphere of death. His sardonic assessment blinds him to any other possibility. Then, he
is careful to quote the “death wish” of Angelica, but, of course, he twists it out of context:
“Desires are the flowers of life; they do not bloom in the kingdom of the dead [...] O sister,
death is a beautiful life.”246 What he has omitted is the key phrase “because the Virgin
Mother helps and in her liberal benevolence (compassion) knows our desire; before our
desire has bloomed, the Mother of all Mothers has already provided it." 247 Therefore, her
desire is for death – hence, his denunciation of the opera and dismissal of the possibility that Angelica desires being in heaven with her son.
And as if all the previous “proof” that he assembled did not already resonate with like-minded scholars, he put forth what he perceived were the composer’s intentions. For
his coup de grâce, DiGaetani reports that Puccini, whom he presumes was also
245 DiGaetani 76. 246 Forzano, Suor 10. 247 “I desideri sono I fiori del vivi, non fioriscon nel regno delle morte, perchè la Madre Vergine soccorre, e in sua benignità liberamente al desiar precorre; prima che un desiderio sia fiorito la Madre delle Madri l’ha esaudito. O sorella, la morete è vita bella!” Forzano, Suor 10. 151
preoccupied by a death wish, did not envision Suor Angelica as having a religious theme; rather, he wrote it as a story of passion in a religious environment. His evidence of this latter point is found in a statement made by Puccini in a letter dated January 20, 1921:
“As to what you say about the ‘religiosity’ of the subject of Angelica which cannot
appeal to the English, I permit myself to say that I am not of your opinion. The thing is,
and I’ve said it already, that the opera didn’t have time to find its way into the public’s
ears – because the story is really one of passion and it’s only the environment which is
religious.” 248 DiGaetani misinterprets Puccini’s quote. He misses the point about passion
and place, assumes that the place is not important to Puccini, and disregards its
significance. On the contrary, not only did Puccini have a high regard for conventual
space, he had a personal knowledge of it. Puccini’s emphasis in this particular quote has
to do with the inability of the English audience to grasp the passion of the story, due in
part because they could not comprehend the conventual space in which the story was
told.249
Furthermore, citing political events, such as the Risorgimento, during Puccini’s
childhood, DiGaetani presupposes Puccini’s socio-religious and political temperament as
anti-religious, anti-Catholic.250 DiGaetani also mentions Puccini’s emotional character. A
melancholy temperament does not preclude a spiritual affectation or religious practice. In
fact, Puccini came from a long line of church musicians, dating back to his great-great-
248 Seligman 323-24. 249 See Seligman 323-324. 250 It was during Puccini’s formative years that Italy continued to struggle to become a free nation, with the Church as one of its greatest opponents. Long known for its dominion in spiritual and temporal affairs, the Church was the enemy, whose downfall was ratified in the Lateran Treaty of 1929, restraining papal authority within the confines of Vatican City. Puccini was old enough to remember the unification of Italy and the declaration of Rome as its capital. 152
grandfather, elder Giacomo (1712-1781). The Puccinis held positions at various churches: organist, singer in a boys choir, with only one exception, Domenico, Puccini’s
grandfather, who composed music both sacred and secular. Another aspect of Puccini’s
life that could soften DiGaetani’s harsh appraisal of Puccini’s religious or spiritual inclinations was his devotion to his sister, Suor Giulia Enrichetta (Iginia), and his appreciation and empathy for her convent life. This is a crucial point that DeGaetani fails to mention in his book. Couched in sarcasm, DiGaetani denigrates Suor Angelica as the lesser of the trilogy for its sentimentality and labels its story and setting as the epitome of socio-religious hegemony, denying any possibility for spiritual ascension and religious zeal.
DiGaetani resonates with other feminist scholars concerning religious women and their enclosures. Feminist scholars who hold to an anachronistic view of convent life in the seventeenth century often use rhetorical devices to make their point. They use clever, ambiguous linguistic tools such as metaphors to express multiple meanings of convent architecture: aristocratic economics, impositions on female sexuality, virginity, and even a
Foucaultian view of architectural power, the panopticon.251 Although these are cleverly
conceived explanations about convents, too often they are one-sided presentations that
deny any other possibility but what they construe the facts to mean.
In spite of Puccini’s motives, to scholars like DiGaetani it appears that at once
Suor Angelica exposes the imposed enclosure upon aristocratic women, whether virgin or
not, and intimates their implicit and explicit struggles with leaving behind the things of
251 This is explicitly described in Helen Hills, Invisible City: The Architecture of Devotion in Seventeenth- Century Neapolitan convents (New York: Oxford University Press) 2004. 153
this world. Thus, scholars are able to cite this libretto as an example of the damaging
effects of the involuntary imprisonment of women in seventeenth-century convents,
especially when seen through lenses tinted with a particular preconception. In reality, as
Puccini is quoted above, Forzano’s story seeks to express the intense connection between
a mother and her child set within conventual architecture and lifestyle.
Suor Angelica is an early twentieth-century opera that portrays a fictional story. The
motives of Forzano and Puccini are not at issue. What is vital to note is that this opera
would have an emotional impact on the audience, and essentially would perpetuate
misconceptions and stereotypes of convent life. Nowhere in the opera is the agency of nuns
demonstrated. Nowhere within the boundaries of the stage and acting would a spectator
have seen the divine pursuits of a sincerely devoted heart such as Camilla. This opera does present the dreadful state of certain noble-born women under the thumb of their wealthy and domineering family members. It brings to light women who are cloistered yet who still long for the pleasant things of the noble lifestyle. Truly this opera cannot, nor does it intend to, express the reality of S.M. dei Sette Dolori as it was in the seventeenth century. For the sake of theatricality, the generalization of seventeenth-century convent life is portrayed in such a way as to produce pity and sympathy in the audience toward such a tragic lifestyle.
A play about convent life in no way illustrates the true nature, or reality of, all convent life past or present.
Contrary to scholars such as DiGaetano, this evocative story does not represent all cloistered women, aristocratic or not. In addition, this opera was written 350 years after the construction of S. M. dei Sette Dolori, and therefore reflects the persistence of 154
metaphorical assumptions about convents and their inhabitants. Fortunately we have
Camilla’s own voice emanating from the archive, spoken through the words on the pages
of dusty books. We hear her speak of love and community, commitment and vigilance, and ensured spiritual freedom behind the walls and the freedom to walk through the gate.
Voices heard from S.M. dei Sette Dolori and twentieth-century fiction
In this next section, we will observe the differences between the actual women’s
lives in the seventeenth-century convent, S.M. dei Sette Dolori, by hearing the voice of
Camilla in her Constitution and contrasting it to Suor Angelica. Camilla intentionally chose
the Rule of St. Augustine because she desired that those who entered this community
would aspire to live in humility and meekness of heart, not out of fear but of love. As Bosi puts it, Camilla wanted to “appeal to the heart and love, not the fearfulness of the harsh law
of slavery, but of the liberty available through our adoption as God’s children.”252 This credo is reflected in “Father St. Augustine’s” words well known in his “Letter to Nuns,”
253 CCXI (written AD 423). Augustine’s letter is of great significance and historically
relevant, deemed as the embodiment of rules for female monasteries of the Augustinian
orders.254 In the last paragraph, Augustine conveys what Camilla echoed in her
Constitution: “The Lord grant that you may yield loving submission to all these rules, as
persons enamoured of spiritual beauty, and diffusing a sweet savour of Christ by means of
252 “La pia Fondatrice, ispirandosi alla regola di S. Agostino, volle fare più appello al cuore e all’amore anzichè al timore e perciò lasciò una certa libertà di figli adottivi di Dio anzichè una legge di severità di schiave. Bosi, La Serva 67. 253 In the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Augustine’s letter to the nuns was the “Letter Augustine Rebukes the Nuns of the Monastery in Which His Sister Had Been Prioress, for Certain Turbulent Manifestations of Dissatisfaction with Her Successor, and Lays Down General Rules for Their Guidance.” NPNF 568. 254 NPNF 568. 155
a good conversation, not as bondwomen under the law, but as established in freedom under
grace.”255 Augustine’s exhortation about spiritual inspiration and design is found in the
“Introduction” to the S.M. dei Sette Dolori Constitution.256 Women who enter S.M. dei
Sette Dolori monastery do so with the aspiration toward a devout life, dedicated to the ancient Christian monastic standard in the pursuit of perfection, as exemplified by the early ammas and abbas.
Women permitted to be a part of the congregation at S.M. dei Sette Dolori are divided into four categories: coriste, converse, novices and the educande. The coriste attend to the Divine Office, prayer oration, and governance of the monastery. The converse
take care of the service of the monastery, such as the kitchen, washing and other
miscellaneous tasks for the domestic function of the monastery. The converse were not
obligated to say the Divine Office; nonetheless they had to get to as many Divine Offices
of Mattutino, Vespro, and Compieta (Matins, Vespers and Complines) every day of a
church Holiday. In all these days they are obligated to go to Mass, say the Rosary prayers,
and mentally recite for one-half hour.257 All young women who have not yet taken vows
are called novices, and live at the convent learning monastic life and the rules of the
convent’s order. After three years, they take vows, don the habit, and become either a
255 NPNF 568. 256 “Riflettete che dovendo Iddio tutto operare alla sua gloria, se ha voluto is vostro Istituto in questo tenor piuttosto che in altro, segno è che meglio così tornara alla sua gloria, così ancora, se piaciuto gli fosse di veder voi in regole più severe, in opere più ardue, in vita più contemplative, chiamate vi abrebbe a più stretta solitudine, a penistenza più con tinuata, a più alta contemlazione. Riflette ciò che dice il vostro Padre S. Agostino cioè che il Divin Maestro non ha detto imparate da me a fare cose grandi, ma bensì imparate da me ad essere umili e mansueti di cuore [...]” Camilla Virginia Savelli Farnese, “Costituzioni delle Nobili Oblate di S. Maria dè Sette Dolori [...]” 1668. 257 Constitution 38. 156
corista or a conversa. In chapter four of the Constitution another group called the educande
are described as young girls who wish to live in the monastery to receive an education.
In the libretto of Suor Angelica, there is no clear indication which religious order is
represented. What is certain is that, in the case of the heroine Angelica, any woman was accepted at the convent and apparently as if committed to an asylum by her relatives. Such familially imposed incarcerations were common in some locales in Italy. Surely Angelica did not enter the convent to serve God, but was forced there to live in servile obedience so that
she would repent for embarrassing her family name. Even though she finds solace in the
garden, a place that prefigures her demise, the garden is simply a space in which Angelica
can retreat from involuntary captivity. She spends more time in the cloister/garden than in her
cell, the latter which is dedicated to personal contemplation and fervent prayer. Ultimately, no matter where she is, her thoughts are not on God, but on her son.
Furthermore, the story as written by Forzano illustrates a monastic community built upon and enforced by fear, not the love that Camilla conceived for S.M. dei Sette Dolori.
For example, in Act One, the Monitor orders a sister who laughed during psalms to go to her cell, and not to tarry because the Virgin is waiting and watching. The chastisement brings fear to the guilty sister, as the command is harsh. In her formulation of the
Constitution, Camilla affords more grace, mercy and opportunities for the sisters than are illustrated in Suor Angelica.
For Camilla, observing the Constitution in the community in the grace of their vocation saves the women from the damages inflicted by the world – true tranquility is found in the community of those women who are of the same mind and spirit and not 157
individually-minded; the entire community is to be held together and bound by peace in the manner God has taught.258 But when we watch the action and listen to the sung dialogue in
Suor Angelica, it is not only difficult to sense that it is a community of like-minded
inhabitants, but it is also difficult to find tranquility and peace. Suor Angelica portrays a
fictitious story in a prison-like atmosphere void of grace and peace. S.M. dei Sette Dolori
represents a true account of a convent that looks foreboding from the outside, but inside
there is tranquility and devoted service to God recalling the lives of the ancient ammas.
The ammas and Camilla would agree with Meyvaert’s assessment of the conventual
enclosure – it is a dichotomy, a representation of spiritual freedom and physical limitation.
Whether ancient or seventeenth-century Christian, religious men and women viewed
cloistered life within the high-walled compounds and four-walled cells as at once spiritual
liberty and physical restriction. Not surprisingly, the dichotomy of restricting the body for
spiritual freedom echoes certain aspects of Christian discipleship found in the New
Testament, specifically in the words of the Apostle Paul. According to Paul in his Epistles
to the Romans and the Galatians, it is important to discipline the body so that carnal desires
do not rule the individual, because the body is contrary to Spirit.259 So, too, did the oblates
at S.M. dei Sette Dolori seek the walls to shut out the world and nurture within themselves
258 “Eppure se la non osservanza delle Costituzioni si limitasse al solo non corrispondere alla grazia della vocazione tutto il danno che ne segue terminerebbe in voi; ma trattandosi che voi vivete insieme con alter nella Comunità il danno che ne produce, si estende ancora più oltre, a rompere cioè quell’ordine, che Dio medesimo vuole che regni in ogni famiglia, in ogni Istituto, in ogni Comunità. Ed eccone evidente la prova. Qualunque siasi questo vostro Istituto intanto esiste, perchè Iddio ha voluto e vuole che esista; Iddio ha voluto e vuole che vi regni l’ordine; imperciocchè tutto ciò che è da Dio è ancora ordinato quoae a Deo ordinata sunt. Vuloe adunque Iddio che vi regni quell’ordine che forma di tutte un cuore solo ed un’anima sola, quell’ordine che produce la vera tranquillità non solo delle individuali persone, ma eziandio di tutta intera la Comunità, quell’ordine che tutte stringe a serbare l’unità nel vincolo della pace e quale sia il modeo di conservare quest’ordine, vi lo ha Dio stesso insegnato [...]” Constitution 5-6. 259 Romans 13:13-14; Galatians 5:17. 158
the beautiful spirit of a consecrated and sanctified soul. Thus Paul’s exhortation, the
convent complex, and the nuns conspire to protect the spiritually minded askete from the world. So, too, could nunnery and nun claim to trace their beginnings from the teachings of one some call the thirteenth disciple of Christ.
One form of disciplining the body is self-mortification. The idea of mortificazione
is related to the extreme use of flagellation and other forms of self-mutilation. But such
drastic measures are not the norm. In the case of many monasteries, such as S.M dei Sette
Dolori, mortification consisted of fasting, self-denial, and hours of silence. The nuns must
put aside all worldly desires with joy for solitary moments praying in their cells. The ladies
in Suor Angelica, and most especially the opera’s namesake, had similar forms of self-
discipline. Yet, how the nun’s reacted to self-discipline and self-denial is depicted in such a
way that the spectator feels sorry for them. For example, during the Recreation Scene, the
sisters are discussing desires and longings. The nuns who procure victuals and other
supplies for the convent arrive with their treasure. While unloading the carts, various nuns
are reminiscing about flavorful foods they used to eat, especially Sister Dolcina who is
known for her insatiable appetite. The spectator may not understand why these women had
to miss out on special foods they liked. Nor would the audience fully comprehend why
these ladies should not long for what they left behind, such as Suor Genovieffa. Prior to
entering the convent, she was a shepherdess. The audience sadly watches as Suor
Genovieffa woefully reminisces about the sheep for which she lovingly tended. What Suor
Angelica illustrates, then is a pejorative representation of nuns’ self-denial, and thereby
promulgates a tragically romantic view of convent life contrary to reality. Forzano’s 159
fictitious nuns appear to begrudge their vows of poverty and obedience. At S.M. dei Sette
Dolori, this kind of behavior might be expected from a novice during her first few months
in the convent, but would not be exhibited by nuns who have taken vows and donned the
habit.
In the libretto, part of the physical constraints, bolts and locks are mentioned in the
stage directions and observed in the scenery so clearly that they are evident to the audience, and as such they become integral elements in the opera, especially in the menacing tension that herald the arrival of the intimidating Principessa. The audience is convinced that what they are seeing is a space made for detaining the residents against their will. The dramatic scenes do not show a community committed to the corporate good, but individuals wanting to assert their own will. Camilla plainly expounds on the virtue of submitting to God’s will, as Augustine exhorted, and since the women are part of the sacred congregation at S.M. dei
Sette Dolori, there is no need for individual will because the corporate good is primary.
In Suor Angelica, the tragic life and death of the protagonist, Angelica, is enhanced by the impending darkness enveloping the prison-like stage as evening draws near. The
only redeeming aspect of the setting is the fountain, concerning which a story is told of a
miracle that only happens three nights a year when the setting sun makes the fountain
golden. And even that narration is tainted by the remembrance of a sister who died the year
before during the time of the annual miracle. All of this propagates a gloomy sentiment. A
spectator could surmise or, rather, assume that all convents are likewise filled with tragedy,
daily drudgery and senseless death. But one must remember, this is fiction written by a
playwright; it is not reality. 160
S.M. dei Sette Dolori presents a different portrayal of seventeenth-century female
monasteries, and certainly a more factual and balanced one than the opera demonstrates.
For example, in regard to enclosure, locks, and keys, chapter five of the Constitution
explains that S.M. dei Sette Dolori is not a monastery of strict enclosure. That does not
mean there are no locks and keys, but that there was not a sense of imprisonment. In fact,
the Constitution states that caution and vigilance must still be observed so that poor and
lazy habits are not allowed.260 Yet, the succeeding sections in chapter five delineate the
various exceptions to strict enclosure at S.M. dei Sette Dolori. Indeed, service people,
women who helped the converse and those who assisted with the infirm, were permitted
entrance into the monastery, as were parents visiting ill daughters, workers making repairs
and artists commissioned to paint. Particular sisters escorted most visitors to the
appropriate locations in the monastery.261 Ultimately, all ingress and egress is at the
discretion of the Mother Superior. In Suor Angelica, visitors are also received. However, in
this fifty-three-minute opera, it is never made clear what sorts of people are allowed into
the monastery other than family.
Strict clausura is not enforced at S.M. dei Sette Dolori, in spite of the proscription
of the Periculoso of 1298 and its reinforcement by the Council of Trent. The latter states that nuns are only allowed to leave their convent with permission from the bishop and other stipulations. However, chapter six of the S.M. dei Sette Dolori Constitution, entitled
260 “Benchè questa non sia Congregazione di rigorosa clausura, con tuttociò si ordina, che eccettuate quelle poche cose, [...] si osservi la clausura con tutta vigilanza, cautela e rigore.” (“Although this Congregation is not strictly clausura, there are exceptions, [... and] you must observe clausura with vigilance, caution and rigor). Consitution 27. 261 It is specifically mentioned that even most animals are forbidden except birds, chickens and an occasional male cat. 161
Dell’uscire dal Monastero (About leaving the Monastery), describes various reasons why a
nun may leave the confines of the walls. Camilla wrote that it would be expedient for
oblates to have perfect retreat within the monastery; yet this particular community is
permitted to exit the compound to take walks outside.262 Restrictions include major
holidays in which residents are not allowed to leave. These include the three weeks of
Advent in December, Easter season and Lent. At any time, if the doctor advises that a sister must be admitted outside for her health, that is permitted, even during the holidays mentioned. Sisters are allowed to leave in groups of three, one of which would be considered a chaperone (una accompagnatrice). Only a mature corista, no younger than 40 years old, can be the chaperone. For secular children (educande) affiliated with the monastery, it is enough that one or two oblates chaperone them, being sure to avoid other secular persons, acquaintances not affiliated with the monastery. At S.M. dei Sette Dolori, the women were required to walk about in small groups for their safety.
Sisters can take their walks to the bridges of the city (Rome). Trastevere, where the convent is located, is across the Tiber River from Rome’s center, and is a quieter quarter of the city. While strolling through Trastevere, sisters are not allowed to enter a café or restaurant, and if they have permission to cross the river into Rome’s center, they are still
not allowed to eat or drink in public establishments. As they walk along the street, they
must do so with all the comportment of the monastery; they must keep from talking too
loudly, giving in to excessive laughter, and having long pauses to speak to people.
262 “Sebbene serebbe espediente per le Monache quantùnque Oblate, una perfetta ritiratezza nella Clausura, pure, permettendosi in questa Congregazione l’uscire alcune volte per passeggiare fuori del Monastero, si prescrive quanto segue.” Constitution 32. 162
Oblates are allowed, with permission from the Mother Superior, to take lunch,
dinner or snacks outside the monastery as recreation in the country, on their own families’
property, being sure not to be seen by the secular population. At this point, certain feminist
historians would take up the issue that nuns were invisible, not accepted as valuable human
beings, and not worthy of acknowledgement.263 However, the reason why nuns were not to
be seen relates not to keeping them hidden because of shame, but to maintaining their
purity of heart and body.264 Furthermore, the vestments of the sisters, their habits can also
be interpreted as confining and promoting their loss of individuality, even their existence.
For the nun, the habit allows her to maintain her virginity and purity in safety, a form of
dying to the flesh. Yet, her identity is evident; she is the bride of Christ, in which case her
modesty is necessitated by her humble dress, and her head covering represents her bridal
veil. In addition, the “habit” worn by nuns is a symbol of their rejection of Earthly
materialism in favor of an eternal spiritual life.
All the sisters and educande must return to the monastery in time for the Ave
Maria. Ultimately, it is at the discretion of the Mother Superior how often an oblate is allowed to leave the monastery. There are times it is not prudent to leave. And for women who love the spiritual retreat and withdrawal from the world, they are not forced to leave,
263 Hill’s book Invisible City looks at architecture as a means to hide the women. An enclosed city, the monastic complex manifests the virginity of its inhabitants. Also, Bridenthal and Koontz’s book Becoming Visible addresses women’s visibility throughout history. Contemporary examples would be stay-at-home wives and mothers in the 1950s, especially after WWII. Some parallel nuns’ habits to those of Middle Eastern women. However, the preponderance of profoundly clothed women in the Middle East and other Arab nations includes all women, not just religious or spiritual ones. Also, Middle Eastern women are treated more as property owned by the male father or mate, whereas nuns chose their vocation and its vestments. 264 Unlike Hill’s City, Christine de Pizan’s The Book of the City of Ladies tells stories about mighty and industrious women of history. Pizan’s allegory shows how women can build their own city to protect and honor themselves, to make themselves known and keep out their retractors. Thus, they are building a high- walled community. 163
but encouraged to do so if it is necessary for health or other reasonable purposes.
Although movement in and out of the convent was supervised, the women were allowed
more freedom than other convents. That the women of S.M. dei Sette Dolori could leave
the compound is crucial to comprehending the significance of their freedom in post-
Tridentine Rome.
Another aspect of conventual life briefly portrayed in Suor Angelica is the nuns’
time spent in the chapel and singing. Although the sisters in the opera are only seen once at the beginning in recessional from the chapel, such practices in convents are not limited to once a day. In fact, the nun’s recession in Suor Angelica correlates to Vespers, one of the eight Canonical Hours, part of the Divine Office, performed around sunset. The Divine
Office is part of the daily ritual liturgy of the Roman Catholic Church and is distinct from
the Mass. The Divine Office includes liturgical performance of intoned scripture, chanting of psalms, singing hymns and prayers, and is chiefly recited by members of an order or clergy in monasteries or particular cathedral churches. The practice is derived from Jewish customs, and thus was naturally incorporated into the early Christian communities.
According to Abraham Idelsohn, the Talmud clearly states that the Bible should be read in
a musical tune to aide the understanding of the hearer.265 Thus, the musical performance,
recitation of scripture called cantillation was intentionally instituted.266 Prayers were also
chanted using the various Biblical modes performed in the recitation of scripture.267
265 Abraham Z. Idelsohn, Jewish Music: Its Historical Development (NY: Dover Pub., 1992) 35. 266 Idelsohn 36. The cantillation tradition dates back to circa 424 BCE when the book of Nehemiah was written. The Jewish rabbinical leadership have interpreted the verses in Nehemiah, 7:73 and 8:8 to mean that the Temple singers were always involved in the declamation of scripture. 267 Jean Leclercq further describes liturgy in the Middle Ages as a “synthesis of the arts” in which the Divine Office had a rich development from the ninth through the twelfth centuries: “[...] the public celebration of the divine office represents their perfect expression and sythesis.” The Love of Learning and 164
Camilla described in great detail the practices of the Divine Office in chapter seven of the Constitution. The Divine Office was to be recited every day at specific appointed times in the coro (choir) by not hurrying, distinctly pronouncing the words, without adding any inflection, observing pauses and accents, regulating their voices with one another, and being composed with as much devotion as possible. Once the women hear the bell, they are to go immediately to the coro in reverent silence to praise God. Out of respect the nuns are not to take the time to put out their lamps, adjust furniture, or even open and close windows or doors.268
Should a sister be too ill to attend, or she received prior approval from the Mother
Superior on account of an acceptable reason, she would not have to join her sisters in the coro. However, the absent sister is to recite alone in her cell during the appointed time. If, however, a sister cannot sing, yet is able to attend, she is to assist the chorus. Her presence edifies the congregation as they are spiritually joined. Even though she cannot orate with her mouth, she can praise with her mind and heart.269
As indicated in chapter two of the Constitution, the choir, or coro, was originally located upstairs, situated above the entrance and behind a grate, similar to Borromeo’s directive; the coro was to be facing the altar at eye level hidden by a grate.270 This placement differs from regular churches and cathedrals where the coro would have been located close to the altar. Presently at S.M. dei Sette Dolori, the coro is located in the rear of the church, flanking the entrance (below the original hidden coro), and consists of
the Desire for God: A Study of Monastic Culture. Trans. Catharine Misrahi. New York: Fordham Univ Press, 1982. 268 Constitution 36. 269 Constitution 36-37. 270 Borromeo 125. 165 wooden seats. This particular change to the construction was completed in 1751 (In Fig.
43), and thus indicates additional freedom for the nuns in residence. The split configuration allows the singers to face each other during responsorials. Responsorials are intoned lessons and readings based upon scripture whose verses are sung alternately between two voice groups, a small group of one or more against the rest of the choir.
Fig. 39. Coro near the entrance to the S.M. dei Sette Dolori church. Photo by Liz Jones.
Sitting in the wooden benches, the sisters would perform each of the eight canonical hours throughout the day. In the archive, there are two particular over-sized books of liturgical music from which the women shared: a Roman Psalter and an unmarked 166
book containing the Ordinary of the Mass (see Appendix, Figs. 2 and 3).271 The latter song
book, is in Gregorian chant notation,272 and consists of the five sections of the Mass
codified by Pope Pius V in 1570; it includes two sections of different chant melodies for single-voice, and one set for two-voices. The mass was celebrated during the first morning call to prayer and worship, or Matins. The Psalter, like the Ordinary of the Mass, evolved from the Middle Ages. As its name implies, it is made up of the one hundred and fifty
Psalms from the Old Testament attributed to King David and Asaph, a Gershonite Levite
choir leader and seer during King David’s reign. All the psalms were chanted every week.
Eventually, the Psalter was incorporated with the Roman Breviary and the Common Prayer
book. The Roman Psalter at S.M. dei Sette Dolori is a thick book that includes a psalm
chant and readings for different appointed times each day.
It is evident that the Constitution of S.M. dei Sette Dolori, written by Camilla, is
very thorough and covers all aspects of the monastery, including economics, daily
schedules, administration and so on. There can be little doubt that Camilla learned a great
deal from Suor Giacinta in order to articulate precisely the congregation’s organizational
plan. In the end, Camilla had grande forza and exercised authority in the formulation of her
community, fulfilling a desire she held since childhood, and creating a monastic life that
gave the resident religious women freedom, both spiritually and physically.
271 Psalterivum Romanvm Dispositvm per Hebdomadam Ad normam Breuiarij, ex decreto Sacros. Conillj Trid. Restituti, PII V. Pontificis Maximi Ivssv Editi. Et Clementis VIII, primùm, nunc denuò Vrbani PP. VIII Avctoritate Recogniti. (Venetiis: Apud Franciscum Baba, 1651). The book of the Ordinary has no markings whatsoever. Both are printed in medieval plainsong notation – neumes. See Appendix, Fig’s 2-3. 272 Gregorian chant notation is essentially made of neumes – various shaped notes beginning in the ninth century. 167
The Suor Angelica Dichotomy
Dichotomy, the coupling of opposites that contradict each other, is readily visible in
S.M. dei Sette Dolori because it represents the ancient Christian ideal of monastic life –
confinement of body and freedom of spirit. What is important to recognize, and what is asserted in this study, is that contrary to popular opinion, such opposites are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Moreover, it also symbolizes the agency women could experience in post-Tridentine Italy. Women who desired to be encloistered in order to experience spiritual freedom, to know, worship and serve their God could, in fact, see this dream come to fruition. Camilla was able to accomplish this by founding a convent and making its rules.
Because she learned by example, she is not therefore the exception.
Furthermore, an example of twentieth-century misrepresentation Suor Angelica is itself a dichotomy. It simultaneously denotes the shortcomings of convents allegedly in the seventeenth century, and musically portrays the spiritual ascension of women in twentieth- century monasteries. In this case its dichotomal presentation is mutually exclusive. In this instance an anachronistic idea and personal experience can be construed as mutually exclusive. In logic, these two do not coexist equally; they do not represent the same thing.
In collaboration, there is the possibility of diverse opinions and perspectives. Some collaborations are mutually beneficial because each supplies what the other lacks.
However, Forzano’s literary talent and Puccini’s musical brilliance were offset by each other’s contradictory artistic renditions. So, when Forzano and Puccini partnered together to wed a story and music, Puccini infused his view of conventual existence with personal experience against the backdrop of Forzano’s perceptions of monastic life. In other words, 168
the librettist wrote this tale from his own particular point of view, and the composer arranged the music from his own experiences with church music and enjoyment with the atmosphere and the people living in his sister’s monastery. Consequently, the Suor
Angelica dichotomy is couched in the coupling of a narrowly conceived version of convent life depicted in setting and staging, and a musical setting that transcends the visual scenes depicted with music that could be perceived as more indicative of the true spiritual nature of the convent.
DiGaetani’s assessment of Suor Angelica proves the point; the libretto successfully portrayed seventeenth-century female monasticism as a prison and the women as inmates.
Taking DiGaetani’s viewpoint, one could assume that behind the ominous walls and barred windows were women who may have looked out with their hands holding onto the bars and yearning for the freedom they could only see from a distance. Unsuspecting young girls who become pregnant out of wedlock wind up behind the convent walls for life. Their own family condemned them there. Watching the opera and listening to the words, one might ask the question, “Nobody volunteers for that, right?” The prospect of having to do without is beyond a wealthy audience’s comprehension – no sex, no fancy foods, no fancy furniture
– except in the church – and no “fun,” only work, prayer, singing, silence, loneliness, and uncomfortable sleep. The only thing to look forward to is a visitor if one is lucky, and three nights a year to watch the fountain water turn golden at sunset. But for what miracle would one hope? The only true hope to long for is death. But beware that you do not make the mistake of taking your own life to quicken death’s arrival, lest you truly would need the same miracle as poor Angelica. 169
What Forzano depicts in his libretto is a twentieth-century perception of convent life. Unfortunately, Forzano did not divulge in his memoir why that particular story came to be; there is no reference to a personal experience, good or bad, some tale told by an acquaintance, or even a book that he had read. So we do not know where his ideas came from. Perchance he caught wind of prevailing opinions on the matter; perhaps it was based on fact, loosely or otherwise. Whatever the impetus for this narrative, Forzano successfully set before audiences a scene that brings pity for the women, and contempt for this lifestyle and for the socio-religious currents that forced its inhabitants to enter, because no one in his/her right mind would choose such an existence.
Moreover, a one-act opera only gives the audience a glimpse of an hour or less in a fictitious convent. It is dramatic fiction and verismo operas are purposely set up to evoke tension and are intended to be highly emotional. Even if the librettist did appreciate the spiritual profundity of conventual living, by virtue of the length and type of this artform it precludes depth of understanding in its presentation. Consequently, for people who have never been exposed to monastic life or been monastics themselves, the entire setting and plot is out of context and therefore inconceivable.
Added to this the visual characterizations on the stage, Puccini’s music can accentuate emotions. Having had the opportunity to work as the assistant director of this opera, there are more than just the sets, props and staging – the music plays a vital role in creating an atmosphere for dramatic effect and emotional impact. Puccini’s powerful orchestral prowess heard in Bohème, Tosca and Madame Butterfly is evident, but in differing creative ways. The grand orchestra is saved for poignant moments: a mother’s 170
love, an evil old woman, and spiritual women praising God. Puccini’s romantic style
combined with his upbringing with church music truly accentuates the scenes of religious
music.
Certainly, he, too, was using a lens tinted by years performing and composing
religious music, and days spent in the presence of nuns in a peaceful atmosphere. He used
musical techniques to enhance what he perceived as spiritually emotive experiences and profound encounters, expressing more of the true spiritual fervor and mysticism of a particular twentieth-century convent. Puccini had a personal history with religious and spiritual knowledge and occurrence, albeit second-hand from communication with his sister
Suor Enrichetta and others in her community at Monastero della Visitazione di Vicopelago.
Suor Angelica was hailed as a sentimental failure and was ejected from further
inclusion with Il tabarro and Gianni Schichi. In fact, the three operas were split up and
rarely performed together after 1922. This grieved Puccini greatly. Even though the critics
and public opinion saddened him, he never lost his passion for Suor Angelica, but held that
it was his favorite opera.273
Together, Forzano and Puccini produced a dichotomic, highly charged
romanticized view of conventual life. And even though they were coming from opposite
ends of the spectrum regarding manifest impressions and beliefs of what monastic life
would have been like, they inadvertently perpetuated an inaccurate illustration of female
monastic existence. Suor Angelica is fiction juxtaposed to real life seventeenth-century
273 “I beg of you to insist with Higgins that if he is really my friend, as I believe, he should give me this satisfaction and not make me unhappy by seeing this, my favourite opera, put on one side – it would break my heart.” Seligman 322-32. “For sentimental reasons, and from a natural desire to succour the weak, he never ceased to proclaim that Suor Angelica was the best of the three operas [...].” Seligman 285. 171 conventual life. Thus, this opera is overwhelmed by hard evidence that is contrary to what it portrays by the voices of the women found at S.M. dei Sette Dolori.
172
CONCLUSION –THROUGH TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY LENSES
Echoes
Seventeenth-century female monasteries were spaces of freedom and peace for religious women, sites in which they exerted their agency, and not solely places that were penitentiaries with inmates. S.M. dei Sette Dolori, its architecture and its place in conventual history, embodies the socio-religious and spiritual freedom indicative of the ancient Christian ideology of monastic life. It is not a prison and the women are not inmates. Furthermore, it illustrates a woman’s agency asserted during the post-Tridentine period, a time in which history tells us women were oppressed by socio-economic shifts in familial holdings and religious rhetoric determined the place and space for women.
Ancient Christianity began with the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Abbas and ammas gleaned their wisdom and knowledge from Jesus’ teachings and lived by
his example, and also from the writings of his disciples. Although Jesus’ teachings were
deemed heretical by ruling religious leaders of his day, he promoted a spiritual lifestyle that
did not exclude women, but rather endorsed an active role for them. Such a radical attitude
was found in his personal treatment of women, as well as his acclamation for women who
exhibited great faith and exercised wisdom in their active pursuit of spiritual understanding,
such as Lazarus’ sister Mary.274 Additionally, prior to Jesus’ official ministry, Luke the
physician gives us an example of a widowed prophetess who lived her life in fasting and
274 Other women of note singled out by Jesus as written in the gospels are: the woman who believed he could heal her daughter – Matthew 15:21-28; the woman with the alabaster jar – 26:6-13; Mark 14:3-9; Luke 7:36-50; Woman with issue of blood – Matthew 9:20-22; Mark 5:25-34; Luke 8:43-48; Mary, Lazarus’ sister who chose the good thing to do – Luke 10:38-42; the widow who gave all she had – Mark 12: 41-44; Luke 21:1-4; 173 prayers.275 For many ancients, Jesus’ life and teachings could be boiled down to a simple principle – the pursuit of purity of heart. We know how such a pursuit was carried out and fulfilled: Athanasius, Cassian, Pachomius, Basil, Jerome, Chrysostom, Gregory of Nyssa,
Augustine, and others, both named and anonymous, recorded the lives and experiences of people on such a quest. From their extant writings, the monastic way of life was passed down through the centuries to individuals like Camilla and Suor Francesca.
Consequently, S.M. dei Sette Dolori reflects the spiritual fervor of ancient Christian ascetics. Camilla exemplifies the commitment and dedication of Jerome’s friend, Paula.
Camilla too was a wise leader who set up her own monastic rules, and was compassionate and served the people in her care. Even though both Paula and Camilla were widows,
Camilla did not have to wait until her husband’s death to realize her spiritual aspirations.
Such zeal and commitment are manifested in Camilla’s Constitution in which she refers to the same spiritual ideals found within St. Augustine’s writings. Even the architectural design of the monastery echoes the refrains of freedom attained behind walls, a trope passed down through the centuries by ammas and abbas who lived in like manner in the first four hundred years of Christianity. Essentially, in all of the centuries since the inception of the ascetic anchoritic lifestyle of both Christian men and women, the goal has been spiritual perfection. Vows of virginity, poverty and obedience were the mainstay of their existence and the means to achieve perfection. Subsequently, spaces in which they lived and performed their personal and corporate spiritual rituals continued to express this standard of living.
275 Anna, the prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher, is found in Luke 2:36-38. 174
The problem perceived by some scholars is not necessarily the existence of, but the
promulgation of such a standard of living.276 They refute the notion that living an austere
lifestyle of self-denial can be translated into a corporate norm, but instead, render such a way of life as only an individual choice. The social norm of religious community was
dictated by the Church and thus inflicted upon religious men, and especially women.
Specifically, the Council of Trent forcefully prescribed further restrictive ritual and
physical structures upon female monasticism. Even though one part of its two-fold purpose
was for ecclesiastic and doctrinal reform, in the end the Council of Trent became more of a
platform for political maneuvering for the papacy to secure its authority over all
organizations within the bounds of the Roman Catholic Church, resembling the strong arm
of a monarchy whose king was the pope. Furthermore, Medioli cites Michel Foucault
regarding the apparent maniacal manner of the Church concerning the population at large.
In his Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason, Foucault denounces schemes by the papacy in the seventeenth century to capture and house the poor, homeless and mentally ill in order to control various sub-cultures, thus creating an artificial idyllic society based upon perceived religious politics in the name of God: “For the
Catholic Church, [...] confinement represents, in the form of an authoritarian model, the myth of social happiness,” likening it to a police state, such order is tantamount to virtue, and that “‘confinement’ conceals both a metaphysics of government and a politics of religion; it is situated, as an effort of tyrannical synthesis, in the vast space separating the
276 See, for example, Francesca Medioli. “The Dimensions of the Cloister: Enclosure, Constraint and Protection in Seventeenth-Century Italy.” Time, Space and Women’s Lives in Early Modern Europe. Eds. Ann Jacobson Schutte, et. al. Kirksville, MO: Truman State Univ. Press, 2001, 165-180. See also Zarri, Gabriella. “The Third Status,” Time, Space and Women’s Lives in Early Modern Europe. Eds. Ann Jacobson Schutte, et. al. Kirksville, MO: Truman State Univ. Press, 2001, 181-199. 175
garden of God and the cities which men, driven from paradise, have built with their own hands.”277
In an attempt at fairness, Medioli interjects that “occasionally” the opposite effects
for religious women occurred.278 She concedes that there were women who truly relied
upon the strict enclosure law for protection, and even cites a specific event in which the
walled structure protected nuns at a convent in Montefiascone.279 Nonetheless, all such
instances do not mitigate the perception that “enclosure is thus the Great Wall of
Catholicism.” 280 According to Medioli, enclosure was established not only to reinforce this
inferiority of women, but convents were also essential to sustain family patrimony.281 In
addition, she rebuffs simplistic justifications echoed from such abbas as Pachomius that
enclosure is appropriate or acceptable for a common good of religious men and women.282
Furthermore she states that the concept of “hortus conclusus,”283 not only was a literary
topos conceived a posteriori for apologetic purposes, but also provided spaces for spiritual
“inspirations.”284 Therefore, in the final analysis strict enclosure was not necessary to
277 Michel Foucault, Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason (NY: Vintage Books, 1988) 63. 278 Medioli 178. 279 Medioli 178. Medioli quoted the story found in the Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Sacra Congregatio Episcoporum et Regularium, Monialum (A.S.V., S.C.E.R.), Registro 1 (1646), 35v-36r: In 1661, nuns reported that a “sacrilegious group of people attempted to breach the enclosure.” The men were captured by the Bishop’s troops, but the nuns requested that the scoundrels be put on trial in order to “reestablish the honor of their convent.” 280 Medioli 179. 281 Medioli 179. 282 “A generic perception of the dangers threatening virgins, the abstract desire for protection, and the presumed need to withdraw from the world through enclosure may be justifications valid at a personal level, but cannot be deemed sufficient to determine a norm.” Medioli 179. The inclusion of “and men” is my emphasis, reinforcing that there has been equal enclosure of both men and women. 283 Hortus conclusus is Latin for an enclosed garden. 284 Medioli 180. 176
achieve such devout aspirations, even though it was demonstrated in early Christian
monasticism.
Although she acknowledges the historical foundations of an ascetic and monastic lifestyle, Medioli and others find it necessary to discount a predilection for spiritual fulfillment within any guise of constraint. For such scholars, the dichotomy of spiritual freedom and physical confinement is untenable and irreconcilable. They cite ecclesial hegemony, such as the papal bull Periculoso, and other examples of socio-religious oppression of women, and thus disregard and deny sincere appreciation for a life fulfilled within such parameters. However, there were religious women who were, and still are, able to navigate through the waters of papal authority. Religious women boldly accomplished what they believed they were called to do, and in so doing, they proclaimed through their
actions what the Apostle Peter replied to his tormentors when he was told to desist from his
activities: “We ought to obey God rather than men.”285
Yet, there are those scholars who attempt to objectively address apparent
historical inequity toward religious women. Jo Ann McNamara recounts the hegemony of
the Church, but also recognizes the aspirations of religious women.286 She notes:
For fifteen centuries, aspiring women had maintained independence and
authority, both temporal and spiritual, through heroic chastity. They had
always found a creative response to reforms that restricted their influence.
Cloister became a condition for cultivating the hidden life as a means to
channel divine grace. They harnessed the power of self-denial to support
285 Acts 5:29. 286 Jo Ann Kay McNamara, Sisters in Arms: Catholic Nuns through Two Millennia (Cambridge: Harvard Univ Press, 1996). 177
the salvific mission of Christianity. Devout reception complemented
priestly dispensation of the sacraments.287
Thus, McNamara highlights aspects of religious women in history with a greater
degree of fairness, and considerably less subjectivity. She does not couch the positive
aspects of spiritual ascension in sarcastic rhetoric or apologetics, but, for the most part,
treats both sides equally, and thereby legitimizes their lives.
Even though Zarri is known for her scathing commentary on the apparent abuses
of women by Roman Catholic leadership, she also relates in her article “The Third
Status,”288 one such “creative response” that McNamara alludes to above. Simply put,
Third Orders signify lay men and women who may wear the vestments of a religious
community, but do not live in one, and do good works under the auspices of a particular
order. Third Orders were established before the Council of Trent. After the Council’s adjournment, Tridentine decrees sought to assert more regulation of orders, especially
Third Orders. Third Orders were perceived as too open and prone to heresy, and thus there was an attempt to control them through jurisdictional mandates to enforce monastic vows, as well as secure female virginity. Be that as it may, such orders survived and offered an alternative to taking formal vows of chastity under the auspices of the Church.
Women who desired to remain virgins could do so and still live with their parents, and especially stay with widowed mothers. Such a lifestyle is reminiscent of Macrina’s example of virginity and service with her mother living in a private residence. For some religious women, their poverty prohibited them from joining a convent, yet they still
287 McNamara 419. 288 Gabriella Zarri “The Third Status,” Time, Space and Women’s Lives in Early Modern Europe. Eds. Ann Jacobson Schutte, et. al. (Kirksville, MO: Truman State Univ. Press, 2001). 181-199. 178
preferred a life of celibacy. For other women, however, they preferred the monastic
model, yet wanted to continue in a secular status.289 In her conclusion, Zarri cites
Gabrielle Suchon, a woman who lived in the late sixteenth century. According to Suchon,
voluntary celibacy suggests a lifestyle withdrawn from distractions in which one pursues
intellectual study.290 Suchon states “ ‘neutralists,’ are those who freely adopt this third
style of life, can govern themselves according to reason. This ‘third way,’ ” Suchon
insists, “is the only style of life that gives women authentic liberty.”291
Even though women could choose a Third Order lifestyle, this does not preclude others from desiring a more stringent, self-disciplined and austere way of life. In the end, they are all choices. Suchon chose a Third Order existence, and Camilla chose to live a formal monastic life. The latter was not daunted by the decrees of the Council of Trent. The conception and construction of S.M. dei Sette Dolori conceivably should have been limited and controlled by church doctrine and episcopal leadership. Instead what we find is the birth of a religious organization and a place that exhibits the strong presence of a
determined woman, and the attainment of spiritual freedom by the foundress and the women she mentored. And furthermore, we know Camilla’s agency is not an isolated case, but rather she represents those who achieved their spiritual goals before her, such as Suor
Francesca, and surely those who came after her.
Space
We cannot consider seventeenth-century female monastic life apart from its architecture. Yet, it is also apparent that we cannot comprehend such architecture apart
289 Zarri 182-183, 186-187. 290 Zarri 199. 291 Zarri 199. 179
from the original purposes of monastic structures. Abba Pachomius’ vision for religious
communal living developed until it was a codified architectural plan in the Middle Ages.
By the establishment of the monastery at St. Gall, all the essential parts of a monastery had evolved to include every fundamental spiritual and physical need for its residents. Its example precisely detailed even the location of the church in relation to the cloister and the living and working quarters. Dunn further illustrates the wide range of religious and societal expectations related to the nuns and spaces in which they lived. The title of one of her writings, “Spaces shaped for spiritual perfection,” denotes ancient purposes and motivations for religious architecture and its relationship with the inhabitants. Such motivations dealt with personal isolation, simultaneously to avoid the temptations of the world, and to be set apart so as to intercede in prayer on behalf of the people of the world.
Besides choosing to live in enclosure, religious women at various times and places also exercised a certain amount of authority in order to obtain optimum architectural spaces in which to perform rituals. Caroline Bruzelius and Constance
Berman have studied thirteen-century Clarissan cloistered structures and found evidence of architectural modifications, for example, how cloistered spaces for certain Clarissan orders may have in fact been influenced by the women’s liturgical practices.292 In addition, Bruzelius explicates how cloistered architecture may not always dictate and symbolically dominate the inhabitants. Specifically, she cites a Naples convent church,
292 See also Gesta, Vol 31, No. 2, “Monastic Architecture for Women” (1992); and Medieval Religion: New Approaches, ed. Constance Hoffman Berman. This anthology includes other revisionists discussing various aspects of convent history based upon renewed approaches to archival research. 180
Santa Chiara.293 Santa Chiara shows remarkable alterations that allowed the religious
women the opportunity to seemingly participate more in the services, specifically the
Eucharist. Traditionally, nuns were not to see, nor be seen by, public congregants, and often the nuns had to leave the church if the coro was located near the altar. Cleverly, the nuns at Santa Chiara adapted the church architecture by moving the coro behind the altar as a separate, enclosed room. The coro was strategically located in such a say that the nuns could only see the priest, and the screened windows prohibited the congregants from seeing the nuns. The architectural modification allowed the nuns to witness and observe the elevation of the host. Traditionally, the priest would turn his back on the congregation in the nave as he lifted the host toward heaven. In the case of Santa Chiara, because the nuns were behind the altar when the priest turned away from the nave, he was facing the nuns who were hidden in the coro. Thus, the nuns had a front row seat to see the sacred event. Bruzelius and Berman point out that this architectural alteration is significant. It proves that instead of the cloistered space restricting the inhabitants, the inhabitants, in fact, exerted their agency on the space.
Even though Bruzelius’ discovery relates to medieval female monasticism, it demonstrates how religious women through the centuries were not powerless to exact architectural improvements for the betterment of their pursuit of perfection. Indeed,
Camilla and Suor Francesca demonstrate that religious women still exercised authority in the construction of seventeenth-century conventual structures. In spite of Borromeo’s explicit directions for ecclesiastic architectural construction, nuns chose, modified and
293 Caroline A. Bruzelius, and Constance H. Berman. “Hearing is Believing: Clarissan Architecture, ca. 1213-1340.” Gesta 31.2 Monastic Architecture for Women (1992): 83-91. 181
molded the spaces they deemed necessary to their religious pursuits. Indeed, men, such as
Borromeo, were compelled to shelter religious women in conventual complexes from the
wiles of evil men, and yet they were obliged to protect women as they would their mothers
and sisters. Yet, many of these same men were constrained to impose these same
restrictions upon themselves as well.
Scholars who seek to expose Church patriarchal hegemony over female monastics
exploit various methods to express the apparent injustices against religious women, and
women in general. Keep in mind that these methods use twenty-first-century vocabulary
and ideologies to describe a three- to four-hundred year old culture. For example, Hills and
others cleverly use literary devices to help explain the nuances of monastic architecture and religious women. Such methods bring to life different viewpoints regarding the
interrelation between a space and its residents. As stated in Chapter Two, conventual
architecture metonymically represents the female body in relation to structure as protection
and separation from society, the marked contrast between the exterior and interior, and,
most especially, how the architecture represents the female body. This includes its shape,
its need for protection and separation from society, the interior contrasted with the
convent’s modest exterior that conceals the richness of the women’s dedication and
virginity, and the correlation between women’s bodies and Christ’s body.294 Hence, one could liken S.M. dei Sette Dolori’s architecture to a shell that protects the precious pearl found within the pure hearts of the nuns. And yet, at the same time, the soaring walls illustrate the elevated spirits of the women as they say their prayers for the nations of the world. All the while, the barred gate and windows allow the sacred presence of their
294 Hills 161-81. 182
communion with God to emanate to the surrounding neighborhood. Some might characterize these poetic metaphors related to Camilla’s spiritual pursuits and the other women at S.M. dei Sette Dolori as naïve. Francesca Medioli would likely say my stance is a “worthwhile aim,” while, Gabriella Zarri would most likely critique my conclusions as univocal and oversimplified.295 Zarri’s statement implies that Ockham’s “razor” does not apply to female monasticism – all things being equal, the simplest solution tends to be the
best. In other words, the simple conclusion that conventual architecture does not simply
imprison the body but sets free the spirit of the religious women that dwell therein does not
apply. So, apparently, for some feminist scholars, all things are not equal, and thus the
simple goals of monasticism are no longer valid as an explanation for why women, and
men, enter into such a life of austerity, dictated by Church regulations and manipulated by
the architecture.
There is, however, another aspect worth considering concerning people and the
spaces in which they live. Thomas K. Carroll focuses on the fluid beliefs, theologies and
ideologies of space and spirituality, expressing that the space and people are one.
Referring to the Greek word ecclesia (assembly of people), Christian mystery and
295 “Apart from the defensive and protective element and the repressive and disciplining one, convents undoubtedly aimed to constitute the ideal space for spiritual life. The well-known motif of the hortus conclusus was not only a literary topos conceived a posteriori for apologetic purposes. It also represents an effort to provide forms and structures for a deep religious inspiration. Such a worthwhile aim, however, could have been pursued without strict enclosure, as numerous earlier and later manifestations of the female monastic tradition clearly demonstrate.” Medioli 180. Zarri promotes the necessity for continued study and understanding about the “mix of religious motives and social needs” in Italy. “Until such work of investigation and excavation is further along, it seems premature to rush to conclusions like that of Anne Conrad, which lend themselves to univocal, oversimplified explanations.” Zarri 184. 183
ontology are integrated within the brick and mortar and human flesh.296 Carroll recalls
Christ’s words to the Samaritan woman when she exposes her preference for worshipping
God in one location over another: “God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”297 His admonishment indicates that the location is not as
crucial as the person’s devotion to God. But in reality, humanity has always emphasized architectural structures as sacrosanct; they are houses of gods, or places of worship, be it
Stonehenge, the Parthenon, or St. Peter’s Basilica. In this sense, the architecture energizes the spiritual being with a tangible representation of the invisible. The architecture is intrinsically part of ritual and spiritual ascension and apprehension. Also, how a spiritual edifice is decorated manifests a congregation’s form and intensity of devotion to its god. It can be perceived that overly ornate religious structures imply that the congregants who attend to rituals at that structure deem it necessary to honor their
God, or gods in such a manner, whereas religious buildings with little or no decoration imply that the congregants feel the place itself is not as important as the people who worship within it. Indeed, the architecture is fully integrated with the spiritual life, its rituals, smells, sounds, and its inhabitants. Chris Abel explained in his book Architecture is Identity, a part of us is architecture and the deeper meaning and function of architecture becomes a place in which humanity can know itself.298 In other words, our lives and the
spaces we inhabit affect each other in such ways that our identities are entwined.
296 Thomas K. Carroll, “Architecture and Spirituality,” Irish Theological Quarterly. 68:1 (2003): 38. Other scholars who utilize a phenomenological methodology concerning architecture and its inhabitants are Christian Norberg-Schulz and Pavel Florensky. 297 John 4:24. 298 Chris Abel, Architecture is Identity (Oxford, UK: Architectural Press, 2000) 150. Leland Roth also discusses the meaning of architecture in relation to its inhabitants in his book, Understanding Architecture: Its Elements, History, and Meaning (New York: Icon Editions, 1993). 184
Translated to the convent, the spiritual achievement of religious women is
expressed within and without their architecture, that is, their encloistered life is indicative of their surroundings, and vice versa. Essentially, the difference between the male and female monastery has more to do with the amount of ecclesiastic control enforced upon them, and less about the design of the structure. For some, encloistered female monasteries imply an injustice, a disproportional parsing of spiritual and temporal power
upon one sex over the other. Yet for others, an apparent injustice does not nullify the true
meaning and vocations of the women who live behind the walls and bars. On the
contrary, such women find peace and tranquility inside the fortress of walls, bolts and
bars. Consequently, their lives are contingent upon and directly integrated with the
architecture. Thus, they can “worship [God] in spirit and in truth” within the bounds of
perceived hegemonic patriarchy. Regardless if women appear to be, and in reality are in
various times and places, denigrated and dominated, their apparent misfortune does not necessarily negate their sense of self, personal freedoms and goals when they use their situation to their advantage. On their behalf, it is argued that they should not have to negotiate their surroundings and situations; they should be free to do as they please.
Ironically, women who choose a monastic existence do, indeed, navigate well in their
architectural surroundings, and thus they are doing as they please.
Hence, the nuns at S.M. dei Sette Dolori, too, exhibited personal spiritual freedom
and used contemporary socio-religious dictums to their advantage. Accordingly,
architectural and interior decorations reveal their temperament. Despite the fact that the
interior ornamentation has changed over the centuries, S.M. dei Sette Dolori still exudes 185
its seventeenth-century ideologies. Originally the walls in the church were white,
elegantly simple, and a small number of paintings were hung. For example, above the
main altar is a rendition of the Deposition of Christ by Alessandro Turchi, and a painting
of St. Augustine by Carlo Maratti is above the left-hand altar. But over the centuries new
paintings were added, white walls became laminated with colored marble, and
architectural accents were covered with gold leaf. Changes notwithstanding, fundamental
activities still revolve around purity of heart and serving man through prayer and the
pursuit of God. Ultimately, the nuns are free to accomplish this within the boundary of
the walls, a freedom wrought by the fortitude of their foundress.
Voices
The difference between encountering a phenomenon such as S.M. dei Sette Dolori
and fully grasping its significance is in the approach. A passerby might see only forbidding
walls and barred windows and infer that it perhaps is a prison. Another might enter into the
atrium and chapel and see the magnificent architecture, but not fully understand the essence
of the women who live there. It is essential to listen to the voices of the inhabitants, speak
to them, and in the case of history, hear their voices in the documents left behind. Only then
is it possible to fully appreciate the full impact of their existence in context. Once heard, the dichotomy found between appearances and the experiences of the women becomes clearer; perhaps not entirely understood due to the passing of time, but still more than if one views
their history with presuppositions.
This is no less a concern when speaking with a nun at S.M. dei Sette Dolori in the
twenty-first century. While she does not have all the experiences of three hundred and fifty 186 years ago, and while traditions may evolve and change through time, the essence of the foundress still remains within the ritual, within the writings and heard from her words.
Unfortunately, some scholars choose to use highly charged vocabulary, the likes of which would shock a contemporary nun at S.M. dei Sette Dolori. For example, Medioli cites
Eileen Power, who summed up the medieval encloistered life: “A career, a vocation, a prison, a refuge: to its different inmates the monastery was all these things.”299 Once again, the provocative words “prison” and “inmate” are used to assert a generalization of convent life. Indeed, there were women who did not want to live in a monastery.300 But these cases were not necessarily the norm, and do not warrant such strong terms in scholarly discussion. Paradoxically, in an argument both sides can use the same statistics, however, they are manipulated by a certain amount of bias, which is inevitable, and any predisposition becomes evident in the language that is used. Since stereotypes and generalizations are the bane of feminists’ arguments, it is ironic that these very same ideas against which feminists fight (because these concepts propagate the inequitable treatment of women) are the same tools with which they use to assert the inequity of women. Certain feminists, thus, resort to using the same verbal weapons that are often leveled against women.
With terms such as “prison” and “inmate,” it is no wonder that people wonder why anyone would choose to live in such spaces that so define and confine one’s life. In the case of spiritual women in history, good scholarship demands that we dig as deeply as
299 During the seventeenth century, there were women who were put in convents against their will, and some of them attempted escape. Medioli 179. 300 See Medioli for detailed descriptions of particular women that escaped from various convents. Each situation should be taken in a case-by-case basis, and not imply that these women’s tragic lives were the norm. 187 we can to locate evidence that reveals many facets of their lives, and we must be careful not to use our own lenses with which to see and hear them. Rampolla warns us to avoid using our anachronistic lenses; judging things prima facie.301 Allow the evidence to speak and tell the story. Why would anyone in this century choose to wear a habit, forsake all material possessions to serve their God and help people? The best approach would be to ask them directly.
The inherent dichotomy in Suor Angelica exposes such inaccuracies of anachronistic inquiry; it sets up a paradigm rife with misconceptions and misinformation, and furthers the dissemination of erroneous conclusions. Searching for and acquiring the voices of female monastics helps to eradicate incorrect suppositions. Regrettably, these same suppositions propagated by fiction taint real-life investigations, historical analyses of actual monasteries, such as S.M. dei Sette Dolori.
With a view through different lenses, the inherent dichotomy found in the relationship between the convent and its female residents has generated books and articles denouncing their restrictive presence and, moreso, the socio-religious climates in which they were erected. It behooves scholars to scrutinize all aspects of the convent life, including the history of monasticism to trace the trajectory of Christian idealism in ascetic lifestyles.
Final analysis
It is not the purpose of this dissertation to deny the existence of societal gender norms imposed upon women in seventeenth-century Italy. Undoubtedly, the two choices that were left to most young girls and ladies were limited to marriage or convent, and
301 Rampolla 54, 65. 188 within these boundaries, they accepted their vocations. In spite of this, the spiritual desires and inclinations of religious women were not diminished in the shadow of societal constrictions. Instead, they worked within the system, and sought to manipulate and modify it when necessary and when able. This is not to say that the system in which they lived was perfect or right to our twenty-first-century sensibilities.
Certainly, the numbers of women choosing an ascetic lifestyle in the twenty-first century are less than their seventeenth-century predecessors.302 This is true at S.M. dei
Sette Dolori where there are currently only five women in residence. This is due in part to a change in priorities in our highly technical and secular societies; moreover, there are increased choices afforded women in how they may pursue their spiritual obligations.
The present nuns of S.M. dei Sette Dolori exemplify religious women who feel a
call to serve the world through prayer, who embrace the love of God intensely, and are
willing to give up everything for this calling, because of love. Camilla’s words in her
Constitution reveal that she, too, was inspired by love. Taking her lead from St.
Augustine, Camilla set out to ensure that love was the basis for living at S.M. dei Sette
Dolori. For the current nuns there is a continuous thread that connects them with their
302 Although the population of nuns has lessened over the centuries, there are women in the twenty-first century who actively choose a strict encloistered way of life. In the spring of 2007, ABC’s “20/20” did a series on faith. On 11 May 2007, they aired an episode titled “Personal Sacrifices for Faith: Inside the Walls of a Cloistered Convent, Nuns Practice Asceticism and Sacrifice.” 302 In this episode they highlighted two Poor Clares convents, one located in Roswell, New Mexico, and the other was Mount St. Mary’s in Wrentham, Massachusetts. “20/20” was allowed to bring in a small crew to Mount St. Mary’s one weekend when seven young women were visiting to decide whether they would forsake the world and choose a cloistered life. The women who came to decide were academics and professionals and included a Harvard professor in nineteenth-century literature, an editor for a Washington journal, a theology graduate student at Boston College, and a Harvard graduate working on her master’s in monasticism. Mount St. Mary’s is a strict cloistered community. It is their firm belief that they live in seclusion apart from the whole world in order to serve the whole world in prayer, a distinct echo from the ancient ammas and abbas. Theirs is a profound commitment not often thought of in twenty-first-century United States society. By the world’s standards, these are intelligent and beautiful women. But for the nuns in convents around the world, their choice to live in strict encloisterment was the best choice. Of the seven, only one stayed at St. Mary’s. 189
fore-sisters as well as with other convents around the globe. Seventeenth-century nuns, like their sisters today, did not consider their lives in the convent space a dichotomy. To
them, it was an ideal place in which to attain an ancient ascetic desire – to serve man through prayer while denying oneself unnecessary worldly pleasure to attain spiritual perfection. To them it was not a prison, and they were not inmates. On the contrary, within the walls of their convent, nuns still find peace and spiritual enlightenment. Any socio-religious, political or economic force did not impose constraint upon them. They were drawn to spend their days behind walls, bars and locks for a greater good. They lived inside a dichotomy where spiritual freedom is attained behind walls that physically
constrained them, and in their seclusion confidently retained their agency to construct a
space in which they could realize spiritual perfection.
190
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