DOORWAYS TO THE DEMONIC AND DIVINE: VISIONS OF SANTA FRANCESCA ROMANA AND THE FRESCOES OF TOR DE’SPECCHI BY SUZANNE M. SCANLAN B.A., STONEHILL COLLEGE, 2002 M.A., BROWN UNIVERSITY, 2006 A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY OF ART AND ARCHITECTURE AT BROWN UNIVERSITY PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND MAY, 2010 © Copyright 2010 by Suzanne M. Scanlan ii This dissertation by Suzanne M. Scanlan is accepted in its present form by the Department of History of Art and Architecture as satisfying the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Date_____________ ______________________________________ Evelyn Lincoln, Advisor Recommended to the Graduate Council Date______________ ______________________________________ Sheila Bonde, Reader Date______________ ______________________________________ Caroline Castiglione, Reader Approved by the Graduate Council Date______________ _____________________________________ Sheila Bonde, Dean of the Graduate School iii VITA Suzanne Scanlan was born in 1961 in Boston, Massachusetts and moved to North Kingstown, Rhode Island in 1999. She attended Stonehill College, in North Easton, Massachusetts, where she received her B.A. in humanities, magna cum laude, in 2002. Suzanne entered the graduate program in the Department of History of Art and Architecture at Brown University in 2004, studying under Professor Evelyn Lincoln. She received her M.A. in art history in 2006. The title of her masters’ thesis was Images of Salvation and Reform in Poccetti’s Innocenti Fresco. In the spring of 2006, Suzanne received the Kermit Champa Memorial Fund pre- dissertation research grant in art history at Brown. This grant, along with a research assistantship in Italian studies with Professor Caroline Castiglione, enabled Suzanne to travel to Italy to begin work on her thesis. Her interest in the visual culture of female monasticism led her to the monastery of the Oblates of Santa Francesca Romana at Tor de’Specchi in Rome. Under the gracious auspices of Madre Maria Camilla Rea and the oblate community at Tor de’Specchi, Suzanne studied the fifteenth-century paintings, frescoes and architecture of the convent over the course of four years. Suzanne presented a paper entitled, “The Devil in the Refectory: Bodies Imagined and the Oblates of Tor de’Specchi in Quattrocento Rome,” at an international conference on the Devil in Society in the Pre-modern World at the University of Toronto in October, 2008. Her paper was selected for publication in a volume of proceedings from the conference by the Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, University of Toronto Press, 2010. In May, 2009, her paper entitled, “Una Vita Visibile: Visions of iv Heaven and Earth for the Quattrocento Oblates of Santa Francesca Romana” was presented at the Sixteenth Century Studies Conference in Geneva, Switzerland. While studying at Brown, Suzanne held a Mellon curatorial proctorship at the Rhode Island School of Design Museum, working with Maureen O’Brien, curator of painting and sculpture. She assisted with the design, plan and re-installation of the medieval and early modern galleries at the museum. She held several teaching assistantships in art history at Brown, and was a guest lecturer at both Brown and the Rhode Island School of Design. From 2005-2008, Suzanne was a coordinator of the Graduate Student Colloquium Series in Renaissance and Early Modern Studies at Brown. She participated in a Mellon Graduate Workshop on Visual Representations of Group Identity, and presented her work at the Department of Italian Studies Colloquia Series at Brown. Generous support from the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, the program in Renaissance and Early Modern Studies at Brown, the Graduate School at Brown and the Department of History of Art and Architecture enabled Suzanne to travel to Rome, Siena, Orvieto and Padua to complete her dissertation research. v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I have benefited from the guidance, expertise and advice of many people during the course of this dissertation. First, I thank my advisor, Evie Lincoln, who taught me that excellent scholarship and collegiality go hand in hand. She encouraged me to ask interesting and meaningful questions about the images made for the oblates at Tor de’Specchi, and about the complexities of Renaissance art. From her, I learned that the best teachers are those with the wisdom, confidence and grace to give each student the opportunity to develop in his or her own time. I am grateful to Sheila Bonde for productive discussions that helped me to situate the Tor de’Specchi community and convent within monastic and architectural traditions. Her insightful suggestions, particularly with regard to the statutes, gave me a deeper understanding of the frescoes and of this project as a whole. I thank Caroline Castiglione for asking important questions about women in early modern Rome, and for asking me to think about them with her. Her course on microhistory changed the shape of this dissertation and my writing, and her advice and good humor have been mainstays for me at Brown. This dissertation would not have been possible without the support of the Oblates of Santa Francesca Romana. Suor Maria Camilla Rea, Madre Presidente of Tor de’Specchi, has been gracious and hospitable in giving me access to the frescoes and treasures of the convent. I am particularly grateful to her, and to Madre Paola Vecchi and Suor Roberta Vido. I also thank Federica Moretti for sharing her expertise about the restoration of the quattrocento frescoes. vi I am indebted to Maureen O’Brien for two years of collaboration and conversation as her curatorial proctor at the RISD Museum. She has taught me about professionalism, ingenuity and elegance. I am grateful to Moshe Sluhovsky who spent hours discussing demonic possession with me, over coffee, and who has been more than generous with his time and resources. And, I thank Dedda De Angelis for her assistance with the translation of the Tor de’Specchi statutes. I have benefited from my discussions with faculty, staff and colleagues in the departments of History of Art and Architecture, Italian Studies, REMS and MEMHS at Brown. In particular, I would like to thank Dian Kriz, Jeffrey Muller, Tara Nummedal, Ron Martinez, Virginia Krause, Blossom Kirschenbaum, Pascale Rihouet, Mario Pereira, Joseph Silva, Lisa Tom, Melissa Katz, Mariah Proctor-Tiffany, Alice Klima, Amanda Lahikainen, Caitlin Bass, Anne Lange, Nori Duncan and Oded Rabinovitch. I am also grateful for the conversation and support of friends and colleagues outside of Brown: Allyson Sheckler, Eileen Pavese, Nancy Laders, Carolyn Testa, and Carla Keyvanian. I appreciate the help of the professionals at the Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Archivio di Stato di Roma and Biblioteca Angelica in Rome; the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore; the John Hay Library at Brown and, in particular, the staff and Interlibrary Loan department at the Rockefeller Library at Brown. Generous funding from the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, the department of Renaissance and Early Modern Studies at Brown, the Brown Graduate School and the Department of History of Art and Architecture at Brown made research travel for this dissertation possible. vii My parents, Ann and Don Cederholm, and my sister, Melanie Jansky, have kept me and this dissertation going with their unwavering love and hearty laughter on numerous occasions. Thank you. I am truly grateful to and for all of my family, both Cederholm and Scanlan. Most of all, my husband, Jim Scanlan, has been by my side for this project and in all other things for thirty years. Our children, Emily, Molly and Jim, have only increased our joy in living every day together. I dedicate this work to the four of them. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Vita…………………………………………………………………………………. iv Acknowledgments………………………………………………………………….. vi List of Illustrations…………………………………………………………………. xi Introduction………………………………………………………………………… 1 Francesca Bussa dei Ponziani: Biography and Hagiography………………. 8 Visions Demonic and Divine ……………………………………………… 13 Chapter 1: Una Vita Visibile: Images for Memory and Devotion and the First Oblates of Francesca Romana as Patrons of Art……………. 17 Material Beginnings……………………………………………………….. 25 Private Devotions and Heavenly Bodies………………………………….. 30 The Virgin’s Crown and the Papal Tiara………………………………….. 52 2: If These Walls Could Talk: How the Oblates Imagined the Tor de’Specchi Oratory……………………………………………….. 62 A Community on the Threshold…………………………………………... 68 Transition and Vestition…………………………………………………... 78 From the Papal Chapel to the Tor de’Specchi Oratory…………………… 87 The Death and Funeral of Santa Francesca Romana……………………… 97 Open Monasteries and Semi-Religious Women………………………….. 101 ix 3: The Devil in the Refectory: Bodies Imagined by the Oblates of Tor de’Specchi………………………………………….. 109 [Im]permeable Spaces…………………………………………………. 111 Inviolable Bodies……………………………………………………….. 115 The Devil in the Refectory……………………………………………... 134 4: Continuity and Innovation at Tor de’Specchi………………………………. 140 Temptation and Discernment……………………………...………….. 143 Silent Contemplation and Corporeal Mortification……………………. 153 The Tor de’Specchi Refectory as a Ritual Space……………………… 168 Terra Verde and the Night…………………………………………….. 171 Appendix A: Statutes of ordination for the Beata Francesca………………… 176 Illustrations……………………………………………………………………. 184 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………