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Nuns and Architecture in Renaissance Reggio Emilia Andrea Faoro, Diane Ghirardo, University of Southern California Politecnico di Torino Abstract The document was produced at a large scale A convent plan dating from approximately by gluing together at least three large pieces of paper, 1519 raises a series of question concerning architec- which was subsequently glued to a blue backing during tural production and the role of women in Renaissance the eighteenth century, possibly in a misguided effort to Italy. This paper examines the plan in question, its au- preserve it. This backing makes it difficult to identify a thorship, the history of the convent depicted, and the watermark on the papers, although there is an illegible relationship of the plan to the convent as built. The pa- one partly visible, and it also makes it impossible to de- per then addresses the role of women in architectural termine exactly how many pieces of paper were glued design in Renaissance Italy, and challenges the long- together. Nonetheless, using several pieces of paper standing assumption that women did not design build- made it possible to work out the details more carefully. ings then because they were not permitted to do so. The plan illustrates a two-story convent whose outline The discovery during the summer of 2009 of was drawn with a ruler, but only the ground floor is il- a convent plan dating from approximately 1519-1524 lustrated; however reference is made at several points opened up a series of methodological and research to the use of several rooms for the dormitories and questions concerning architectural production in Re- other living spaces on the absent second floor. Mea- naissance Italy.I The large document illustrates, partly surements in units of cavezzi and then pertiche are in- in plan and partly in elevation, a project for the con- cluded for nearly every room. The ground floor consists vent of Santa Maria della Misericordia in Reggio Emilia. of a church dedicated to St. John the Baptist, a smaller While the plan had been inventoried and cited in a few one to St. Joseph, kitchen, parlor, refectory and storage publications regarding sixteenth century Reggio Emilia, spaces. Most extant convent plans date from the eigh- scholars paid little attention to the provenance of the teenth or nineteenth centuries, so this project affords a document. The assumption appears to have been that rare look at the activities that were to take place in each because it is a plan, it must therefore have been pro- room on the ground floor. While none of the columns duced by a man.II Our examination of the document, that would form a loggia around the courtyard appear in particular the captions and room descriptions, have on the plan, at several points the document indicates led us to the inescapable conclusion that the author the presence of such a loggia. Entrance to all of the of the plan was one of the eleven nuns then living in ground floor rooms was from the loggia, with the ex- the convent. The methodological and research ques- ception of the kitchen and hearth room, the church, the tions therefore concern on the one hand, the document storerooms for wood, and the area where visitors could and its production, and on the other, the more general be received on the west wing. question of the participation of women in architectural Because the political and cultural norms of design. Did a woman draft this plan, and if so, can we the era resolutely barred women from direct participa- draw any conclusions, even provisional ones, about the tion in architectural design, the woman who drafted the participation of women in architectural design and con- plan was unaware of the conventions by which to indi- struction? Before turning to the methodological issues, cate doors and windows. She therefore developed her a brief description of the project is in order. own, indicating both in elevation, and presumably the location of the doors in a wall indicated in which direc- tion she meant the door to open. Notable too, is the fact that the windows are symmetrically placed within their respective walls and are also in alignment with one an- other and in relation to the doors. Other features, such as the fireplace chimney and the iron grates used to separate the cloistered nuns from the sight of visitors, are also rendered in elevation. The designer took es- pecial care with the organization and representation of spaces in the zone of the parlor, or parlatorio, the sever- al rooms in which nuns could receive visitors. Here both the iron grates, which would be woven through with fab- ric to block the view from both sides, and the wheels, or rode, with their triple panels for passing objects back and forth without being seen, are represented in detail. This set of rooms is not linked by interior doors, so that Fig. 1. Anonymous, Plan of Convent of Santa Maria della Misericordia, Reggio Emilia, ca. 1519. 1 most must be entered individually from the loggia or for ogy about “our” church and “our” convent, is evident. visitors, from the street. Finally, although the stairs are VI As noted above, the unit of measurement adopted not drawn, the designer noted where they should go, in the plan initially was that of a cavezzi, a unit of mea- and indeed, they are placed precisely where one would surement common in the region of Lombardy and the expect, diagonally across from one another near the town of Cremona, but not in Reggio Emilia.VII The nuns church and the refectory. This arrangement rendered destined to inhabit the convent were transferred from a access to the upstairs rooms equally convenient, and convent in the city of Cremona, where the cavezzi was also facilitated movement of the nuns to their two ma- a standard unit of measurement. As the plan indicates, jor group rooms – dining room and church, which they at some point the cavezzi were translated into the stan- would arise during the night to visit and pray. dard unit of measurement in Reggio and elsewhere in Any attempt at an analysis of this plan gives the duchy of Ferrara, the pertica.VIII This too suggests rise to a range of methodological issues. Dating from that a nun from Cremona drafted the plan according to nearly five hundred years ago, the plan is accompa- the units familiar to her, but then transferred them into nied only by the most limited documentation for its those of Reggio at some later point, probably to facili- subsequent history, a matter further complicated by the tate communication with local builders. general disinterest at the time (not to mention in subse- If the first plan provides an elaborate and quent centuries) in matters having to do with women. detailed description of the organization of a convent, In general this has led to the archiving of fewer records complete with loggia, church, storage, kitchens, refec- associated with them, whether patrician women or oth- tory and parlors, the second is a puzzling, partial docu- ers, and this includes materials related to convents. mentation of what appears to amount to little more than Likewise, relatively few female monasteries survived a small house. When the city fathers summoned the the Napoleonic invasions and sales of ecclesiasti- nuns from Cremona, there was already a much smaller cal properties, and the subsequent speculative boom convent inhabited by eight nuns on the site. It is pos- of the nineteenth century. Such is the case with this sible that this plan refers precisely to that smaller con- convent, which no longer exists.III How then does the vent, because it illustrates a church, a chapel or smaller scholar undertake to understand the history of such a church dedicated to the Madonna, two courtyards, three building, in the absence of reasonably complete docu- chambers and two loggia, with an indication of stairs to mentation? Our approach has been three fold: a close otherwise unspecified rooms on the second floor. The study of the existing documents related to the convent; problem is that there are no evident relationships be- an analysis of additional documentation where the con- tween the two plans. If the first plan was meant to be a vent is mentioned by subsequent commentators; and remodel of an existing convent, this second plan could a comparison of this convent with others known to us not fill that role, since there is absolutely no overlap from elsewhere. between the two. Although we puzzled at length over We begin with the issues raised by the plan: this, we ultimately could find no relationship between •evidence for female authorship the two, so we concluded either that this represented •relationship between this plan and a second a temporary abode for the nuns while the new convent one dating from about the same time period and con- was being constructed, or, that it had nothing at all to do served in the same file with either the early convent or the one being erected •the unique features of the plan after 1519. •relationship between this plan and the build- There are a number of unique features to this ing eventually erected on the site plan. First, it looks toward the future by anticipating a •the relationship between this convent and room where silk will be produced. Silk production had other sixteenth century convents. only been introduced to Reggio in 1502, but the master The evidence for female authorship begins silk maker had already abandoned the city by the end with the caption by which the author presented it to the of the second decade.IX That the nuns already antici- city fathers of Reggio: “This is the design according pated taking up this activity indicates an astute sense to the idea of the mothers when [in response to] the of the fashion tastes of the time, and an awareness of prayers of this magnificent community the Observant the economic advantages of producing silk with the aid [Clarissans] were brought here.”IV The ideas behind of unpaid labor.

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