Breaking the silence: the poor Clares and the visual arts in fifteenth-century Italy

Renaissance Quarterly, Summer, 1995 by Jeryldene M. Wood

10 For instance, building a communal dormitory to replace single cells was mandated by the adoption of Saint Clare's rule, see Memoriale, 9. There were only sixteen sisters in 1448 (ibid., 1); twenty-three Clarisse came from Santa Lucia at Foligno to oversee the reforms (ibid., 9-10); and by 1483 there were at least sixty nuns (the limitation of bocche was raised to seventy in order to accommodate eight novices, ibid., 39-40).

11 Their mother gave money "che se devesse espendere in cose de sacrestia, secondo che piacesse ad esse suoi figliole." The cost of the tabernacle exceeded the bequest; the difference was made up by the nuns' brothers; see ibid., 39. For additional information about the sculptor Ferrucci, see Schrader.

12 The painting given by Fioravante dai Matti in 1465 (Memoriale, 29) is probably Caporali's Madonna and Child with Angels, now in the National Gallery of Umbria at Perugia. For provenance and reproductions, see Todini, 1:51. Among other works cited in the chronicle are: a Crucifixion made for above the grillwork in c. 1449-51; a fresco of the Crucifixion ordered in 1491 (see below, n. 14); and two quadrecti of Saints Francis and Bernardino de Feltre given in c. 1499-1500, at about the same time that a wooden Crucifix was purchased (ibid., 13, 68).

13 For example, the tabernacle by Ferrucci was paid for by a legacy from the Alfani family; see ibid., 39.

14 Money left by Abbess Eufrasia Alfani was expended for Fiorenzo di Lorenzo's fresco of the Crucifixion with Saints Clare and Francis for the head of the refectory; see ibid., 52. Fifteenth- and sixteenth-century documents from Santa Chiara Novella indicate that a "dowry" or some sort of investment in a public monte to fund a sister's residence in the convent was also typical in Florence (Florence, Archivio di Stato, Con-venti Soppressi, 94, filza 64).

15 Memoriale, 85-86: "da spendere in cose de chiesia." The chronicle and contracts were first published in Gnoli, 133- 54. For more recent information on Raphael's pala, see Shearman and Mancinelli. I am grateful to Alessandro Nova for calling my attention to the last two references.

16 For the contracts with Raphael and other artists and craftsmen, see Gnoli, 146-54.

17 Memoriale, 127 (and 136 for completion of the setting for this altarpiece).

18 For the special indulgence, see ibid., 85, 97, and 107. For the previous dedication of the church to the Annunciation rather than the Assumption, see Hohler, 167.

19 For the vaulting of "chiesia nostra dentro" and for "la volta sopra lo altare grande della chiesia da fore," see Memoriale, 13, 32.

20 The brass candlesticks were purchased from the sale of two rings left for that purpose by Isabectha delli Oddi of Perugia; see ibid., 68.

21 Ibid., 76-77. The Franciscan tertiaries at Sant'Antonio in Perugia also commissioned altarpieces for their external and internal churches from Piero della Francesca and Raphael, respectively. For Piero's pala, see Battisti, 1:420-36; Lightbown, 218-27; and Garibaldi, 19-44; and for Raphael's painting, see Zeri and Gardner, 72-78.