Cult of St Clare of Assisi in Early Modern Italy

Nirit Ben-Aryeh Debby is Senior Lecturer in the Arts Department at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel.

'... an exhaustive study of the cult of St. Clare in Italy from the period surrounding her canonization only two years after her death in 1253 through the late Baroque period and beyond, culminating in the modern world ...The author demonstrates tremendous erudition encompassing a wide-ranging exploration of the visual as well as textual material. The material will be important to historians of hagiography and its cultural contexts as well as to art historians interested in tracing the changing iconography of an important medieval saint into modern times.' Anita Moskowitz, Stony Brook University, USA (Emerita); author of Italian Gothic Sculpture c. 1250-1400 '... will be very useful for historians of hagiography and saints' cults, especially in the early modern period. For art historians, too, the book will be interesting when tracing changes in iconographical representations of saints over time. I hope that more studies of the visual traditions in other countries will follow where Debby has pioneered ... The ten pages of colour plates and the 51 black and white images are not only beautiful, they genuinely support the arguments made within the volume.' The History of Women Religious of Britain and Ireland 'The Cult of St Clare of Assisi in Early Modern Italy is the first full-length treatment of Italian visual traditions associated with St. Clare, and is a significant contribution to scholarship on the visual culture of early modern religiosity and to the fields of gender studies and sermon studies.' CAA Reviews '[This] carefully produced and generously illustrated book is at least the third monograph study by Nirit Ben-Aryeh Debby ... [who] exploits her expertise both as an art historian and a specialist in sermon studies, to shed a different light on the dynamic world of mendicant preaching, urban religious life and forms of cultural expression in the Renaissance period.' Archivum Franciscanum Historicum

• Preface and Acknowledgments, Introduction, Primary Thesis and Supporting Arguments, Word and Image: Preaching and the Visual Arts, Introducing St Clare and the Clarissan Order, Scholarship on the Saint 1 Civic Saint and Humble Virgin: The Medieval St Clare Portrayals of a Heroic Civil Saint, St Francis’ Devoted Disciple, Abbess, and Virgin in Assisi, Illustrations in San Damiano, Images in the Basilica of Santa Chiara in Assisi, Images in the Basilica of San Francesco, Beyond Assisi: The Changing Faces of St Clare in Naples and Florence, Images in Naples: St Clare and Queen Sancia, Images in Florence: Santa Maria di Monticelli and Santa Croce, Conclusion 2 Pious Abbess and Miracle Worker: The Observant St Clare, St Clare in Early Renaissance Art: The Humble Virgin, Depicting the Abbess and the Legislator, Portrayals as a Protector and as a Misericordia and Plague Saint, St Clare as a Visionary, St Clare as a Miracle Worker, The Saint’s Triumph: The Messina Dossal, St Clare and the Saracens 3 Crusade Heroine and Eucharist Saint: The Reformed St Clare, Images with the Monstrance, St Clare Expelling the Saracens from Assisi, St Clare in Early Modern Assisi, St Clare in Early Modern Naples, St Clare in Early Modern Florence, St Clare and the Infant Jesus, Conclusion, Epilogue: St Clare in the Modern World.