Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index


  • Record Number: 2655
  • Author(s)/Creator(s): Randolph , Adrian.
  • Contributor(s):
  • Title: Regarding Women in Sacred Space [the author discusses the separation of women from men at public sermons and in church; religious writers warned women to keep their minds on God and their gaze lowered because their sexuality was a danger for all men especially the celibate; poets considered Church the place for romantic meetings because a shared gaze signaled sexual choice].
  • Source: Picturing Women in Renaissance and Baroque Italy.  Edited by Geraldine A. Johnson and Sara F. Mathews Grieco.  Cambridge University Press, 1997.  Pages 17 - 41.
  • Description:
  • Article Type: Essay
  • Subject (See Also): Churches Division of the Sexes Gaze Mendicant Orders Public Space Sermons
  • Award Note:
  • Geographic Area: Italy
  • Century: 14- 15
  • Primary Evidence:
  • Illustrations: Seven Figures. Figure One Fra Angelico, "St. Peter Preaching to the Romans." The author points out that the women sit apart from the men. Figure Two Sano di Pietro, "San Bernardino Preaching in the Piazza del Campo," before 1448. Again the women in the audience are separated from the men by a cloth partition. Figure Three Francesco di Giorgio, "San Bernardino Preaching," c.1460. Figure Four Neroccio di Bartolomeo Landi, "San Bernardino Preaching in the Piazza del Campo," c.1470. The author points out that several of the men and women are looking at each other rather than San Bernardino. Figure Five "Savonarola Preaching in the Duomo, Florence," woodcut illustration in Girolamo Savonarola, "Compendio di Revelatione, " Florence, 1495,. Figure Six Giotto di Bondone (?), "The Miracle of the Crib at Greccio, " c. 1290-1300. The author points out that the women crowd around the door of the rood screen while men are inside the screen close to the altar. Figure Seven Fra Carnevale (?), "Presentation of the Virgin," c.1470.
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  • Related Resources:
  • Author's Affiliation: Dartmouth College
  • Conference Info: - , -
  • Year of Publication: 1997.
  • Language: English
  • ISSN/ISBN: 0521562767