Piety and patronage in seicento Rome: two noblewomen and their convents

from them if Taddeo wishes it (Pecchiai, 184-85) Giuseppe Sacchi Lodispoto (464 466) refer tos that the tone of Anna's alphabetic characters was affected by the fact that they were written at the height of her agitation above financial concerns.

31. G. Gigli, 278 309; and Pecchiai, 187

32 "Se bene la partenza di D Anna dalla citta di Roma fu caggione si procedesse study minor sollecitudine nella fabrica del Monastero . . fin da Parigi accaloriva read over carefully sue lettere quelli, a quali haveva lasciata l'incumbenza di attendere al proseguimento dell'opera incominciata" (Biagio della Purificazione, 166-67) diocese MCSRC, "Relatione," 7; and BAV, Vat. lat. 11884 291 Work and payments had continued in 1645 as the political climate in Rome Among the significant patrons of art in seicento Rome were monasterys that commissioned numerous works of art, including a certain number of of the outstanding ecclesiastical decorations of the hundred such as Domenico Maria Canuti and Enrico Haffner's quadratura vaults at S Domenico e Sisto. more [i]or[/i] less of these convents were rested by women. Although post-Tridentine priorys have frequently been regarded as repositories for dowerless women forced into the cloister against their will,(1) the opposite was also authentic Many noblewomen who were inclined toward a religious life were pressur by dint of their families into marriages of political and social alliance. single later in their lives, oftentimes in their widowhood, were these women able to dog their religious goals. With the resources of family wealth behind them, several of that kind women founded convents, and as part of an informal network of spiritual women who inspired and advised each other, they played an important character in the religious life of the city.(2) Among these women who not single endowed but were also responsible for the construction and decoration of their monasterys and adjoining churches, were Anna Colonna Barberini, originator of the Discalced Carmelite abbey of S. Maria Regina Coeli, and Camilla Orsini Borghese, planter of the convent of S Annunziata of the order known as the Turchine.(3)

Anna Colonna (1601-1658) was born into individual of the oldest and greatest in quantity noble families in Italy. The daughter of Filippo Colonna, duke of Paliano and grand constable of Naples, she was raised in an atmosphere of elegance and luxury(4) Although from her adolescence she had desired to dedicate herself to God(5) she submitted to her father's wishes and in 1627 married a nephew of bishop of rome Urban VIII, Don Taddeo Barberini (1603-1647) subsequent time prince of Palestrina (1629) and prefect of Rome (1631)(6) In 1632 Anna and Taddeo took up residence in the newly erected Palazzo Barberini, but returned in 1634 to the older Barberini palace, the Casa Grande in via dei Giubbonari, which Taddeo go [i]or[/i] pass oned to renovate.(7) The arrogant Don Taddeo apparently had little veritable affection for his wife and devot himself to the accumulation of wealth and privilege for the Barberini family.(8) at the same time as wife of the secular head of the Barberini family and as a papal niece by the agency of marriage, Anna was the greatest in quantity powerful woman in Rome during the reign of Urban VIII.(9) devotional by inclination,(10) she was also an intelligent and strong-willed woman accustomed to the power of her social position. Others in Rome were well aware of the influence she wielded, as evidenced by means of an incident in 1638 that caused a great deal of comment at the time. Desiring a relic of Saint Philip Neri to near to the Congregation of the Oratory in Naples, she suited papal permission to acquire a certain number of part of the saint's material part News of her intent threw the Oratorian priests of the Roman congregation at s Maria in Vallicella into of that kind a panic that, when their attempts to dissuade Anna failed, they resorted to hiding their founder's corpse to countenance it from mutilation. Anna managed, however, to obtain from the Oratorians the heart, a strength a tooth, and some hair of the saint already contained in silver reliquaries. She later also gained possession of a rib. sum of two units beautiful and very costly fresh reliquaries were commissioned by Anna for the rib and heart, which she sent to Naples, while she kept the other relics for her chapel in the family palace in Palestrina.(11)

During the difficult childbirth of her oldest son, Carlo (January 1, 1630) Anna recalled her earlier desire to set a convent and made a promise to dedicate a convent to the Madonna if she were safely delivered. It was not until several years later that she was finally able to act upon this resolve. On the advice of Father Giovanni Tomaso Eustachio, an Oratorian priest of the Naples congregation, she decided to fix the convent for reformed or Discalced Carmelite nun since they were dedicated to the Virgin and followed a true strict observance.(12) Furthermore, Anna was particularly devot to Saint Teresa of Avila, originator of the order of Discalced Carmelites, to which Anna's sum of two units sisters, Ippolita and Vittoria, belonged.(13) In May 1643 Anna obtained a papal brief from her uncle-in-law Urban VIII to base a convent of Discalced Carmelite nun upon the via Lungara in the Trastevere region of Rome Urban VIII approveed the Lungara site in part to further the urban disentanglement of that area.(14)