Research Guides: Nelli, Plautilla: Critical Articles

Articles

Art and Devotion in Savonarola's Footsteps.
The article reviews the exhibition "Plautilla Nelli: Art and Devotion in Savonarola's Footsteps" at the Gallerie degli Uffizi in Florence, Italy March 8 to June 4, 2017.
Nuns and Their Art: The Case of San Zaccaria in Renaissance Venice
This article discusses the ways in which fifteenth-century nuns financed, shaped, and used works of art and architecture at the Benedictine convent of San Zaccaria in Venice. Evidence from chronicles, account books, liturgical manuscripts, reports of visits to the convent, and inscriptions on the works of art themselves shows that the nuns viewed art within their convent extremely proprietarily. While they accepted subsidies from the civic government, indulgences from popes, privileges from Byzantine emperors, and donations from private patrons, the nuns paid close attention to the administration of commissions within the convent church. They committed substantial funds to artistic projects, making them their own.
The Cloister and the Square
This article examines how the aggressive display of masculine power in Renaissance Florence's public art, particularly in the Piazza della Signoria, reflected anxiety about female influence, especially from convents. Garrard contrasts the hypermasculine statuary of the public square with the feminine artistic vision of nun-artist Plautilla Nelli, arguing that the exaggerated masculinity in public sculptures revealed insecurity about growing female agency rather than confidence in male authority.

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