The theatre of and for the nuns (Naples, 18th century)

Recent studies have focused on the musical environment and the theatre in female monasteries of many Italian cities between the 16th and 18th centuries. These art forms became famous as forms of entertainment in travel literature and in the chronicles of the time but were forbidden in the age of the Counter-Reformation. However, the theatrical performances, both in prose and in music, enjoyed enormous success and spread in male and female monasteries. As of the 17th century, if not even earlier, travellers from half of Europe arrived in Naples, attracted by the excellence of the musical and theatrical performances that they could enjoy in the monasteries of the city. This essay aims to reconstruct the times, the modalities, and the contents of the theatrical offerings in the female monasteries of Naples at the beginning of the 18th century, all of which are still unknown today. In particular, the case of the Franciscan monastery of St Chiara will be examined. Through the patronage of Queen Maria Amalia, musical and theatrical performances played an active leading role in the configuration of a specific theatrical type and taste and increased the education of the nuns and young women who were educated in the monastery, representing and legitimising new feelings and sensibilities. The religious women found a way to talk of their feelings and concerns together; they forged relationships even with the environments outside of the monastery and especially with the Queen’s court and with the courts of the aristocratic palaces of their families of origin.

Symbolic death. Painting presenting allegory of Silence and Crucified Nun from Beaterium of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in St. Blaise Parish in Cusco

The article presents a painting which has never been reproduced or publicly displayed before. The work comes from the Beaterium of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in St. Blaise Parish in Cusco. It is a two-sided representation. The ob- verse side contains a figure of a nun in a Carmelite habit, who puts his hand to his mouth and orders silence, which is communicated not only by the gestu- re, but also by the inscription accompanying the representation. On the rever- se side we can see an image of a crucified nun. The painting used to function as a door leading to the novitiate, which could be established based on the archi- val photo. The article describes iconography of the work, as well as the sources for most of the inscriptions that accompany the images. The painting is presen- ted in a broader historical and cultural context of Cusco Beaterium functioning.