Architecture and the Politics of Gender in Early Modern Europe

Description

Written by leading scholars in the field, the essays in this book address the relationships between gender and the built environment, specifically architecture, in early modern Europe. In recent years scholars have begun to investigate the ways in which architecture plays a part in the construction of gendered identities. So far the debates have focused on the built environment of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to the neglect of the early modern period. This book focuses on early modern Europe, a period decisive for our understanding of gender and sexuality. Much excellent scholarship has enhanced our understanding of gender division in early modern Europe, but often this scholarship considers gender in isolation from other vital factors, especially social class. Central to the concerns of this book, therefore, is a consideration of the intersections of gender with social rank. Architecture and the Politics of Gender in Early Modern Europe makes a major contribution to the developing analysis of how architecture contributes to the shaping of social relations, especially in relation to gender, in early modern Europe. Contents Acknowledgements List of Illustrations Notes on the Editor and Contributors PART I: INTRODUCTION Theorizing the Relationships between Architecture and Gender inEarly Modern Europe 3Helen Hills PART II: PRODUCTION: ARCHITECTS AND PATRONS 1 A Noble Residence for a Female Regent: Margaret of Austria and the ‘Court of Savoy’ in Mechelen • Dagmar Eichberger 2 The Val-de-Grâce as a Portrait of Anne of Austria: Queen, Queen Regent, Queen Mother • Jennifer G. Germann 3 The Architecture of Institutionalism: Women’s Space in Renaissance Hospitals • Eunice D. Howe 4 Women and the Practice of Architecture in Eighteenth-century France • Tanis Hinchcliffe PART III: PRACTICE AND RESISTANCE 5 ‘Repaired by me to my exceeding great Cost and Charges’: Anne Clifford and the Uses of Architecture • Elizabeth V. Chew 6 ‘Women in wolves’ mouths’: Nun’s Reputations, Enclosure and Architecture at the Convent of the Le Murate in Florence • Saundra Weddle 7 Spatial Discipline and its Limits: Nuns and the Built Environment in Early Modern Spain • Elizabeth A. Lehfeldt 8 Spaces Shaped for Spiritual Perfection: Convent Architecture and Nuns in Early Modern Rome • Marilyn Dunn 9 Women in the Charterhouse: the Liminality of Cloistered Spaces at the Chartreuse de Champmol in Dijon • Sherry C. M. Lindquist Select Bibliography Index