The Devout Belief of the Imagination ─ The Paris 'Meditationes Vitae Christi' and Female Franciscan Spirituality in Trecento Italy

The Franciscan Order was intended to be made up of men who traveled, preached and taught. When women joined the Franciscans as Poor Clares, it was made clear that these options would not be open to them. They could not wander about emulating Christ. One way that they might approach this ideal was presented to them in the Meditationes Vitae Christi, Flora (art history, Tulane University) concentrates on one manuscript of the meditations, Bibliotheque Nationale MS, ital. 115. This lavishly illustrated Italian book was, Flora believes, created for a Clarrisan convent near Pisa in the second quarter of the fourteenth century. She analyzes both text and pictures, emphasizing the ways in which the women were encouraged to identify with the Virgin Mary and emulate the life of Christ internally, through meditation. The ways in which the manuscript uses visual symbols to reinforce interiority for the women are particularly revealing, as the many illustrations show. Distributed in North America by the David Brown Book Co. Annotation c2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Holly Flora is Assistant Professor of Art History at Tulane University, and is the author of Cimabue and Early Italian Devotional Painting (The Frick Collection, 2006) as well as studies on illustrated manuscripts and devotional art in late medieval Italy.