Echoes of women's voices
Subtitle: music, art, and female patronage in early modern Florence
By: Kelley Harness.
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 2006
Place of publication: Chicago
Language: eng
Number of pages: 378
Subjects: Medici, House of -- Art patronage.; Women art patrons -- Italy -- Florence -- History -- 17th century.; Arts, Italian -- Italy -- Florence -- History -- 17th century.; Music -- Italy -- Florence -- 17th century -- History and criticism.; Florence (Italy) -- Kings and rulers -- Art patronage.
Description: "Aristocratic women exerted unprecedented political and social influence in Florence throughout the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. During this period, convents flourished and female members of the powerful Medici family governed the city for the first and only time in its history. These women also helped shape the city's artistic life, commissioning works of music, art, and theater that were inscribed with their own concerns and aspirations. Echoes of Women's Voices examines the patronage of individuals and institutions that have remained, until now, largely neglected by scholars."

"Joining archival research with telling analysis of significant examples of music, art, and drama, Kelley Harness challenges the prevailing view that Florence saw a political and artistic decline during this period. She argues that the female domination of these years brought forth artistic patronage that was both continuous and well-conceived. And the interdisciplinary breadth of evidence she uses to support her argument makes Echoes of Women's Voices a valuable contribution to women's studies, musicology, and the history of arts patronage."--Jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p.   ) and index.
Table of contents: title: Modes of artistic communication and perception in early modern Florence; title: A more than virile prudence : Archduchess Maria Magdalena; title: Amazons of God : virgin martyrs spectacles, 1621-25; title: Una forte, magnanima, e generosa vedova : Judith; title: She hoped to see in the triumphs of religion the triumphs of her house : epic-chivalric poems and the equestrian ballets; title: Now it suits me to beseech : end of the regency, end of a decade (1628-30); title: One of the most perfect unions of the spiritual and the temporal imaginable : the Monastero di Santa Croce; title: Queens of the Arno : Medici princesses and the Crocetta; title: Appendix A. Female worthies depicted in lunette frescoes in the audience room, Villa Poggio Imperiale; title: Appendix B. Summary of Book 3 of the Acts of Paul.