Interdisciplinary lecture handout

Wiesner-Hanks, Mery E.
"Women’s Networks in the Early Modern World"

Download here a list of bibliography provided by the speaker.

Abstracts

Arnaz, Ana
‘La trasmisión oral como marco esencial para la existencia de lo femenino. Repertorios de tradición popular y culta como recursos para la interpretación y para la pedagogía musical’

En esta charla voy a presentar el trabajo realizado durante estos ultimos años con Cantaderas: la metodologia de trabajo del grupo basándose en el caracter oral de los repertorios que interpreta, el porqué y cómo selecciona los repertorios que lleva a conciertos, la relación de parte de estos con el mundo femenino y su historia. Hablaré de lo que supone la oralidad y el acercamiento o la lectura de documentos musicales escritos (tanto medievales como de tradición popular) con ejemplos concretos. Mostraré varios videos de cantaderas, extractos de conciertos que resumen y dan cuerpo a nuestro trabajo.

Baade, Colleen R.
"Monjas, música y mecenazgo: redes en Toledo hacia finales del s. XVII - inicios del s. XVIII"

Este trabajo investiga diversas redes —redes familiares, redes profesionales, redes geográficas— conectadas con el entorno conventual de la ciudad de Toledo hacia finales del siglo XVII e inicios del siglo XVIII. El año 1700 se toma como eje de estas investigaciones por ser el año de dos ocasiones claves: 1) la muerte de la Francisca Calderón de la Barca, monja profesa y benefactora del Monasterio de Santa Clara la Real de Toledo; y 2) la toma de hábito en el mismo convento de la monja organista María de Miranda, gracias al mecenazgo de la Madre Francisca. Las historias en torno a ambas mujeres ejemplifican la importancia de la actividad musical en los cenobios femeninos toledanos y revelan algunas de las redes que conectaban a la mujeres moradoras en ellos con el mundo fuera del claustro.

This paper explores various networks —familial networks, professional networks, geographical networks— connected to the environment of nuns’ convents in Toledo around the end of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth centuries. Two key events, both occurring in the year 1700, serve as the point of departure for this investigation: 1) the death of Francisca Calderón de la Barca, nun and benefactor of Toledo’s Royal Monastery of Saint Clare; and 2) the entrance into the same convent of nun organist María de Miranda, thanks to the patronage of Mother Francisca. Both women’s stories exemplify the importance of musical activity in Toledo’s female monasteries and reveal some of the networks that connected the women who lived in them with the world outside the cloister.

Cáceres Piñuel, María
"Women and Networks of musical Patronage within the Framework of International Exhibitions at the Turn of 20th Century: Disruptions and “longue durée” Processes"

In recent years, the field of cultural studies has seen a renewed interest in international exhibitions as milestones of material culture in the wake of modernity (Storm 2010; Geppert 2013; Filipová 2015). There is a burgeoning literature about international exhibitions, but the approach is local in most cases, while comparative and transnational studies are still scarce (Boone 2020). This presentation aims to retrace the crucial role of a cluster of cosmopolitan elite women in the organisation of three exhibitions―Vienna 1892, Madrid 1892, Chicago 1893―and bring to light their pioneering transnational collaboration in terms of arts management. It analyses the overlap of arts management trends during the three events that serve as case studies. Systems of patronage as “impresario” coexisted with state, imperial, and council subsidies. The state commissions coexisted with the free initiative of entrepreneurs of the art and entertainment industries. The final goal of this presentation is to analyse the mediating role of elite women as coordinators of the organisational tasks of official diplomats and aristocratic and bourgeois patrons and reassess how these collaborative activities changed gender constructions at that time.

Conde, Antónia Fialho
"Reconstrução da prática musical nas comunidades religiosas femininas de Évora(séculos XVI-XIX): influências e determinações, rupturas e continuidades"

Em Évora desde cedo se instalaram comunidades religiosas femininas, reconhecidas enquanto tal, de distintas Ordens religiosas, ou até de ramos diversos de uma mesma Ordem, como foi o caso das clarissas. O período medieval foi marcado, em finais do século XIII, pela fundação de um mosteiro cisterciense, que obedecia diretamente a Alcobaça. A esta comunidade, única feminina fora dos muros do burgo, se juntariam três comunidades de religiosas clarissas (sendo uma da Primeira Regrae outra de Urbanistas) duas comunidades dominicanas, uma de agostinhas e uma de carmelitas descalças, a última a ser fundada na cidade, já no século XVII.

Cruz, Anne J.
"Redes de papel: la escritura femenina dentro y fuera del convento. La correspondencia de Luisa de Carvajal y Mendoza"

La noción que los conventos conformaban espacios que servían únicamente para enclaustrar y encasillar a las mujeres no toma en consideración su protagonismo, tanto intramuros como extramuros. En efecto, fueron muchos los proyectos públicos y privados en que se destacaron las féminas de la temprana edad moderna, como comprueban los recientes estudios de sus actividades sociales y políticas. En particular, el estudio de los epistolarios de religiosas, como la correspondencia de mujeres seglares, sirve para iluminar más a fondo su participación pública y privada en la historia de la España moderna. La abundante correspondencia de Luisa de Carvajal y Mendoza (1566-1614), una aristócrata quien viaja a la Inglaterra protestante como misionera católica, ofrece un caso idóneo para investigar las varias redes que establece con sus correligionarias en España. Mi presentación pretende analizar las conexiones con claros intentos políticos a la vez que religiosos que generan sus cartas.

Eichner, Barbara
"Families, Teachers, Confessors: Networks of Nuns and Sisters in Early-Modern Germany"

While religious reforms forced strict enclosure on the nunneries and convents in early-modern Germany, they were by no means cut off from the musical world. The late sixteenth and early seventeenth century saw the introduction and cultivation of polyphonic musical practices to the cloister, which would not have been possible without the extended networks in which these women and their institutions were embedded. Drawing on case studies showcasing Augustinian canonesses, Benedictine and Cistercian nuns and Dominican sisters, this paper will explore two types of networks that enabled the dissemination of musical repertoire, skills and enthusiasm between institutions and across geographical distances: On the one hand, the religious networks that involved confessors, abbots and other male colleagues in holy orders, and on the other hand the extended family networks between siblings, cousins, nieces and nephews that held together the monastic milieu in early-modern Germany.

Fernandes, Cristina

"Mariana Vitória de Bourbon (1718-1781) as Collector of Music: Diplomatic and Family Networks in the Acquisition and Circulation of Librettos and Scores"

Mariana Vitória de Bourbon (Madrid, 1718 – Lisbon, 1781), Infanta of Spain and later Princess of Brasil and Queen of Portugal, was a passionate music lover as evinced by many of the letters she sent from Lisbon to her mother, Isabel de Farnesio. Her taste for playing the harpsichordist and singing and her thoughts on music performances and the musicians themselves emerge from this correspondence. Less known is her role as a collector of scores and librettos, although some recent studies point out important clues in this regard (Montes, 2015; Maione 2018). Contrary to what happens with Maria Bárbara of Braganza and her remarkable music library, an inventory or list of works acquired or ordered by Mariana Vitória is not known, but part of the scores remain at the Biblioteca da Ajuda, in Lisbon. Diplomatic and family correspondence (including the letters exchanged with her brother Carlos, king of Naples and later Carlos III of Spain) shows that she often asked for the latest musical novelties. In addition, other sources from Portuguese and Spanish archives contribute to demonstrate that Mariana Vitória established connections with different European cultural and musical contexts and had an significant role in the construction of the musical heritage of the Portuguese court — a contribution that has been overshadowed by the prominence of her husband, king José, as the patron of the magnificent Ópera do Tejo, destroyed by the 1755 earthquake. A preliminary mapping of Mariana Vitória’s musical network will be presented together with the identification of some musical pieces. The musical influence she exerted on her four daughters will also be addressed, since at least two of them (the future queen Maria I and Maria Francisca Benedita) would contribute to the expansion of the court's musical library and to the circulation of repertoires through family and diplomatic networks.

Goethals, Jessica

Margherita Costa’s Musical-Textual Relationships in Baroque Italy

The seventeenth-century soprano Margherita Costa made a name for herself in the chambers, on the stages, and across the publishing houses of Italy and France. A professional performer with a purposefully cultivated reputation for audaciousness and literary rule-breaking, Costa solidified her career by forging relationships with academicians, prominent librettists and composers, and elite patrons (including the Medici, Barberini, and Cardinal Mazarin)—most notably via poetic homages in her fourteen publications. This paper traces these relationships through a consideration of both her volumes and underlying archival documents. After surveying Costa’s strategies for network building, it looks specifically at a case study of her historical and textual connections to the famed composer Luigi Rossi.

Knighton, Tess
"The agency of women in music-making in sixteenth-century Barcelona: wills and post-mortem inventories"

Women’s involvement as agents in the promotion of the musical activity of an urban centre in the sixteenth century can be approached in a number of ways, most of which almost inevitably depend on documentation available for noble houses or ecclesiastical institutions such as convents. This paper attempts to glean more information on women’s musical agency across a wider range of social groupings through the study of their wills. Almost all women, even if all they had was what remained of their dowry plus the dress they wore every day and the odd pot and pan, redacted a will through a public notary, and, by law, an inventory of their possessions was made after their death. Any monies resulting from the public auction of the property and chattels not specifically bequeathed to their heirs and individuals named in their wills was invested in pious and charitable acts that, according to the eschatological beliefs of the time, would help their souls to pass more quickly through purgatory and reach heaven, in what Jacques Chiffoleau described as the economy of life after death. Through the desire to pay for the celebration of funerary and anniversary Masses in order to release their souls – and also to demonstrate their earthly piety – the women of Barcelona contributed to the musical economy of the city and, in particular, to the musical resources of its churches.

López Carral, Alicia
"La figura de Isabel I en el desarrollo de la impresión musical litúrgica en Granada en el periodo post-incunable"

Isabel I de Castilla, al contrario de lo que había sucedido en tiempos de su padre Juan II y su hermano Enrique IV, no sólo tenía como objetivo obtener varias victorias en el campo de batalla, sino que pretendía algo más ambicioso: acabar con el poder islámico en la Península y, por ende, conquistar Granada. En 1492, tras la victoria de los Reyes Católicos ante la constante presión de las fuerzas combinadas de Castilla y Aragón a las tropas de Boabdil, Granada se embarca en un proceso de incorporación a la vida política, económica, administrativa, religiosa y cultural del resto de España, en el que la música juega un papel determinante. El objetivo principal de esta comunicación es presentar la influencia de Isabel en el desarrollo de la imprenta musical en España, y concretamente en Granada, mediante su mecenazgo, y la utilización de la impresión musical como estrategia para implantar el ideario político y religioso.

Molina, Mauricio
"Ingenti clamore: la transmisión del dolor comunitario a través del canto femenino"

Durante la edad media la mujer fue una gran transmisora de repertorios cancionísticos. La literatura medieval nos describe como las mujeres carolingias propagaban canciones heroicas, como las esclavas cantoras del mundo árabe se cotizaban de acuerdo con la cantidad de repertorio que podían interpretar, y como los clérigos medievales, en búsqueda de fama, componían canciones en lenguas vernáculas para que fueran interpretadas por juglaresas cristianas, judías y musulmanas. Pero además de su labor como difusora de canciones, la mujer medieval parece haber poseído un importante atributo interpretativo otorgado por la sociedad: ella era la única que podía realmente expresar dolor emocional tanto personal y comunitario a través de la canción. Esto nos lo sugiere la existencia de lamentos en voz de mujer dentro de los dramas litúrgicos más antiguos que han sobrevivido. La gran particularidad de estas piezas es el uso de la lengua vernácula o materna (para el entendimiento del pueblo y como símbolo de expresión popular). Este papel como catalizadora y transmisora de dolor comunitario es además claramente representado en la literatura y el arte de la época.

Ramos López, Pilar

"Vives versus Castiglione: Female Musical Practice in Sixteenth-Century Educational Treatises"

The more we know about the history of women in the Early Modern Europe, the more relevant seems the registered musical practice of noble women, nunneries and women from the cities and villages. Nevertheless, most treatises on the education of women did not promote women making music Juan Luis Vives’s treatise, De institutione Feminae christianae (1524), contrasts some clichés of our golden image of the Renaissance depicted by Jacob Burkchardt (1860), who quoted extensively Il Cortegiano of Baldassare Castiglione (1528). Vives and Castiglione can be regarded as opposite stances concerning the musical activities of women. In this paper, I discuss the different impact of both models in France, Italy and Spain.

Stras, Laurie
“Music, Community, and Friendship at the Clarissan convent of San Matteo in Arcetri (1540-1630)”

The Clarissan convent of San Matteo in Arcetri is well known – at least to a certain demographic – as the home of Suor Maria Celeste Galilei, daughter of Galileo Galilei, and granddaughter of the musician Vincenzo Galilei. Made famous by the non-fictional account drawn from the nun’s letters by Dava Sobel, the convent has been portrayed as a rather dour and impoverished house, with little to recommend it to the Galilei family. And yet, evidence of San Matteo’s rich musical life in the mid-sixteenth century has recently emerged, in one of the best-preserved manuscripts that can securely be associated with an Italian convent.

Brussels MS 27766, the Biffoli-Sostegni manuscript - so called because of the names of the nuns embossed on its binding – preserves polyphony for the entire liturgical year. Its provenance is confirmed by the only surviving archival ledger pertaining to San Matteo from the sixteenth century in the Florentine Archivio di Stato. Names, faces, and traces of relationships are found entwined in the music’s elaborate cadellae, and the feasts to which the polyphony pertains are given depth and detail in the ledger, which records the convent’sexpenses.

This research is still in development, thanks to the pandemic, but there are already aspects that are bearing fruit. Triangulating information from the manuscript, the ledger, and from Suor Maria Celeste’s letters, we can start to piece together a better picture of why this convent might have felt an appropriate choice for the Galilei family. We may also understand better how family connections that weave in and out of the convent space are used to forge relationships over generations.

Traversier, Mélanie

"'Writing me a Line or two': Recommendations, Networks and Agency of the Davies Sisters, Musicians in the Enlightenment Europe"

The investigation focuses on the careers of two English musical sisters, Mary Ann (c.1744-c.1824) and Cecilia Davies (c.1756-1836), one an instrumentalist, the other a singer, who are now forgotten but who achieved remarkable fame in the late 18th century. Mary Ann, first known as a child prodigy on the flute and harpsichord, became the first and most famous performer of the fascinating glass harmonica designed by Benjamin Franklin in London in 1761. In the 1770s Cecilia became the first English opera singer to be applauded on Italian stages. The examination of the networks they directly or indirectly mobilised, particularly during their two continental 'tours', is at the crossroads of the history of artistic mobility and celebrity, of gender studies and of the history of organological innovation. It is based on a remarkable collection of referees-letters and a few autograph letters, which are exceptionally well known for professional women performers of this period. This documentary corpus makes it possible to propose a typology of their networks activated according to the temporalities and stakes of their respective careers, to identify their modalities of action in an increasingly competitive and uncertain musical environment, and thus to draw up the contours and limits of their agency as it was deployed, redeployed and reconfigured for the benefit of one, the other or their duo.

Ventura Nieto, Laura S.
"Female Education and Social Advancement in Annibal Guasco’s Ragionamento (1586)"

Annibal Guasco’s Ragionamento a D. Lavinia sua figlioula (Turin, 1586) is an open letter from the Italian humanist Annibal Guasco to his daughter Lavinia that acted as both a manual on court behaviour, and a eulogy for Lavinia’s education. More interestingly, this text very carefully constructed the images of both father and daughter as a way of promoting not only Lavinia as a prospective lady-in-waiting of the Savoy court in Turin, but also the whole of her family. Also, the Ragionamento is a particularly interesting document for musicological research because it contains a very detailed description of the musical education Lavinia received, which went beyond the kind of musical education usually available to women at the end of the sixteenth century.

This paper aims to offer an analysis of the text as an example of how women of the aristocracy might have been musically educated in Italy at the turn of the seventeenth century. By exploring ideas such as education as performance, self-fashioning and gender construction, I aim to look into early modern education as a means for informing the fashioning of aristocratic and courtly women’s identities. Finally, this paper will read the Ragionamento as an exercise of containment of a late sixteenth-century woman within patriarchal boundaries by offering her an outstanding education.

Zaragoza, Verònica; and Gras, M. Mercè
‘“Mi voz será el instrumento y las cuerdas mis sentidos”: teatro de la sociabilidad y música festiva en el Carmelo Descalzo femenino"

Nuestra ponencia ofrece los primeros resultados de un estudio de caso que indaga en la dimensión celebrativa de la música y poesía representadas en las velaciones y profesiones de monjas, aplicado al contexto del Carmelo Descalzo femenino catalán del siglo XVIII. Nuestro objetivo principal es tratar de restituir el contexto de enunciación, ejecución y circulación de villancicos paralitúrgicos y los diferentes agentes concitados (poetas, compositores y músicos profesionales) en una de estas ceremonias, incidiendo en el carácter social de estas solemnidades conventuales. Con tal fin, nuestro estudio parte del uso combinado de fuentes dietarísticas y la revisión de algunos impresos generados en las ceremonias de vestición y profesión de una novicia de familia acomodada catalana, contrastado con el Ciclo poético a los Velos y profesiones recogido en el Cancionero pético manuscrito de las carmelitas desclazas del convento de la Inmaculada Concepción de Barcelona.