Renaissance Women Patrons: Wives and Widows in Italy, c. 1300-1550

This is a pioneering study of the commissioning powers of a large group of Italian laywomen. In a sequence of case-studies, Catherine E. King surveys the kinds of art and architecture which these laywomen could commission, and by probing how far female patrons could express any non-conformist views or play unexpected roles in their art, she builds up a picture of the legal, social, financial and spiritual factors which made it possible for women to act as patrons in this society. In considering the long time span from the fourteenth to the mid-sixteenth century, King contributes to the larger debate surrounding the Renaissance that Italian women could create and enjoy.