Women, Art, and Architecture in Northern Italy, 1520–1580

Negotiating Power

Katherine A. McIver

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9780754654117
• eBook ISBN: 9781351871693
• Topic: Kunst
• Subtopic: Architekturgeschichte

Expanding interdisciplinary investigations into gender and material culture, Katherine A. McIver here adds a new dimension to Renaissance patronage studies by considering domestic art - the decoration of the domestic interior - as opposed to patronage of the fine arts (painting, sculpture and architecture). Taking a multidimensional approach, McIver looks at women as collectors of precious material goods, as organizers of the early modern home, and as decorators of its interior. By analyzing the inventories of women's possessions, McIver considers the wide range of domestic objects that women owned, such as painted and inlaid chests, painted wall panels, tapestries, fine fabrics for wall and bed hangings, and elaborate jewelry (pendant earrings, brooches, garlands for the hair, necklaces and rings) as well as personal devotional objects. Considering all forms of patronage opportunities open to women, she evaluates their role in commissioning and utilizing works of art and architecture as a means of negotiating power in the court setting, in the process offering fresh insights into their lives, limitations, and the possibilities open to them as patrons. Using her subjects' financial records to track their sources of income and the circumstances under which it was spent, McIver thereby also provides insights into issues of Renaissance women's economic rights and responsibilities. The primary focus on the lives and patronage patterns of three relatively unknown women, Laura Pallavicina-Sanvitale, Giacoma Pallavicina and Camilla Pallavicina, provides a new model for understanding what women bought, displayed, collected and commissioned. By moving beyond the traditional artistic centers of Florence, Venice and Rome, analyzing instead women's artistic patronage in the feudal courts around Parma and Piacenza during the sixteenth century, McIver nuances our understanding of women's position and power both in and out of the home. Carefully integrating extensive archival

Chapter One

The Women: The Cast of Characters

Three women – Laura Pallavicina-Sanvitale (ca. 1495–1576), her cousin, Giacoma Pallavicina (ca. 1509–1575), both from Zibello, and Camilla Pallavicina (ca. 1515–1561) of Busseto – form the basis of this study on woman patrons of the arts from the feudal courts around Parma and Piacenza.¹ Laura, Giacoma, and Camilla will serve as models for the different ways in which women used their public and private voices as a means of negotiating power through their patronage of art and architecture. Their public voice (architecture) spoke of family dynasty, power, and social status, whereas their private voice (the domestic interior) spoke more personally of their own wealth, status, and piety, exercising their choices in the context of a wide range of dynastic and social issues.² Interconnected through marriage alliances and kinship ties, these three women, and those connected to them, had considerable power and control over their family feudal holdings, their dowry funds, and their own personal wealth. It is how each woman managed this power and wealth that separated one from the other.

Although marginalized today, Laura, Giacoma, and Camilla were well known and respected in their own day. Highly educated and intelligent women, they could read and write, and were familiar with the popular literary and poetic writings dating from antiquity to their own day. They corresponded with other women throughout Italy and with political, religious, and literary figures as well as receiving literary tributes from such individuals as Ludovico Domenichi, Bernardo Tasso, Pietro Aretino, and Annibale Caro.³

Laura Pallavicina-Sanvitale, as the head of her family, was clearly a leader in her own right operating just as a man, a patriarch⁴ would. In fact, she could be considered the matriarch over all of the women in this study since the others all connect back to her in one way or another as shall become evident. Her cousin, Giacoma Pallavicina, on the other hand, chose a more pious path creating her own model. Likely a lay sister, Giacoma chose to support financially and morally her female kin, orphans, and the poor.

Both women were brought up at Zibello and had to deal with male relatives over feudal disputes. Yet the two women were total opposites in every aspect of their lives. Laura Pallavicina-Sanvitale, taking over her brother Gianfrancesco’s role as head of the family, approached life with every intention of maintaining all the family’s feudal holdings for her future sons and their sons. Whether it concerned Zibello and Roccabianca or the marriage negotiations for her son Alfonso, she never hesitated to write to Pope Paul III manipulating power and influence through her friendship with him.⁵ While Laura Pallavicina-Sanvitale came to the aid of her female relatives only because they were involved with feudal disputes (Barbara Pallavicina-Rangona) or controversial issues, such as convent reform (Susanna Sanvitale), her primary motivation in life was the continuation of the “ramo Sanvitale” and the Pallavicini of Zibello and Roccabianca, thus she was concerned with both her marital and natal families. Laura even used her patronage of the arts to this end.

One of at least eight children most of whom were illegitimate, Giacoma Pallavicina⁶ turned away from the feudal disputes of Zibello and Roccabianca that involved her father, Bernardino and dedicated her life to the care of young, unmarried women, especially those who descended from her father, of orphans, and of the poor. She paid off the debts of others, opened her home to children, and generally used her patronage of the arts to benefit others. Initially a follower of Ignatius of Loyola, Giacoma founded the Compagnia delle Donne Spirituale, and she provided young women with dowries and a place to live. Her Compagnia was later affiliated with the church of Sta. Maria della Steccata in Parma.

Both women’s wealth was derived primarily from their land holdings, and Laura Pallavicina-Sanvitale’s were far more extensive than Giacoma Pallavicina’s. Laura kept most of the income for herself and her family, buying several houses and renovating them in a manner that clearly spoke of her social position. Giacoma, on the other hand, used her income to support the Compagnia and to assist the poor. She renovated houses that were located on her land rather than family palazzi. The contrast between these two women and their methods of negotiating power are a consistent thread running throughout the chapters that follow.

The third and youngest of the three, Camilla Pallavicina, was widowed, remarried, and was widowed again. Camilla’s situation is unique in comparison to the other two women. It was not her choice to marry or to remarry, rather it was due to the feudal holdings she inherited from her father that caused her male relatives to arrange both marriages in order to keep Cortemaggiore and Busseto within the control of this branch of the Pallavicini family. It was more advantageous for a woman to remain a widow, especially in the northern courts of Italy where they enjoyed greater freedom of action and could control substantial properties in their own names or that of their minor children.⁷ And this was, of course, the reason that Camilla Pallavicina’s male relatives arranged these marriages, so she would not gain control of the lands she inherited from her father. Yet Camilla managed to maintain a certain independence, perhaps because she was such a valuable prize. Her concerns were not so much for the family patrimony as for the welfare of her two daughters. The inventories of her material goods show Camilla to have been refined and knowledgeable of current artistic trends.

Issues of inheritance and women’s wealth are primary concerns here as we consider women’s roles as patrons of art and architecture and as decorators of the domestic interior – after all they had to have the money to pay for what they commissioned and purchased. In her study on gender, ownership, and domestic space, Alison Smith⁸ points out that wealthy elite women in Italy were becoming wealthier in their own right in the sixteenth century not only because the value of their dowries was escalating, but because they were also being increasingly named in the wills of their uncles, aunts, brothers, and cousins from their natal family, rather than naming collateral cognatic male relatives heirs. Furthermore, this practice supported the broader tendency to consolidate strong aristocratic lineages. In the absence of a direct male heir, married women were more likely to keep their property within their natal family, given their strong ties of affection and loyalty to the natal kin.⁹ This is certainly the case with Laura Pallavicina-Sanvitale, Giacoma Pallavicina, and Camilla Pallavicina, and likely for many of the other women in this study as well.

This apparent shift in patrimonial practices allowed women greater discretionary power over ever larger amounts of family property; and this link between women’s access to wealth and the changing affective ties among family members was played out, in part, in the material world of their households. Furthermore, the wills of a number of these women support the view that wealthy married women frequently owned significant amounts of property outriht even before they became widows, and that they retained it once widowed.¹⁰ Even women with small amounts of property, who saw fit to write wills, owned household goods and other property. All these women tended to distribute them to other female relatives in their wills. As we shall see, wealthy aristocratic women used their access to wealth and ownership of goods and property not only to influence their kin and communities, but also to celebrate themes that were of concern to them, such as motherhood, close female bonds, and the like. They often featured their own patriline (that of their father) in place of, or in addition to, their husbands and sons. Women’s wills, then, provide us with evidence that wealthy women (like those in this study) controlled a significant amount of property in the form of material goods, real estate, loans, and other investments. Moreover, in the disposition of her property, a widow enjoyed considerable independence of action within the patrilineal constraints of her family, often naming only other women as beneficiaries, as in the case of Giacoma Pallavicina and Camilla Pallavicina.

Focusing on this group of women will illustrate the different methods women used to negotiate power whether it be through economic negotiations such as managing property or purchasing material goods or marriage negotiations for their kin or the manipulation of their social roles and social spaces through the commissioning of art and architecture. They negotiated with artists, craftsmen and builders to make their public and private voices heard. As a foundation for the chapters that follow, a series of biographies will show how each of these women’s lives varied and how this impacted what they did or did not do. The biographies include a discussion of the personal circumstance of each woman, her marital condition, her geographical positioning, and the type of patronage practiced by each. The chapter concludes with a brief summary of the similarities and differences among these women and the types of patronage they practiced.

Laura Pallavicina-Sanvitale and her Legacy

Perhaps the most formidable and most powerful of all the women¹¹ in this study was L...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures and Plates
• Acknowledgements
• List of Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1 The Women: The Cast of Characters
• 2 The Renaissance Palazzo as a Public Voice for Women
• 3 The Renaissance Plazzo Interior as a Private Voice for Women
• 4 Domestic Consumption: Listening to Women’s Private Voice
• 5 Women, the Church, and Religious Foundations
• Glossary
• Appendix I: Inventories
• Appendix II: Genealogy Charts
• Bibliography
• Index