A decent and humble abode'. The Borghese apartment in the Convent of SS Domenico e Sisto and the Materiality of Religious Life in Baroque Rome
The project aims at the publishing of a monograph based on a completed research project. The study examines female monastic life and cultural consumption in Rome during the first decades of the 18th century and is based on unpublished material in various Roman archives with emphasis on the Apostolic Archive in the Vatican. The book analyzes and reconstructs the creation of a specific apartment that the papal family Borghese had built in the female convent SS Domenico e Sisto in occasion of two daughters in the family becoming nuns. The unpublished archive material is the starting point for examining the legal, economic, artistic and social-historical conditions that surrounded the origin of this hitherto by scholars ignored typology in Roman Baroque architecture: the aristocratic convent apartment. Furthermore, the possibility of women's independent cultural consumption in the monastic context is analyzed. The research field of the study's general themes is concentrated in Italy, Great Britain and the USA, but the book focuses on the least researched geographical area so far in terms of early modern monastic scholarship in Italy: Rome. Theoretically, the study is linked to concepts used in Social History and Material Studies with references to Gender Studies and Visual Culture. The method relates to the field of Microhistory, which means a detailed close reading of smaller communities such as the monastic ones. The book is written in English.
Final report
The purpose of the sabbatical term was to complete a book script based on a long-term research project on noble nuns in late Baroque Rome, their cultural consumption and the visual culture that surrounded their way of life. During the semester in question, the undersigned was a visiting researcher at Università La Sapienza and researched mainly in the Archivio Apostolico Vaticano, the Vatican's internal archives. This institution manages several family archives linked to the Roman nobility. During the sabbatical term, new, unpublished and rich material was discovered regarding a convent apartment built for the Borghese family in the first decade of the 18th century. This discovery prompted a realignment of the intended publication to focus entirely on the newly discovered documentation. The book, written in English, received its new outline and relevant new research regarding the historical context of the apartment and the Borghese family was carried out. The new book script was accepted at an early stage by the publisher Brepols Publishing. The book consists of six chapters with an appendix of transcribed archival material. It is illustrated with reconstructed plans, graphic reconstructions and newly taken photographs. The pandemic made it difficult to complete the script in 2020-21, but in the spring of 2024 it finally goes to the publisher. At the same time, an article was planned with the research material that would originally have been included in the first book version. In this way, the sabbatical has resulted in two separate publications: a book chapter and a monograph.