Spirituality, Gender, and the Self in Renaissance Italy: Angela Merici and the Company of St. Ursula (1474-1540) (review)

Noted as a "santa viva" and a significant figure in early modern Catholicism, Angela Merici (1474-1540) is recognized for her foundation of the Company of St. Ursula, whose aim traditionally has been considered as dedicated to teaching and charity. In his book Spirituality, Gender, and the Self in Renaissance Italy: Angela Merici and the Company of St. Ursula (1474–1540), Querciolo Mazzonis disputes this interpretation of the Company's original goals and instead emphasizes the uniqueness of Merici's innovative conception in creating a new option for female religious life. Based on an analysis of primary documents, Mazzonis argues that the original purpose of Merici's Ursulines was to enable noncloistered virgins to pursue a life as "Brides of Christ" in the world within a structure that afforded them remarkable autonomy in shaping their own unmediated spiritual development. Mazzonis situates Merici and her Company within the context of late-medieval female spirituality, contemporary gender attitudes, Renaissance concepts of self, and spiritual trends in pre Tridentine Italy.

In chapter 1, Mazzonis explores the late-medieval roots of Merici's religiosity, relating it to the experience of other laywomen who pursued a religious life outside the convent. He provides a brief reconstruction of Angela's life before examining the characteristics and organizational structure of her Company of St. Ursula, founded in Brescia in 1535. Living in their own homes as Brides of Christ, Ursulines followed a life of prayer, penance, and devotion in a democratic organization without institutional trappings, managed by women, and unusually independent of male church authorities. Charity and teaching were not principal goals of the original foundation, nor was charity central to Merici's spirituality or her sense of an active apostolate.

Chapter 2 considers the Ursulines within the social, economic, and political context of Brescia. Examining prescriptive literature directed to women in the sixteenth century, Mazzonis notes how Merici drew on female identities of virgin, bride, and widow in the structure of her Company, but gave these a new empowering significance. He also establishes Merici as the author of the Rule of the Company of St. Ursula, which represents a rare example of a codification of the "irregular," noninstitutional features of female spirituality.

The relation of late-medieval female spirituality and contemporary concepts of gender to Merici's Rule receives in-depth analysis in chapter 3. With a clarity of organization that characterizes his book, Mazzonis provides an overview of female spirituality from the twelfth to sixteenth centuries, identifying its characteristics and specifically relating them to the Ursuline Rule. A theme emphasized throughout the book is how Merici adapted traditional notions of "woman," transforming them in ways that imparted to Ursulines a responsibility and independence in directing their spiritual lives. Eschewing institutional structures of a convent, solemn vows, habit, and male supervision, Ursulines engaged in a very individual relationship with God.

In chapter 4 Mazzonis considers Merici's relation to the spiritual climate of pre-Tridentine Italy. He finds parallels in the era's emphasis on spiritual themes of individuality, interiority, and morality, but notes some significant differences in Merici's concept of one's relationship with the divine, which stressed a transcendent union with God rather than a struggle for moral perfection. The book's final chapter establishes connections between contemporary emphasis on inner spirituality and evolving Renaissance notions of the unique individual. Mazzonis asserts that Merici's spirituality merged medieval and Renaissance ideas, reflecting traits of a Renaissance individual self, but differing in its insistence on the necessity of a mystical union with God to achieve selfhood. An epilogue traces the transformations to the Company of St. Ursula after Merici's death.

Mazzonis provides an insightful interpretation of Merici and her innovative Company of St. Ursula, analyzed from multiple perspectives. His reassessment of the goals of the Company...