Istruzione alle maestre (Instruction for Teachers): A Model Text for Women’s Lay Conservatories in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Tuscany1

On the death of his father, Emperor Francis I (1708−65), the Viennese-born Pietro Leopoldo (1747−92) became the Grand Duke of Tuscany. Recalling his arrival in Florence at eighteen years of age, Leopoldo later wrote of his displeasure in finding an excessive number of nuns in the region whom he considered detrimental to the state.² Of the 945,063 inhabitants in Tuscany in 1765, historians estimate that 9,349 were nuns.³ During his twenty-five year reign, and following the advice of Scipione de’ Ricci (1741−1810), bishop of Pistoia and Prato, Leopoldo asserted his authority over the Church by dissolving over one hundred convents in Tuscany and converting many of them into lay conservatories: in 1767 there were 237 convents; by 1786, there were only 128, with 83 lay conservatories replacing the 109 suppressed convents.⁴ Leopoldo’s purposes were twofold: to restore convents to their original state as institutions for professed nuns by removing widows, married women, and young girls destined for marriage; and to break up the convents’ monopoly on women’s education by opening public schools where girls could receive a basic religious education and learn marketable skills to prepare them as contributing members of society.

As alternatives to the convent, Leopoldo’s lay conservatories were not a new creation. The establishment of lay institutions dates back at least to sixteenth-century Rome and Ignatius of Loyola (1491−1556) who sought to create safe havens for women who could not marry or enter the convent.⁵ In sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Catholic Europe, these institutions appeared in England, France, and Italy and were sanctioned by the Church as “congregations.”⁶ They were given the appellation “conservatory,” with the understanding that they would “conserve” (from the Italian conservare) a young woman’s virtue and honor.⁷

Similar to convents, lay conservatories required that their boarders wear habits and remain cloistered, but instead of taking solemn vows before a priest, young women made simple vows of obedience to their superiors, and their enclosure was one of their own design, which permitted them to leave the congregation at any time. Though endorsed by the Church, lay conservatories were considered a thorn in the side of the male elite who argued that women should remain within the complete control of a patriarchal household or a strictly enclosed female religious house under ecclesiastical rule. The post-Tridentine Church, while approving at first, watched alternative female institutions closely and eventually pressured many of them into accepting strict enclosure and solemn vows. For example, the Company of Saint Ursula, organized in 1535 by Angela Merici (1474–1540), lasted only for a period of fifty years, until 1585, when its members were required to profess in the Order of Saint Ursula.⁸ In England, Mary Ward (1585–1645) founded schools for girls based on a Jesuit model, all but one of which were closed in 1631 by Pope Urban VIII because they refused to wear religious habits and did not adhere to the rules of enclosure. Ward was also condemned as a heretic, a condemnation that was later revoked.⁹

Yet one post-Tridentine conservatory for women managed to evade ecclesiastical censorship: La Quiete, founded in 1650 by the Florentine educator Eleonora Ramirez di Montalvo (1602−59), with the support of the Grand Duchess Vittoria della Rovere (1622–94), lasted successfully in line with Montalvo’s vision and ideals for almost three hundred years.¹⁰ In Leopoldo’s day, over one hundred years after its founding, La Quiete was much admired by the Grand Duchess Maria Luisa (1745–92) who visited frequently while taking her vacations nearby at La Petraia.¹¹ The Grand Duke selected La Quiete as the model for at least five of his newly established lay conservatories for affluent girls.¹² Leopoldo’s Costituzioni (Constitutions) of 1785 and 1786 for the conservatories of San Domenico di Pistoia, San Niccolò di Prato, San Raimondo del Refugio di Siena, San Girolamo di Montepulciano, and San Frediano...