‘The Devout Belief of the Imagination’

The Paris 'Meditationes Vitae Christi' and Female Franciscan Spirituality in Trecento Italy

By (author) Holly Flora

Book cover: ‘The Devout Belief of the Imagination’

Extent: 305, 305 pages

Publisher: Brepols Publishers

Subjects: Medieval Studies

Series: Disciplina Monastica

Series volume number: 6

Language: English

Paperback (Published)

(December 2009)

ISBN: 9782503528199

Price: $107.00

In stock

This volume examines the late medieval devotional text Meditationes Vitae Christi through an analysis of its most important manuscript, known by its present location and catalogue number as Paris Bibliotheque Nationale Ms. ital. 115. As Flora argues, Ms. ital. 115, the oldest and most extensively illustrated copy of the Meditationes, was originally made in or near Pisa circa 1350 and tailored very specifically for a group of Franciscan nuns. Flora proposes the manuscript’s probable uses in practices of performative devotion and affective response, and the relationship between its imagery and other works of art made for religious women, shedding new light on the history of female monasticism in medieval Italy.

  • By (author) Holly Flora