Art, architecture, and aesthetics in the baronial convents of medieval Latium

Despite extensive recent scholarly attention to female monastic art and architecture, no comprehensive analysis of late-medieval conventual communities in Rome and Latium has been done to date. Archival study, cross-referenced with in-depth analysis of material evidence from convents directly endowed by baronial families, raises a challenge to traditional "top-down" readings in favor of an interdisciplinary network perspective. This article highlights common and diverse features of "baronial" nunneries by using evidence from case studies in a comparative framework. The nunneries selected for this multifocal analysis were those with the most promising documentary, architectural, and artistic remains, with particular attention to five characterizing features: ground plan, liturgical furnishings, family chapel, fresco decoration, and choir. In the absence of an overreaching study of medieval conventual realities in Rome and Latium, this article provides an in-depth analysis of the characterizing features of the principal convents endowed by barons in the region. This investigation should foster a deeper understanding of the fragmented and inherently stratified material culture of medieval Rome its environs.