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Arcangela: The Rebel Nun Who Defied the Vatican and Set the Renaissance World Ablaze
Not yet published
Expected 2 Mar 27The fascinating, never-before-told story of Arcangela Tarabotti, the late-Renaissance Venetian nun who set the European literary world alight, advocating for women and combatting misogyny in her time.
Set amid the extravagance of 17th-century Venice, Arcangela unearths the story of an iconoclastic nun who became a literary sensation when she took on the most powerful forces of her society, only to be completely sidelined from history. Forced into the cloister at age thirteen-a fate she understood as life imprisonment-Arcangela Tarabotti (1604-1652) spent her life fighting against the wrongs done to her and other women.
Through her own creativity and political savvy, Arcangela cultivated a robust intellectual and social network that brought her into dialogue with some of the most influential people of her day. She refused to be silenced as Venice slid from its former glory into decline, and religious authorities expanded their crackdown on books and ideas throughout Italy.
In defiant books with titles such as Convent Hell, The Tyranny of Fathers, and Women Are Human, Arcangela developed a bold, proto-feminist critique of patriarchy and wrestled with the legacy of Augustine, Dante, and Machiavelli. Her ideas were hotly debated at the time and later suppressed by the Vatican and discarded by a philosophical lineage oriented toward men.
Her lifelong project of writing women into the mainstream was forgotten. Until now.
Here, the world's leading experts on Arcangela offer a gripping reconstruction of her life and hard-fought literary battles. Ray and Westwater's story bursts from the page and restores the rebel nun to her rightful place in history.
Set amid the extravagance of 17th-century Venice, Arcangela unearths the story of an iconoclastic nun who became a literary sensation when she took on the most powerful forces of her society, only to be completely sidelined from history. Forced into the cloister at age thirteen-a fate she understood as life imprisonment-Arcangela Tarabotti (1604-1652) spent her life fighting against the wrongs done to her and other women.
Through her own creativity and political savvy, Arcangela cultivated a robust intellectual and social network that brought her into dialogue with some of the most influential people of her day. She refused to be silenced as Venice slid from its former glory into decline, and religious authorities expanded their crackdown on books and ideas throughout Italy.
In defiant books with titles such as Convent Hell, The Tyranny of Fathers, and Women Are Human, Arcangela developed a bold, proto-feminist critique of patriarchy and wrestled with the legacy of Augustine, Dante, and Machiavelli. Her ideas were hotly debated at the time and later suppressed by the Vatican and discarded by a philosophical lineage oriented toward men.
Her lifelong project of writing women into the mainstream was forgotten. Until now.
Here, the world's leading experts on Arcangela offer a gripping reconstruction of her life and hard-fought literary battles. Ray and Westwater's story bursts from the page and restores the rebel nun to her rightful place in history.
320 pages, Hardcover
Expected publication March 2, 2027
About the author
Meredith K. Ray
14 books5 followersI am Professor of Italian at the University of Delaware, where I also teach courses in Women and Gender Studies and European Studies. I have been fascinated by the contributions of women to Renaissance literature and culture for as long as I can remember, and my research focuses on exploring the myriad aspects of early modern women’s experience.
My first book, Writing Gender in Women’s Letter Collections of the Italian Renaissance, explored the performative aspects of published epistolary collections – a genre that was all the rage in the early modern period. My work on women’s letters sparked my interest in another popular early modern pursuit, mentioned in some of the letters I examined: alchemy. Embarking on a new direction in my research, I began thinking about the ways in which women participated in scientific culture – as patrons and practitioners, authors and readers. This research resulted in my book, Daughters of Alchemy: Women and Scientific Culture in Early Modern Italy. My latest book, Margherita Sarrocchi's Letters to Galileo: Astronomy, Astrology, and Poetics in Seventeenth-Century Italy explores the interplay between scientific and literary circles and between men and women in the age of the Scientific Revolution.
I have also published on convent culture in seventeenth-century Venice and, especially, the life and work of Venetian nun Arcangela Tarabotti. Consigned to perpetual enclosure in the convent of Sant’Anna – a practice known as “forced monachization,” common throughout early modern Italy – Tarabotti published a number of radical works that denounced the oppression of women and exposed the religious, political, economic and social factors that favored it.
My first book, Writing Gender in Women’s Letter Collections of the Italian Renaissance, explored the performative aspects of published epistolary collections – a genre that was all the rage in the early modern period. My work on women’s letters sparked my interest in another popular early modern pursuit, mentioned in some of the letters I examined: alchemy. Embarking on a new direction in my research, I began thinking about the ways in which women participated in scientific culture – as patrons and practitioners, authors and readers. This research resulted in my book, Daughters of Alchemy: Women and Scientific Culture in Early Modern Italy. My latest book, Margherita Sarrocchi's Letters to Galileo: Astronomy, Astrology, and Poetics in Seventeenth-Century Italy explores the interplay between scientific and literary circles and between men and women in the age of the Scientific Revolution.
I have also published on convent culture in seventeenth-century Venice and, especially, the life and work of Venetian nun Arcangela Tarabotti. Consigned to perpetual enclosure in the convent of Sant’Anna – a practice known as “forced monachization,” common throughout early modern Italy – Tarabotti published a number of radical works that denounced the oppression of women and exposed the religious, political, economic and social factors that favored it.
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We have our ideas when it comes to the monastic lifestyle, and women set in various roles throughout history. It is a common theme to find, unfortunately, that women are placed in this subservient role, often looked down upon as fragile beings in need of constant protection, incapable of contributing much beyond what their wombs may offer to the world. One solace that may have been found in this glum existence were the medieval monasteries, where you were not wed to a man but to the church. For some, it proved a haven, for others a prison, but in the case of Arcangela, a bit of both.
Ray and Westwater do an exceptional job setting the stage for us, describing Arcangela or Elena's, life before the monastery and the tribulations cast upon her family that resulted in them making the choice for her: taking her vows and becoming a nun. They explain the process of ascending to such a status, the world of the Middle Ages at the time of Elena's ascension, and what is found in the outside and the world behind monastic walls. Not only this, but they expertly provide us with details and inferences of thought based on historical record and actions taken by Elena that assists us in understanding her thought process and attitude towards situations or structures in place. Elena, and Ray & Westwater, embrace the good that the vows awarded to our leading nun, and instead of just accepting the bad, challenging them. It is inspiring, if anything, and reminds us that just because we work within the system does not mean there are no aspects of it that we cannot actively work against, to change.
I myself was raised a Roman Catholic, had gone astray for a time, but found myself back in the Roman church. I love my faith, the community, all the good that the church offers. But the problems I had with it as a teenager and young adult, newly confirmed, still remain. I prayed on these questions, queried them to my far more religious father, spoke with the priests and other clergy. I get different answers, and most of the time, I am able to follow the logic. I have even come to accept some of the logic. But one question I have persistently been asking, the main one that pushed me away for the a time, and still cannot be answered adequately is: why can women not be priests? "Tradition," is often the response. "Jesus only appointed men" is another. To which I often argued back that the church has changed its stance on things before, and just because there is an absence of something in history, as we historians are taught, does not automatically equate it to a negative. I still have not stopped challenging this question. I have returned to school for religious studies specifically to focus on this question. To challenge it as the Roman Catholic Church finds itself in a priest shortage crisis. I take great inspiration from Elena, from Ray & Westwater, who told her story without stripping Elena of her character; by presenting her as someone who loves her church, and wanted to see it at its full potential. That is exactly how I feel in the modern day.
I will be using pieces of this book as I continue my studies and will be certain to use parts of it when discussing the monastic life during my medieval unit with my students.
Fantastic read for any lovers of history, rebellious women, and the history of Christianity in particular.
We have our ideas when it comes to the monastic lifestyle, and women set in various roles throughout history. It is a common theme to find, unfortunately, that women are placed in this subservient role, often looked down upon as fragile beings in need of constant protection, incapable of contributing much beyond what their wombs may offer to the world. One solace that may have been found in this glum existence were the medieval monasteries, where you were not wed to a man but to the church. For some, it proved a haven, for others a prison, but in the case of Arcangela, a bit of both.
Ray and Westwater do an exceptional job setting the stage for us, describing Arcangela or Elena's, life before the monastery and the tribulations cast upon her family that resulted in them making the choice for her: taking her vows and becoming a nun. They explain the process of ascending to such a status, the world of the Middle Ages at the time of Elena's ascension, and what is found in the outside and the world behind monastic walls. Not only this, but they expertly provide us with details and inferences of thought based on historical record and actions taken by Elena that assists us in understanding her thought process and attitude towards situations or structures in place. Elena, and Ray & Westwater, embrace the good that the vows awarded to our leading nun, and instead of just accepting the bad, challenging them. It is inspiring, if anything, and reminds us that just because we work within the system does not mean there are no aspects of it that we cannot actively work against, to change.
I myself was raised a Roman Catholic, had gone astray for a time, but found myself back in the Roman church. I love my faith, the community, all the good that the church offers. But the problems I had with it as a teenager and young adult, newly confirmed, still remain. I prayed on these questions, queried them to my far more religious father, spoke with the priests and other clergy. I get different answers, and most of the time, I am able to follow the logic. I have even come to accept some of the logic. But one question I have persistently been asking, the main one that pushed me away for the a time, and still cannot be answered adequately is: why can women not be priests? "Tradition," is often the response. "Jesus only appointed men" is another. To which I often argued back that the church has changed its stance on things before, and just because there is an absence of something in history, as we historians are taught, does not automatically equate it to a negative. I still have not stopped challenging this question. I have returned to school for religious studies specifically to focus on this question. To challenge it as the Roman Catholic Church finds itself in a priest shortage crisis. I take great inspiration from Elena, from Ray & Westwater, who told her story without stripping Elena of her character; by presenting her as someone who loves her church, and wanted to see it at its full potential. That is exactly how I feel in the modern day.
I will be using pieces of this book as I continue my studies and will be certain to use parts of it when discussing the monastic life during my medieval unit with my students.
Fantastic read for any lovers of history, rebellious women, and the history of Christianity in particular.
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