Resumen de Eve, Mary, and Martha: Paintings for the Humiliati Nuns at Viboldone
The church of San Pietro in Viboldone, near Milan, contains numerous frescoes that date to the later Trecento, when it was under the control of the Humiliati order. Similar to most Humiliati establishments prior to 1400, it was a double monastery, housing both brothers and sisters. Viboldone is the only extant former church of the Humiliati that contains substantial pictorial decoration from the period when religious of both sexes were resident. Drawing upon earlier proposals that the nuns entered the church in the second bay of the right side aisle, I suggest that the sisters would have been able to traverse the right side aisle to at least the fourth bay, and probably had access as well to the fifth bay or choir. Their male counterparts would have occupied a parallel position in the left side aisle. The article discusses how the paintings visible to the divided members of the monastic community conveyed gendered messages seen as appropriate to the brothers and sisters. I support this argument with evidence from the history of the Humiliati, and especially from their distinctive rule.
