Summoned by the nuns of SS. Naborre e Felice in Bologna. Unrecorded.

[Nuns] / [Bologna] / [Abbazia dei Santi Naborre e Felice] / Lodovico Mattioli. Viene pregata ritrovarsi [Mercordi], che sarà li [21.] di [Ottobre] 17[67], a ore [21.] al Monistero delle RR. MM. de’ SS. Naborre, e Felice, dette dell’ Abbadia… [Bologna]: etching by Lodovico Mattioli, dated in manuscript 21 October 1767. [20.6 x 13.9 cm], [1] f. letterpress form headed with an etching, filled out in manuscript. Minor spotting and edge wear, remnants of mounting on verso. Well preserved.  
 
 
An unrecorded form used by the nuns of the Abbey of SS. Naborre e Felice in Bologna to summon outsiders to their convent. Ephemeral material of this sort used in the quotidian operation of convents is rarely encountered today.
 
Here the recipient was a lawyer whose expertise was needed in 1767 to certify a land deal with the neighboring monastery of San Giorgio and to record a bequest. The etching—depicting St. Clare with the abbey’s titular saints—is by Lodovico Mattioli (1662-1747), an artist of some quality who produced ephemeral prints for several convents in Bologna. Note that Mattioli’s copperplate was still being used by the nuns of SS. Naborre e Felice twenty years after his death.
                                                                                                     
This form operated at once as an invitation, a reminder, a pass, and even a commemorative piece. 
 
 
The form is not recorded OCLC, KVK, or OPAC, and the etching is not mentioned among Mattioli’s work in the Illustrated Bartsch or in the Catalogo generale della raccolta di stampe antiche della Pinacoteca nazionale di Bologna. 
 
*Not in the Catalogo generale della raccolta di stampe antiche della Pinacoteca nazionale di Bologna, Gabinetto delle stampe; not in Illustrated Bartsch, vol. 43, pp. 36-215.