Poetry for a new nun entering the convent of S. Matteo di Murano. 1 known copy.
[Nuns] / [Poetry]. Nella solenne assunzione del religioso abito di S. Benedetto nel nobilissimo Monastero di S. Matteo di Murano dell’illustrissima signora Paolina Contessa Revedin che prende il nome di Maria Maddalena componimenti. Bassano: s.n., 1791. 8vo [21.7 x 15.5 cm], 85 pp., [1] p. blank verso, [1] p. integral blank, with woodcut title-page vignette and woodcut tail-pieces, Bound in contemporary cartone covered with block-printed paper, red sprinkled edges. Edge wear, rubbing and fading to binding. Wide margined, on thick paper, internally well preserved.
Very rare (1 copy worldwide: Bibl. civica di Bassano del Grappa) book of poems presented at the 1791 investiture ceremony of Signora Paolina Contessa Revedin, who was entering the Benedictine Monastero di S. Matteo di Murano under her new name, Maria Maddalena.
While most of the poems are dedicated to Paolina Revedin (1766-1850), several are dedicated to family members (parents, brothers, an aunt) or to nuns at S. Matteo, e.g., to the Abbess (who was an aunt) and to the Prioress. Most poems are by clerics, local eminences, or are presented anonymously.
Of special interest are the poems written by women, namely, a sonnet written by her mother (p. 15) and dueling verses in two columns written by her sisters, Cecilia and Teresa (pp. 57-8). Also of note is a poem offered by Elisabetta Caminèr Turra (1751-96), the Venetian writer and translator who was one of the earliest prominent female journalists and editors in Italy.
In the convent Paolina Revedin (Maria Maddalena) is said to have been a specialist at preparing medicines and nursing the ill. She was forced to leave the life of the nun when the Venetian convents were closed under Napoleonic rule. Thereafter she lived a pious life devoted to charity (see Giovanni Battista Contarini, pp. 26-7).
This volume is a rare survival from the genre of ‘monachization’ poetry, i.e., poems commissioned for the celebration of the investiture or profession of a new nun: “The poems were often produced on large-scale single quarto or foglio sheets, printed decoratively for presentation to the family (and, more widely, to other members of the community) as well as to be displayed along public routes throughout the city that led to the convent” (Brudin, p. 126).
The composition, distribution, and publication (in various forms) of poetry surrounding the entry of new nuns into the convent was common from the late 16th through 19th centuries in Italy. Monachization poetry was one of only a few early modern genres devoted to women, and for many if not most of the women treated in these poems, it was the first and only time their names would appear in print. Print runs of this material were invariably small. Individual examples of this occasional printing rarely survive today, and when they do survive, they typically are found in no more than a handful of copies. Particularly rare today are the poetic handbills and broadsides distributed and displayed at the ceremonies themselves. These ephemeral sheets were sometimes later collected and the poems reprinted in slim commemorative volumes (see A. Brundin).
OPAC/ICCU, OCLC & KVK locate 1 copy worldwide of this broadside: Biblioteca civica di Bassano del Grappa.
* IT\ICCU\VIAE\004173; A. Brundin, “On the Convent Threshold: Poetry for New Nuns in Early Modern Italy,” Renaissance Quarterly, vol. 65, no. 4 (2012), pp. 1125-1165; C. Reardon, “Veni sponsa Christi: Investiture, Profession and Consecration Ceremonies in Sienese Convents,” Musica Disciplina, vol. 50 (1996), pp. 271-297; Giovanni Battista Contarini, Menzioni onorifiche dei defunti, ossia, Raccolta di elogi, biografie, lapidi, necrologie, poesie, annunzi spettanti a’distinti defunti, morti in Venezia nell’anno 1851, pp. 26-7.