PROJECT

A corpus "rendered invisible"

We have worked to bring to light a corpus "rendered invisible," since, across nuns' writings as a whole, production, circulation, and preservation were filtered and reconfigured by ecclesiastical and editorial mechanisms.

In most cases these are texts commissioned by a spiritual director, published posthumously in Lives and hagiographic collections under clerical signatures, where female authorship dissolves into a pious narrative. In such volumes, respect for the original is often weak: passages are cut, corrected, rewritten, inserted "as evidence" (long autograph excerpts quoted by the hagiographer), while autographs are lost or have disappeared amid the vicissitudes of convent archives.

Plural compositions

This chain of editorial mediations produces "plural compositions" in which the voice of the nuns is inlaid, fragmented, and brought into doctrinal conformity, to the point of making the portion of writing that belongs to them unrecognizable.

Our repertory makes this logic explicit: it reconstructs texts from hagiographic fragments, gauges the degree of editorial intervention imposed by clerics, and describes the mode of enunciation (drawing on narratology and stylistics) in order to restore, as far as possible, the women's voice and authorial responsibility that were denied to them.

Corpus

The repertory describes the entire written output of nuns: correspondence, spiritual relations and narratives, meditations, commentaries, sermons, biographies, retreats; as well as convent chronicles, rules and constitutions, pedagogical writings, treatises, poems, administrative documents, collective collections, and texts published through mediation.

This expansion answers a clear historiographical fact: women's contributions often circulated under other names or within male editorial frameworks, making a cross-cutting identification of genres and media necessary.

Chronological and Geographical Scope

Periodo: We primarily cover the period 1601-1720. These limits, based on specific textual and historical markers, run from the French publication of Teresa of Ávila's Vida (1601, a generic prototype) to the gradual waning of the great mystical momentum after the condemnation of Quietism (1720).

Geografia: The corpus is transnational: France, Belgium, Switzerland, Quebec, and the Antilles, with the borderlands (Lorraine, Savoy) along the "Catholic backbone."

Entries

• a reasoned biography (of the nun and, where relevant, her spiritual director)
• a critical bibliography
• the location of witnesses (print/manuscripts) and, when available, a link to the digitized copy
• a linguistic, philological, and stylistic description
• indexing by name, order, network of spiritual direction, geographical area, and textual genre for cross-searching

All content is available online in the open-access database and library.

Method

1. an inventory of witnesses in digitized repositories (Gallica, CCFR, Belgica, Canadiana, etc.) and in public/private archives
2. the reconstruction of texts often cut, retouched, and inserted into hagiographic volumes ("plural compositions")
3. analysis of structures and enunciation (narratology, stylistics)
4. grouping by orders (Ursulines, Carmelites, Visitandines, Annunciades, Benedictines, etc.), by spiritual director, and by monastery, to bring out dynamics and networks

For Whom and For What?

Ricerca

Research: a trove for literary, religious, and social history, moral philosophy, and the history of law and medicine. The emergence of hundreds of women authors reshapes the canon from a gender perspective.

Didattica

Teaching: integration into university courses; outreach to secondary education.

Heritage

Heritage: the repertory serves as a preservation tool (survey, digitization, description of at-risk items), with exhibitions in partnership with religious communities.

Funding

This project is funded by the European Union through the Next Generation EU program - PRIN 2022.