{"title":"Craig A Monson","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"nuns-behaving-badly-book-craig-a-monson-9780226534619","title":"Nuns Behaving Badly","description":"Some nuns in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Italy strayed far from the paradigms of monastic life. In this book, the author resurrects forgotten tales and restores to life the long-silent voices of these cloistered heroines. The nuns of early modern Italy, it shows, set the standard for religious transgression in their own age - and beyond.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49518983086353,"sku":"GOR004690367","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49989726503185,"sku":"CIN0226534618G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50963128090897,"sku":"CIN0226534618VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0226534618.jpg?v=1751133259"},{"product_id":"nuns-behaving-badly-book-craig-a-monson-9780226534725","title":"Nuns Behaving Badly","description":"Some nuns in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Italy strayed far from the paradigms of monastic life. In this book, the author resurrects forgotten tales and restores to life the long-silent voices of these cloistered heroines. The nuns of early modern Italy, it shows, set the standard for religious transgression in their own age - and beyond.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49600926449937,"sku":"GOR005943284","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":50346014834961,"sku":"CIN0226534723A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51030509584657,"sku":"CIN0226534723VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51694998126865,"sku":"CIN0226534723G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0226534723.jpg?v=1751324236"},{"product_id":"black-widows-of-the-eternal-city-book-craig-a-monson-9780472132041","title":"The Black Widows of the Eternal City","description":"The Black Widows of of The Eternal City offers, for the first time, a book-length study of an infamous cause célèbre in seventeenth-century Rome, how it resonated then and has continued to resonate: the 1659 investigation and prosecution of Gironima Spana and dozens of Roman widows, who shared a particularly effective poison to murder their husbands. This notorious case has been frequently discussed over 350 years, but the earliest writers concentrated more on fortifying their reading constituency’s shared attitudes than accurately narrating facts.  Subsequent authors remained largely content to follow their predecessors or keen to improve upon them. Most recent writers and bloggers were unaware that their earlier sources were generally unconcerned with a correct portrayal of real events.   In the present study, Craig A. Monson takes advantage of a recent discovery—the 1,450-page notary’s transcript of the 1659 investigation.  It is supplemented here by many ancillary archival sources, unknown to all previous writers. Since the story of Gironima Spana and the would-be widows is partially about what people believed to be true, however, this investigation also juxtaposes some of the “alternative facts” from earlier, sensational accounts with what the notary’s transcript and other, more reliable archival documents reveal.   Written in a style that avoids arcane idioms and specialist jargon, the book can potentially speak to students and general readers interested in seventeenth-century social history and gender issues. It rewrites the life story of Gironima Spana (largely unknown until now), who has dominated all earlier accounts, usually in caricatures that reiterate the tropes of witchcraft. It also concentrates on the dozen other widows whose stories could be the most  recovered from archival sources and whom Spana had totally eclipsed in earlier accounts. Most were women “of a very ordinary sort” (prostitutes; beggars; wives of butchers, barbers, dyers, lineners, innkeepers), the kinds of women commonly lost to history. The book seeks to explain why some women were hanged (only six, in fact, most of whom may not have directly poisoned anyone), while dozens of others who did poison their husbands escaped the gallows and, in some cases, were not even interrogated. It also reveals what happened to these other alleged perpetrators, whose fates have remained unknown until now.  Other purported culprits, about whom less complete pictures emerge, are briefly discussed in an appendix.   The study incorporates illustrations of archival manuscripts to demonstrate the challenges of deciphering them and illustrates “scenes of the crime” and other important locations, identified on seventeenth-century, bird’s eye-perspective views of Rome and in modern photographs. It also includes GPS coordinates for any who might wish to revisit the sites.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49734582272273,"sku":"NGR9780472132041","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0472132040.jpg?v=1751008061"},{"product_id":"divas-in-the-convent-book-craig-a-monson-9780226535197","title":"Divas in the Convent","description":"When eight-year-old Lucrezia Orsina Vizzana (1590-1662) entered one of the preeminent convents in Bologna in 1598, she had no idea what cloistered life had in store for her. Thanks to clandestine instruction from a local maestro di cappella - and despite the church hierarchy's vehement opposition to all convent music - Vizzana became the star of the convent, composing works so thoroughly modern and expressive that a recent critic described them as \"historical treasures.\" But at the very moment when Vizzana's works appeared in 1623 - she would be the only Bolognese nun ever to publish her music - extraordinary troubles beset her and her fellow nuns, as episcopal authorities arrived to investigate anonymous allegations of sisterly improprieties with male members of their order. Craig A. Monson retells the story of Vizzana and the nuns of Santa Cristina to elucidate the role that music played in the lives of these cloistered women. Monson explains how the sisters - refusing to accept what the church hierarchy called God's will and what the nuns perceived as a besmirching of their honor - fought back with words and music, and when these proved futile, with bricks, roof tiles, and stones. These women defied one Bolognese archbishop after another, cardinals in Rome, and even the pope himself, until threats of excommunication and abandonment by their families brought them to their knees twenty-five years later. By then, Santa Cristina's imaginative but frail composer literally had been driven mad by the conflict. Monson's fascinating narrative relies heavily on the words of its various protagonists, on both sides of the cloister wall, who emerge vividly as imaginative, independent-minded, and not always sympathetic figures. In restoring the musically gifted Lucrezia Orsina Vizzana to history, Monson introduces readers to the full range of captivating characters who played their parts in seventeenth-century convent life.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49983433998609,"sku":"CIN0226535193G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51576387272977,"sku":"GOR009044594","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":53467543601425,"sku":"CIN0226535193VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0226535193.jpg?v=1751164253"},{"product_id":"disembodied-voices-book-craig-a-monson-9780520088757","title":"Disembodied Voices","description":"Piecing together 200 years of convent history, this engaging narrative tells the story of the nuns of Santa Cristina della Fondazza - gifted singers, instrumentalists, and composers who used music to circumvent ecclesiastical authority and to forge links with the world beyond convent walls. Craig Monson reconstructs the daily lives of Italian nuns, often in their own words, and relates their musical life to the broad social context in which it unfolded. He introduces a virtually unknown nun composer, relating her family history and how the convent allowed her creativity to flower. The study is meticulously researched, marvelously detailed, and entertaining to read.In sixteenth and early-seventeenth-century Bologna, approximately one-seventh of the entire female population lived behind convent walls. Santa Cristina became home for a number of gifted women musicians, many from among the upper classes, who sought 'respectable' musical careers. Monson documents the struggle of these women as they fought to maintain their musical and ritual traditions in the face of persistent opposition from church officials. Figuring prominently in the story of Santa Cristina is Lucrezia Vizzana (1590-1662), Bologna's only published nun composer, who entered the convent at the age of eight. This study is as much about social and cultural history as it is about music. The discussion ranges widely beyond musicology to draw upon art, social and political history, labor history, theology, and gender studies.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50287750021393,"sku":"CIN0520088751G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0520088751.jpg?v=1750697800"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/en-gb\/collections\/author-books-by-craig-a-monson.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}