Published Online: http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780195399301/obo-9780195399301-0377.xml?rskey=6gcnE3&result=263

Please note this article is published with Brepols Publishers as a Gold Open Access article under a Creative Commons CC 4.0: BY-NC license. The article is also freely available on the website of Brepols Publishers: https://www.brepolsonline.net/action/showBook?doi=10.1484%2FM.IPM-EB.5.131849 under this same license.

Chapter from Representing women's authority in the early modern world, edited by Eaven O'Brien (Rome: Aracne, 2013)

This article focuses on the vestition ceremony of the baptized Jew Caterina/suor Theodora (1479-1506), which was celebrated in 1501 at the enclosed Dominican tertiaries’ house of Santa Caterina da Siena in Ferrara. It traces the vicissitudes that led to the conversion to Christianity of suor Theodora’s father, the renowned Jewish goldsmith and engraver Salomone da Sesso/Ercole de’ Fedeli (c.1452-c.1521)—together with his entire family—following his condemnation for sodomy in 1491. I argue that suor Theodora’s vestition ceremony was aimed at complementing the celebration of her family’s baptism a decade earlier, which culminated with the sermon that her father had been forced to deliver in Ferrara’s cathedral. The duke of Ferrara, Ercole d’Este (r. 1471-1505), whose program of church and convent building and decoration in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries was unparalleled, timed the celebration of suor Theodora’s vestition to mark the completion of his most impressive and massive pious foundation. The baptized Jew’s vestition was staged as a performance that manifested Christianity’s victory over Judaism, and showcased the achievements of the duke’s ongoing conversionary efforts. It thus attests to the convergence of Ercole d’Este’s cultural patronage and his profound religiosity during the latter half of his reign.

Categories are chiefly ordered by medium or geography and, for individuals, by birthdate (before 1700), but standard terms like "Medieval" or "Renaissance and Early Modern" are sometimes used here for European culture. The former begins around 500 CE and ends around 1400 (for Italy) or 1500 (elsewhere in Europe). " Primary sources " encompass anything produced before 1800; they are ordered chronologically; and are separated out when there is a significant number. Please be aware that this document is ir regularly updated and new features added , so if you rely on a downloaded doc or pdf remember to check back with the online Google Doc version. Only sporadic updates have been added since June 2020. For individual entries, be sure also to look at the general categories of each woman's era. We have attempted to outline who is included in general sources as much as possible, rather than listing the source under multiple women. The usual rule for giving a woman an individual entry has been that she has two or more sources dedicated to her.