ABSTRACT
As Dominicans, the nuns of San Domenico were committed to following the Rule of Saint Augustine, the Constitutions of the Order of Preachers, and the liturgies established for the Order. Although their gender prevented women of the Order of Preachers from fulfilling all aspects of the Order’s mission, they were an important part of the Dominican establishment. The nuns’ commitment to reform and careful observance of the Rule linked them with a powerful movement in fifteenth-century Italy, from which they found protectors and supporters like Fra Giovanni Dominici and Bishop Antoninus Pierozzi, and from which they inherited certain preferences for visual formulations and themes in works of art. This chapter explores the Dominican character of the works from San Domenico and tracks a shift in the imagery from broadly Dominican to Observant elements in them.
