ABSTRACT
Although in theory they had withdrawn from the world, the nuns of San Domenico preserved many links to it. This chapter explores the nature of these links and the role of works of in the maintenance and expression of those ties. Despite being “dead to the world,” according to the monastic ideal, the reality was that the nuns had to live in it, so their security and financial health, the pastoral care they could expect, the peace of the cloister itself depended on the city’s own security and political stability. But Pisa was not to enjoy such stability in the fifteenth century. To the death of Pietro Gambacorta in 1392, and the sale of Pisa’s sovereignty to the Visconti, was added the conquest of Pisa by the Florentines in 1406, which lasted through most of the fifteenth century. This conquest effectively relegated Pisa to the status of a colony: it was ruled from Florence, bled by taxes, and exploited by various industries and trades in Florence. Many of the wealthiest families of Pisa either fled or were exiled.1 These events had important ramifications for the women of San Domenico, both directly-by virtue of lost and found patronage-and indirectly-by virtue of changed social and economic conditions that affected the nuns within their cloister.
