ABSTRACT
The high production costs required to include an engraving attests to the importance of the portrait and the editor's belief that the extra cost would be justified by the political, ideological and spiritual benefits engaging the audience's visual focus. However, an analysis of convent narratives through the lens of both visual and literary studies reveals a complex configuration of textual production, demonstrating the role that gender politics and pictorial elements play in the writing, publishing and reading of religious literature penned by women in early modern Spain. There is no privileging of discourse through typographic changes and as a result, Isabel's word on the page has the same visual status as that of God. As a result of the nun's popularity, in a 1634 letter Father Andres Mendo requests more engravings of sor Luisa because my sisters are killing me for two more prints of Mother Luisa.
