Royal nunneries at the center of medieval Europe : art, architecture, aesthetics (13th-14th centuries)

The contributions of this special issue - proceedings of the conference on royal nunneries that took place in Prague in July 2020 - focus on the monasteries connected to the ruling houses, which were endowed with special privileges and enriched by royal and aristocratic donations, often serving as instrumenta regni. They are introduced as active cultural hubs, stages for royal and courtly promotion, and places of personal and dynastic self-representation. This includes female monasteries, the agency of female elites in medieval society and their role as patrons and addressees of works of art. Front Matter 3 Tanja Michalsky, Daniela Rywiková & Elisabetta Scirocco. Royal Nunneries at the Center of Medieval Europe 11 Jakub Adamski and Piotr Pajor. The Architecture of Poor Clares’ Nunnery in Stary Sącz. Early Fourteenth-Century Artistic Relations between Lesser Poland and Upper Rhineland 22 Susan Marti. Networking for Eternal Salvation? Agnes of Habsburg, Queen of Hungary and Co-Founder of Königsfelden 38 Michaela Zöschg. Beyond Naples. Fourteenth-Century Royal Widows and their Clarissan Foundations in a Trans-Regional Perspective 56 Giulia Rossi Vairo. Seeing Double in Odivelas. Nuns and Monks at the Monastery of St Dinis, a Royal Pantheon in Late Medieval Portugal 76 Angelica Federici. Art, Architecture, and Aesthetics in the Baronial Convents of Medieval Latium 92 Agnieszka Patała. The Convent of Poor Clares in Breslau and its Medieval Furnishings 112 Eszter Konrád. Helisabet filia Stephani regis Ungarorum illustris. Image of a Saintly Nun of the Arpad Dynasty as Reflected in Hagiographic Sources 136 Klára Benešovská. Royal Nunneries in Czech Lands: Their Specificity and Research Perspectives 156 photographic credits 164 The contributions of this special issue - proceedings of the conference on royal nunneries that took place in Prague in July 2020 - focus on the monasteries connected to the ruling houses, which were endowed with special privileges and enriched by royal and aristocratic donations, often serving as instrumenta regni. They are introduced as active cultural hubs, stages for royal and courtly promotion, and places of personal and dynastic self-representation. This includes female monasteries, the agency of female élites in medieval society and their role as patrons and addressees of works of art