This work shows how women between the 12th and 16th centuries were able to carve out areas of influence by exploiting the institutional church and by manipulating religious precepts. Contributors argue that women's participation in religious life offered them access to power in all its forms.

Foreword by Catharine R. Stimpson Preface 1: Women and Religion in Late Medieval Italy: History and Historiography Daniel Bornstein 2: A Community of Female Penitents in Thirteenth-Century Padua Antonio Rigon 3: Clare, Agnes, and Their Earliest Followers: From the Poor Ladies of San Damiano to the Poor Clares Clara Gennaro 4: Anchoresses and Penitents in Thirteenth- and Fourteenth-Century Umbria Mario Sensi 5: Mendicant Friars and Female Pinzochere in Tuscany: From Social Marginality to Models of Sanctity Anna Benvenuti Papi 6: The Apostolic Canonization Proceedings of Clare of Montefalco, 1318-1319 Enrico Menesto 7: Female, Mystics, Visions, and Iconography Chiara Frugoni 8: Imitable Sanctity: The Legend of Maria of Venice Fernanda Sorelli 9: St. Bernardino of Siena, the Wife, and Possessions Roberto Rusconi 10: St. Francesca and the Female Religious Communities of Fifteenth-Century Rome Anna Esposito 11: Living Saints: A Typology of Female Sanctity in the Early Sixteenth Century Gabriella Zarri Afterword: Women Religious in Late Medieval Italy: New Sources and Directions Roberto Rusconi Index