Benedetta Carlini, a mystic and visionary who rose from countryside origins to become abbess of the Theatine convent known as Holy Mary of Pescia (Tuscany), was a “lesbian.” For her crimes she was imprisoned for thirty-five years until her death in 1661, at the age of seventy-one. Abbess Benedetta's fascinating story is reconstructed by historian Judith C. Brown in Immodest Acts: The Life of a Lesbian Nun in Renaissance Italy (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985).
The Triumph of Marriage: Painted Cassoni of the Renaissance (Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, 16 October 2008-18 January 2009; The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, 14 February-17 May 2009) - By Cristelle Baskins, Adrian W. B. Randolph, Jacqueline Marie Musacchio and Alan Chong�Art and Love in Renaissance Italy (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 11 November 2008-16 February 2009; The Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, 15 March-14 June 2009) - Edited by Andrea Bayer