Sigismund Suevus (1526–1596)

The sixth chapter focuses on the continual presence of Catholics and the shared use of formerly Catholic spaces. Sigismund Suevus (1526–1596), a Lutheran preacher from Lauban, engaged in a conflict with the nuns of the Order of Mary Magdalen in Lauban. As town preacher, he denounced the conversion of one of Lauban’s mayors to Catholicism, but he continued to share a church with the nuns and any remaining Catholics. These shared spaces challenge our understanding of confessional markers, as Lutherans continued to have side altars or images of saints in their part of the church. Moreover, the nuns were linked to the Lutheran preachers through daily interactions. Although Suevus rejected Catholicism in his sermons, he also reinterpreted Catholic space in Reformation terms, especially the Holy Sepulchre in Görlitz, a reproduction of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. He advocated a spiritual pilgrimage to this space and used objects connected to travel as allegories of Lutheranism.

The Female Baroque

The concept of the ‘Female’ Baroque, derives from Julia Kristeva; the chief objective of this study is to examine the distinctive contribution of women writers and artists, thus addressing a recurring omission in previous scholarship. This chapter discusses major models for women: the Virgin Mary, Mary Magdalen, and the ideal Petrarchan Mistress. Along with the historical realities of patriarchal exploitation of women in the early modern period, I explore the emergent energies of women’s writings, examining whether there were distinctive ‘female’ experiences articulated through early modern discourse. Kristeva’s emphasis on St Teresa of Avila provides a model of the Female Baroque; her concept of ‘intimate revolt’ and her important distinction between the semiotic and the symbolic also inform this discussion.

‘An indefatigable intermediary’

O n 4 June 1925, Harold Woodbury Parsons was appointed European Representative to the Cleveland Museum of Art; for the remainder of the decade he distinguished himself in scouting for and acquiring masterworks of European art for the essentially brand new institution. His long-time contacts in Rome, to begin with, led him to a famous Byzantine ivory (formerly in the collection of Count Grigorij Stroganoff). This he bought for the museum in November 1925, winning enthusiastic praise from Paul J. Sachs, a key figure in American museological circles. Similarly, he acquired soon afterwards El Greco’s Holy Family with St Mary Magdalen, despite intense competition. Parsons was ideally placed in the sale of Filippino Lippi’s Holy Family tondo as a sometime agent for the antiquities collector Edward Perry Warren (recently deceased). Parsons’s correspondence and unpublished notices in the Duveen Brothers records document the off-again, on-again dealing for what is now one of the pre-eminent Italian Renaissance paintings in America, acquired in August 1929.

‘An indefatigable intermediary’

At a time when museum curatorship in America was in its infancy, Harold Woodbury Parsons (1882–1967) scouted and negotiated for outstanding works of art for the cash-rich Cleveland Museum of Art, which opened to the public in 1916. As its European representative (1925–41), he acquired such masterworks as the Stroganoff Ivory, El Greco’s Holy Family with St Mary Magdalen, and the Warren tondo by Filippino Lippi, all during the late 1920s. During a lifetime’s work in the art market, in which he worked for private collectors and other museums, this was his most important achievement. What he acquired for the Cleveland Museum is vividly recounted in the art agent’s correspondence, until now, almost entirely unpublished. After moving to Rome in 1910, Parsons first served as ‘an indefatigable intermediary’ in the world market for antiquities. Later, with the blessing of Edward Waldo Forbes and Paul J. Sachs – director and assistant director, respectively, of Harvard’s Fogg Art Museum – and with a host of European contacts, he was able to ‘gun for’ art for an ever expanding number of clients.