Word, Image, and the Spiritual Life of Poor Clares: Interpreting 'Meditations on Christ' in Medieval Italy

The Meditations on the Life of Christ was a devotional manual composed for the Order of the Poor Clares in early fourteenth-century Italy. In this book, Renana Bartal offers a comprehensive study of the only known fully illuminated manuscript of the long Latin version of this text, now housed in Corpus Christi College at Oxford University. An interdisciplinary analysis combining the methods of art history, textual studies, and gender studies, her book sheds light on the devotional practices of medieval religious women and enriches current understanding of gendered reception and use of books in the later Middle Ages. Through close analysis of text and images, Bartal reveals how the nuns who read the manuscript used visual and verbal strategies to deepen theological reflection and guide meditative practice. She challenges the view that the Meditations primarily encouraged emotional identification, exploring how it fostered intellectual engagement and exegetical devotion. Bartal's study also demonstrates how images, texts, and female religious experience intersected in shaping devotional culture.