Mount Carmel in the Commune: Promoting the Holy Land in Central Italy in the 13th and 14th Centuries

The Carmelite friars were the last of the major mendicant orders to be established in Italy. Originally an eremitical order, they arrived from the Holy Land in the 1240s, decades after other mendicant orders, such as the Franciscans and Dominicans, had constructed churches and cultivated patrons in the burgeoning urban centers of central Italy. In a religious market already saturated with friars, the Carmelites distinguished themselves by promoting their Holy Land provenance, eremitical values, and by developing an institutional history claiming to be descendants of the Old Testament prophet Elijah. By the end of the 13th century the order had constructed thriving churches and convents and leveraged itself into a prominent position in the religious community. My dissertation analyzes these early Carmelite churches and convents, as well as the friars’ interactions with patrons, civic governments, and the urban space they occupied. Through three primary case studies – the churches and convents of Pisa, Siena and Florence – I examine the Carmelites’ approach to art, architecture, and urban space as the order transformed its mission from one of solitary prayer to one of active ministry.

My central questions are these: To what degree did the Carmelites’ Holy Land provenance inform the art and architecture they created for their central Italian churches? And to what degree was their visual culture instead a reflection of the mendicant norms of the time?

I have sought to analyze the Carmelites at the institutional level, to determine how the order viewed itself and how it wanted its legacy to develop. I then seek to determine how and if the institutional model was utilized in the artistic and architectural production of the individual convents. The understanding of Carmelite art as a promotional tool for the identity of the order is not a new one, however my work is the first to consider deeply the order’s architectural aspirations. I also consider the order’s relationships with its de facto founding saint, the prophet Elijah, and its patron, the Virgin Mary, in a more comprehensive manner that situates the resultant visual culture into the contemporary theological and historical contexts.

The Diary of Mary McKeon, an Irish American Domestic Servant in Nineteenth Century America

What did young, single, unaccompanied Irish women experience when immigrating to the United States in the late nineteenth century? In this final project, I will explore primary and secondary sources that address their experiences, focusing on a diary written in 1883 by a young Irish domestic servant working in New Haven, Connecticut. Mary McKeon, a sixteen-year-old girl from County Leitrim, Ireland, recorded her experiences as a domestic servant for two different families, as well as her own personal thoughts. Mary wrote down her personal experiences, providing a glimpse of what her life was like both inside and outside of her employer’s home. Though much of my research will show that many young women like Mary would be subjected to prejudice and discrimination due to their lack of understanding middle-class American values, which would give rise to the “Bridget” stereotype of a brutish, ill-mannered and incompetent domestic servant, not all Irish women experienced that discrimination and prejudice. Mary is one example of a domestic servant that was treated kindly by her employers and her story documents a more positive and supportive environment for this newly arrived young, single immigrant. Her diary also reveals her to be a young woman who worked to improve her language skills and her situation. And, through her diary, we get a glimpse of her strategies for ensuring an active social life, including access to courtship and marriage. By analyzing Mary’s diary and sharing my results in this final project, I hope to provide a more comprehensive view into the lives of these young women.