The Cloister: "paradise" and mundane temptations

detaile of a majolica bench in the Cloister of the Clarisse

Since the Clarisse were more numerous than the friars, they were assigned the Chiostro Maggiore (large cloister), which underwent a bold renovation around the middle of the eighteenth century (1739-1742) at the behest of the abbess Ippolita di Carmignano. The Neapolitan riggiolari of the Massa workshop depicted the exuberance of the world outside the seclusion of the cloister - a world denied to the nuns - through a dazzling display of mundane scene rendered in bright colors (prevalently yellow, green and blue) on shiny majolica tiles. These tiles completely cover the octagonal pillars and the seats bordering two central paths intersecting in an octagonal space in the center of the garden. The paths divide the garden in four quadrants, each with its own garden. Two of the quadrants are graced by fountains. The pillars are decorated with flowers, fruit and leaves, while the seats and parapet bordering the perimeter of the cloister carry everyday-life scenes whose figures evoke “a taste of Arcadia” (Papini). Gardens are where wishes dwell and “dreams and imagination take shape” (Fiorani). The garden of the Clarisse expresses a keen yearning for the vitality of the world - the ultimate temptation for a nun - stereotyped in the depiction of various glimpses of everyday life. There are working scenes featuring shepherds, farmers, sailors and fishermen; festival scenes showing dances to the sound of local instruments such as the putipù, wreathed girls dancing while Pulcinella entertains them, and carnivals; scenes depicting sports such as archery and hunting; pictures of riders; and even an image of a building whose sign - a staff with hanging ribbons - possibly identifies it as a brothel. The physical elements are represented by four allegorical floats representing Earth, Water, Air, and Fire. Finally, there is a scene which, though not profane, provides a rare glimpse of everyday life in the convent: a nun feeding cats in the middle of the cloister, which is bare as it must have been before its renovation; its original appearance is presumably “evoked to emphasize the sharp contrast with its jocund transformation” (Papini). In the eighth century the ancient Persian conception of the garden as a “paradise” (“pairi daeza”, enclosed place), an enclosed and sheltered space, rich in water and vegetation, was extended, by way of the Arabs, to the European garden. In the Christian culture of the eleventh and twelfth century, however, this lofty symbol of woman, who must be protected and controlled, and thus of virginity and fecundity, was conceived as a hortus conclusus, an image of Eden, an enclosed sacred space connected to the immaculate Virgin. Drawing inspiration from the many allegoric images made popular by the Song of Solomon, the square enclosed cloisters in convents - which had a fountain in the middle and were often, significantly, called “paradises” - sought to reproduce the formal structure of Eden and its character as a sin-free place where one could live in contemplation, immersed in divine bliss. In this context, the Cloister of the Clarisse is remarkable for its transgressive character. Not only do the scenes represented there reveal the frivolous atmosphere prevailing in the convent, which was a child of its time; the renovation actually subverts the symbolic and spiritual implications of the paradise-garden, while guarding its formal characteristics.