"The Word Gave Himself as Food:" Female Piety and Food in the Italian Renaissance

This project considers the particularly passionate relationship between women and food, in the context of select artworks created for female convents and nunneries. The depiction of food and the act of eating in Renaissance artworks created for female religious institutions takes on powerful symbolic meaning for the viewers, acting as a didactic message about the relationship of the female viewer to Christ's spiritual and corporeal body. Furthermore, the use of food as a crucial tool for female spirituality offers insight into the ways that women constructed agency within a patriarchal society.