This 1997 volume considers pictured and picturing women in Renaissance and Baroque Italy as the subjects, creators, patrons and viewers of art. Art itself is broadly defined to include not only painting, sculpture and architecture, but also popular prints and domestic objects. Women's experiences and needs (as perceived by women themselves and as defined by men on their behalf) are seen as important determinants in the production and consumption of visual culture. How the real and ideal lives of women - nuns, brides, mothers, widows, artists, saints, sinners - are reflected in, and to some extent shaped by, works of art is also explored. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, this collection seeks to examine the art histories of women in Italy from the fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries.