Spirituals Bastions in the Margins of Catholic Europe: The Convent Architecture of the Annonciades Celestes in the 17th Century

Founded in Genoa in 1604, the Annunciades Célestes (called the Blue Nuns) settled in forty border cities of Protestantism from northern Italy until the Southern Netherlands during the first half of the 17th century, when the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) is in full swing. This order is particularly representative of female congregations emerged in the context of the Catholic Reformation. Strictly cloistered while being located in the heart of cities, these women challenged to reconcile spirit of retreat and insertion in the world. Building on my doctoral thesis, this paper will take part in the study in full development of women in religion and their artistic production by focusing on the architecture and plans of the monasteries built for and sometimes by women's on the borders of Catholic Europe. We will see how these convent buildings, apparently "out of the world", paradoxically could be interpreted as spiritual "bastions" in the work of the Catholic Reformation, playing a dual role, both active – by their missionary presence in the urban landscape – and defensive – by their look of fortresses.