Space of power between nobility and clergy: St Anne's Conservatory in Lecce in the modern age

This paper focuses its attention on St Anne’s Conservatory in Lecce, the intended realm of noblewomen, spanning a period of time ranging from its origins, which date from the second half of the seventeenth century, until the institutional turn of the nineteenth century. The events of the conservatory are part of a seventeenth-century urban matrix that is visibly marked by a strong religious connotation, where the interpenetration of ecclesiastical and political spheres is widespread and ongoing. Indeed, the background of the historical reconstruction of the institute will be analyzed, through an unpublished archival excavation conducted at the State Archive of Lecce, involving the role of some privileged female figures, but also looking into everyday life and, above all, into the jurisdictional relationship, associated with often conflicting tones, between the Church and local authorities, between the spiritual and temporal power of the government in a modern Southern community.