"Indiscriminatim modo Monasterium modo Conservatorium vocatur". Identità istituzionale e figure femminili nel Conservatorio di San Giuseppe di Conversano (secc. XVII-XIX)

Taking into account the extremely varied and complex world of female devotion, often eluding rigid interpretations and categorizations, this paper reconstructs the history of the Conservatory of San Giuseppe in Conversano between the 17th and 19th centuries. The research, based on unpublished archive sources, focuses on the different female figures that formed the community – prioresse, oblate, converse, educande – and on the institutional identity of the conservatory, which from the beginning of the 19th century pursued a long battle to be recognized as a cloistered monastery.