Acknowledgments

This book is the result of a collaboration between the two editors which started several years ago. After an enthusiastic discussion about the role of women writers in Renaissance Italy, and specifically about the role of widows and the possible influence of Birgitta of Sweden whose texts circulated widely from the late 14th century to the 17th century, we decided to apply for a grant for an extensive research project. The application was successful. We received funding from the Norwegian Research Council for three years (2018–2021), including funding for a PhD-student, a postdoc, and several workshops and conferences. Little did we know at that point about the obstacles to be caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, and which came to delay the project considerably. Still, despite the many hindrances along our way, we were able to organize two conferences, the first in Rome in September 2018 and the second in Oslo in June 2022. The project’s core group consisted of the principal investigator (Unn Falkeid), the researcher (Anna Wainwright), the postdoc (Eleonora Cappuccilli), the MSCA-fellow (Clara Stella), the PhD-student (Francesca Canepuccia), and the research assistant (Victor Frans). Between the two conferences, this group managed to gather for several minor workshops, in Rome, in Naples, at Vadstena in Sweden, and in Oslo, although our activities were far more limited than planned. Slowly the volume – the first extensive investigation of the political, literary, religious, and intellectual legacy of Birgitta of Sweden in Renaissance Italy – saw the light of day.

The editors are grateful to many people and different institutions that in various ways have assisted in the publication of this book. We would like to thank the Norwegian Research Council that generously funded the project, and which allowed us to extend the grant by one year. The staff at the Norwegian Institute in Rome and the Department of Philosophy, Classics, History of Art and Ideas, University of Oslo, provided invaluable assistance with the organization of the two conferences, and hosted many of the team for long periods of research. We would also like to express our gratitude to the staff at different libraries who helped us with finding sources, even in periods with limited access: Carolina Rediviva (Uppsala University Library), the Azzolino Archive in the Biblioteca Comunale di Jesi, Biblioteca Angelica, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Biblioteca Casanatense, Biblioteca Nazionale in Naples, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Biblioteca comunale degli Intronati in Siena, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale in Florence, The National Library in Oslo, The New York Public Library, the Morgan Library in New York, the Huntington Library in Los Angeles, and Manuela Michelloni at the Norwegian Institute in Rome. We are grateful to Victor Frans and the IT-staff at the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Oslo for their tenacious work in establishing the project’s database, which has been most valuable for all the contributors to this book as well as all the scholars connected to the project. Warm thanks go to Brill and to our editor, Ivo Romein, who were positive from the very first moment when we presented the book project, and to the two anonymous reviewers for their enthusiastic reports. Several colleagues and friends have supported this project from its very beginning, and we want to thank each of them, in alphabetic order: Kristin Bliksrud Aavitsland, Roger Andersson, Lina Bolzoni, Abigail Brundin, Claes Gejrot, Tamar Herzig, Angela La Delfa, F. Thomas Luongo, Shannon McHugh, Maria H. Oen, Meredith K. Ray, Sara Risberg, Diana Robin, Alessandra Bartolomei Romagnoli, Maria Serena Sapegno, Ramie Targoff, Lynn Lara Westwater, Elissa B. Weaver, and Gabriella Zarri.

Above all, we would like to express our deep gratitude to all our contributors for the valuable time invested in the project and for their unique contributions. It has been an immense pleasure and a most treasured learning process to work with this group, all specialists in their different fields, who generously accepted our invitation to devote their time to the study of the reception of Birgitta of Sweden. Unn thanks her beloved husband, Hans, and their three children, Emma, Therese, and Bernhard, for everything. Anna thanks Jim, Clara, and baby Sylvia for their adventurous spirit and companionship in Rome, Oslo and New Hampshire. Finally, we thank each other for the years of friendship and dialogue on this topic dear to our hearts.