A STORY OF LOVE AND PASSION: BENEDETTA CARLINI

Extract from the Record of the Investigation of Benedetta Carlini, c.1623

Sister Benedetta Carlini said in one of her ecstasies that when Jesus took her heart, she raised her sleeve up to mid-arm, and when he put the heart back he put it through her side and made it go through between the skin and the flesh on her chest until it arrived at its place, and it bulged out of her chest like a bread roll as it went along. This is stated by two nuns, one of whom says she was present and saw the heart when it was back in place up to one inch deep and saw that bread-like bulge on her chest. And both confirm that when he came to return the heart, he said that she should uncover herself and because she answered that she was ashamed to, he added where I am there is no shame. This she said in ecstasy.

One of her angels said in one of her ecstasies that since God eternal had elected her for his bride, when she was about to come up here [to the new monastery], he commanded all the angels of the Pesciatines to scatter flowers on the streets that she would pass and that they should welcome her, and that in ecstasy she saw not only the flowers scattered on the streets, but also all the angels bowing to her. Two nuns confirm what she said in ecstasy but they confess that they did not see flowers on any of the streets.

She said in ecstasy that God granted her the power to understand immediately what people were about to say as soon as they even uttered the first word. He also granted her the power to see into people's hearts. This was stated by only one nun.

While in ecstasy she revealed that the souls of some individuals had gone to paradise and she named some. Two [nuns] say this. And the first nun adds that one of these souls had received the right to be with her [Benedetta] always, and speaking through Benedetta it lamented not having known or seen Benedetta when it was alive.

She further revealed while in ecstasy that some souls had gone to purgatory and she specified the amount of time they had spent there before going to paradise. One nun said this.

She also said in ecstasy that she had received God's grace to help the souls that were near death and that she had taken many out of purgatory. And one morning, also in ecstasy, she showed how she took many from there, motioning with her hands as if she were taking them and telling the angels that they should carry them to paradise. She affirmed that she had received this privilege from God because of her new heart and added that she gave her blessing to those souls who had not finished their penance, and they felt great contentment and comfort from this because on her hands she had the wounds of Jesus Christ.

On the morning of St. John the Baptist, while in ecstasy, she assigned an angel to each of the nuns, in addition to their guardian angels, telling them the names and the order to which the angels belonged, all of which are written on a piece of paper. And this is affirmed by all the nuns. Both she and her companion have three angels each, as they themselves confess.

Benedetta's angels sermonized for two Lents on the gospel of the Mass of the day while the other nuns disciplined themselves. They exhorted the nuns to virtue and above all to obedience, poverty, and chastity. All say this, and they confirm that her angels call each other Signore and they are recognizable by the different dialects in which they speak - one in her maternal tongue, one in Florentine dialect and one in the dialect of Lucca.

She has been seen by two nuns renewing her wounds at various times with a large needle, as they themselves confess. And three other nuns state they have observed that her wounds sometimes seem very small and almost dry and later, after she has locked herself in her study for a while, they are fresh, as if they had been made recently.

Two nuns state that when she has her hair washed no puncture marks are left, and that her head remains clean. One of these nuns always does the washing and affirms that she has seen her locked in her study in front of a mirror, taking blood from her wound with a large needle and putting it on her head. And two nuns say they've observed that there were no visible puncture marks on her head and no broken skin, except at the start.

Three nuns report that she not only walks, but runs through the house, as if there were nothing wrong with her feet. One of these nuns once saw her jump down from a small table and heard her say "Whoever saw me jump would say that there's nothing wrong with my feet." Another nun, whose turn it was to wash the wounds on her feet, never saw them or found any blood there.

Many times three nuns have noticed that the two fingers continguous to the ring finger had the same colour as the ring where the fingers touched. Many times the ring was faded in color so that it was almost invisible and after she locked herself in her study for a while, the color was bright. And one of these nuns, suspecting that she was making the ring with saffron, looked around and finally found in her desk, a small brass box containing some diluted saffron. Another nun observed that those small stones that are on the ring in the form of a cross are sometimes broken and sometimes whole so that she is suspicious, as was the other nun.

Almost all the nuns say they have twice seen gold on the wounds on her hands, and particularly on the morning of the resurrection, but two say that before [these events] she had locked herself in her study for a while. One of these nuns added that while the others were preparing themselves in the choir, Benedetta took some time to come down and always kept her hands under her gown and did not take them out until after receiving the sacraments. That gold was tinsel. Another nun saw in her study thin golden sheets that were left over from when some things were guilded in the choir.

Five nuns say they saw another ring, a yellow one with a red stone, on the index finger of her right hand. But one nun says that even the ring was red, and three others say that they saw another ring that was all yellow and without a stone on her middle finger. And two of these suspected that she herself made the ring with saffron and the stone with blood from her wound . . .

Almost all the nuns say that for a whole year while she was abbess, she spent the days at the grate talking and laughing with a priest, which caused great scandal and wonder among the laity and the nuns. And for this purpose she often left Vesper services. One nun adds that during the course of the winter, she saw her at the small communion window with that priest until three at night at least twice or three times a week and they held and kissed each other's hands. And she did the same thing many times at the door of the convent, while she stood straight and he was on his knees. Another nun confirms having seen them at the small window three or four times. And she was seen by a nun many times with another priest at the same window. Once, when this nun was left there by force while Benedetta went to run an errand this priest asked her to put out her hand and when she refused, he started to put his inside but she closed the window on him just in time. Another nun states that on another occasion, the first priest went up on the altar and through the open grate that serves to see the holy sacrament when it is raised, spied into the choir to see who was there. This nun closed the grate on his face . . .

For two continuous years, two or three times a week, in the evening, after disrobing and going to bed waiting for her companion, who serves her, to disrobe also, she would force her into the bed and kissing her as if she were a man she would stir on top of her so much that both of them corrupted themselves because she held her by force sometimes for one, sometimes for two, sometimes for three hours. And [she did these things] during the most solemn hours, especially in the morning, at dawn. Pretending that she had some need, she would call her, and taking her by force she sinned with her as was said above. Benedetta, in order to have greater pleasure, put her face between the other's breasts and kissed them, and wanted always to be thus on her. And six or eight times, when the other nun did not want to sleep with her in order to avoid sin, Benedetta went to find her in her bed and, climbing on top, sinned with her by force. Also at that time, during the day, pretending to be sick and showing that she had some need, she grabbed her companion's hand by force, and putting it under herself, she would have her put her finger in her genitals, and holding it there she stirred herself so much that she corrupted herself. And she would kiss her and also by force would put her own hand under her companion and her finger into her genitals and corrupted her. And when the latter would flee, she would do the same with her own hands. Many times she locked her companion in the study, and making her sit down in front of her, by force she put her hands under her and corrupted her; she wanted her companion to do the same to her, and while she was doing this she would kiss her. She always appeared to be in a trance while doing this. Her angel, Splenditello, did these things, appearing as a boy of eight or nine years of age. This angel Splenditello through the mouth and hands of Benedetta, taught her companion to read and write, making her be near her on her knees and kissing her and putting her hands on her breasts. And the first time she made her learn all the letters without forgetting them; the second, to read the whole side of a page; the second day she made her take the small book of the Madonna and read the words; and Benedetta's two other angels listened to the lesson and saw the writing.

This Splenditello called her his beloved; he asked her to swear to be his beloved always and promised that after Benedetta's death he would always be with her and would make himself visible. He said I want you to promise me not to confess these things that we do together, I assure you that there is no sin in it; and while we did these things he said many times: give yourself to me with all your heart and soul and then let me do as I wish. Other times he said that if I were a man and always made new promises.

The same angel managed it so that neither Benedetta nor her companion did the usual [spiritual] exercises that the nuns did prior to general confession. He made the sign of the cross all over his companion's body after having committed many immodest acts with her; [he also said] many words that she couldn't understand and when she asked him why he was doing this, he said that he did this for her own good. Jesus spoke to her companion [through Benedetta] three times, twice before doing these dishonest things. The first time he said he wanted her to be his bride and he was content that she give him her hand; and she did this thinking it was Jesus. The second time it was in the choir at Forty Hours, holding her hands together and telling her that he forgave her all her sins. The third time it was after she was disturbed by these goings on, and he told her that there was no sin involved whatsoever and that Benedetta while doing these things had no awareness of them. All these deeds her companion confessed with very great shame.

[Source: Judith C. Brown, Immodest Acts: The Life of a Lesbian Nun in Renaissance Italy (1986), pp. 158-64.

Reading

Brown, Immodest Acts (1986), see above (parts of the `Introduction' to Brown's book are reprinted as "Lesbian Sexuality in Medieval and Early Modern Europe", in M. B. Duberman, M. Vicinus, and G. Chauncey Jr. (eds.), Hidden From History: Reclaiming the Gay and Lesbian Past (Penguin books, 1991), 67-75).

The documentary basis of Brown's book is challenged by Rudolph Bell, 'Renaissance Sexuality and the Florentine Archive', Renaissance Quarterly 40 (1987), pp. 485-511, with a reply by Brown.

For the broader background see:

Craig Harline, The Burdens of Sister Margaret - Inside a Seventeenth-century Convent (abridged edn, 2000)

Helmut Puff, 'Female Sodomy: The Trial of Katherina Hetzeldorfer (1477), Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 30 (2000)

Valerie Traub, "The (In)Significance of `Lesbian' Desire in Early Modern England", in Jonathan Goldberg (ed.), Queering the Renaissance (1994), 62-83.

Lyndal Roper, The Holy Household: Women and Morals in Reformation Augsburg (1989), 257-8.