Studia Historica: Historia Moderna (Jun 2016)
«We Shall See Again in Paradise». The Last Journey of the Servant of God Maria Caterina Brondi (1719)
Abstract
This article deals with the servant of God Maria Caterina Brondi (Sarzana, 1684-Pisa, 1719), also known by the time as the santina de Sarzana. She begins her road to perfection in her hometown under the auspicies of the Jesuits who are touring the Italian lands deploying the popular missions and then she pursues it under the spiritual direction of a number of ecclesiastics in towns belonging to the Republic of Genoa and to the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. Her experiences arouses the interest of the Grand-Duke Cosimo III and his daugther Anna Maria Luisa de Medici. Her characteristics as a female mystic together with the doubting reaction from church authorities she received rank her in the company of Saints Catherine of Siena, Teresa of Jesus and her contemporary Veronica Giuliani. The study sheds new light to the forms of lay spirituality, ecclesiastical surveilance and the active involvement from no less high a political official than the GrandDuke of Tuscany, who places her under his protection and patronage. Her death unlashes polemics and the cause of her beatification seems to have left unfinished.
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