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Molly Morris on

Strange MiraclesA Study of the Peculiar Healings

of St. Maria Maddelena de Pazzi

The Renaissance Italian nun St. Maria Maddalena de Pazzi

() entered the Carmelite convent of Santa Maria degliAngeli in Florence as a teenager and remained there until her deathat the age of forty-one. In the convent, fellow nuns transcribed whatshe uttered during her numerous ecstasies, today known as herworks.1 However, up until about thirty-five years ago when theywere first published, knowledge of Maria Maddalena came primar-ily from an important hagiographical account written by Vicenzo

Puccini, her confessor for the last two years of her life.2 The saintsreported actions and miracles in Puccinis Vita have received con-siderably less scholarly attention than her works.3 I wish to exam-ine Puccinis account of two strange miracles Maria Maddalena issaid to have performed by licking the putrefying sores of two nuns,as well as another related episode in the convent that involves hereating the filth of human wounds.4 There are similar stories present

in saints lives and devotional texts of the Middle Ages and theRenaissance. I want to show that the representation of saints who lickor consume filthy bodily substances is not simply a fixed and

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unchanging motif of hagiographical literature.5 In these accounts,various important themes emerge that are associated with the prac-

tice. For example, the saints use it as a penance, an attempt to con-quer disgust, or an attempt to seek to achieve heroic feats ofself-discipline. I will argue that in these accounts, it is the saintsthemselves who benefit from this practice. I will show that the rep-resentation of Maria Maddalenas actions is distinguished from theactions of other saints and that her actions point to a new theme.Unlike these other cases, the important focus of Maria Maddalenas

remarkable lickings of putrid flesh is the healing of the patients forwhom she cares. With Maria Maddalena, the representation of thisunusual religious practice shifts from an act focused on the self toone that is concerned solely with the well-being of others. Theepisodes involving Maria Maddalena are ultimately used to associateher with Christ.

Like many saints, Maria Maddalena is shown as having a fervent

desire to care for the ill. She frequently visited those in the infirmary,no doubt because she was prohibited from mingling freely among theimpoverished sick of public society. The first of the two miraclesunder discussion occurs in . It involves a nun named BarbaraBassi who suffered from a contagious disease that had spreadthroughout her whole body, eating away at her flesh.6 Pucciniremarks that the woman had repeatedly asked Maria Maddalena for

prayers. One day Maria Maddalena went to visit the woman in theinfirmary and licked her wounds: having gone to visit this sickwoman, she [Maddalena] was so inflamed with Charity that shebegan to lick her [Bassis] hands and arms with her tongue, and shelicked wherever the pestiferous disease afflicted her the most.7

Maria Maddalena then told Bassi to have confidence in God and theVirgin, and a few days later the woman was completely healed. In

, Maria Maddalenas second bizarre miracle was performed onSister Maria Benigna Orlandini, who also endured a contagious dis-ease considered to be leprosy by her physicians. Like Barbara Bassi,

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this sister had frequently asked Maria Maddalena for prayers. Pucci-ni declares that Maria Maddalena went to the woman and licked her

leprous wounds: she went to where the woman was, and havingremoved the veils from her head, with her own tongue she licked thewomans ears, and her head, and wherever the disease was greatest,with such great charity.8 In a brief time this woman also was com-pletely healed of her leprosy. These miracles are related to anotherextraordinary event that also involves Maria Maddalenas licking ofwounds. Maria Maddalena lovingly nursed two lay sisters and, in

or , one of the women (Mattea) fell ill with an incurablesore. The wound was offensive and smelly, and, eventually, wormsgrew within it. While attending Mattea, Maria Maddalena removedthe vermin, and it is implied that the saint then ate them. Puccinirecounts the story as part of Maddalenas effort to care for thewoman: with her own hands she wanted to dress the wound, andeven when worms began to grow within it, she dedicated herself

with great diligence to removing them, and even sometimes shewould put her mouth to it, as if she were tasting some kind of exquis-ite liquor.9

While two of these peculiar events are recorded as miracles,they are also manifestations of the bizarre practice of licking filthfrom diseased human bodies.10 Maria Maddalenas lickings of lep-rous, putrefying wounds perhaps demonstrate the astonishing and

odd behavior characteristic of a dramatic and saintly personality.11Maddalenas self-mortifications and radical holiness expressed them-selves in similar peculiarities often found recorded of other saints,especially women. Some examples might include Maddalenas whip-ping of fellow nuns, gouging and lashing her own flesh, mysteriousillnesses and diabolic attacks, a severely restricted diet, and a refusalto wear shoes. As mentioned earlier, her licking of foul sores and

ingestion of the disease of human wounds certainly places her amongvarious saints who did the same. Matre briefly mentions this prac-tice, noting that many women mystics engaged in scatophagy.

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Matre sees this practice in the perspective of female mysticism andattributes it to a taste for abjection in so much as it has something

to do with the mother and fecal matter.12 Bynum remarks thatsome Italian saints drank pus or scabs from lepers sores, eating andincorporating disease, and the desire for illness is a common themein the Nonnenbcher, where the sisters expose themselves to bittercold or pray to be afflicted with leprosy.13 Indeed, many mystics andsaints sought to degrade and debase themselves.

A close look at the accounts of these saints, however, reveals that

they are said to have performed such outrageous acts for reasonsother than those identified here.14 One example appears in Raymondof Capuas Vita of Catherine of Siena ().15 Catherines filtheating was sometimes imitated by subsequent saints. Perhaps Pucci-ni wishes to illustrate Maria Maddalena following in her Sienesepredecessors footsteps. Maria Maddalena was well acquainted withthe events of Catherines life and was quite devoted to her.16 How-

ever, the episode involving Catherine is presented in quite a differ-ent manner than that of Maria Maddalena. In Raymonds account, awoman suffers from a horrendously corrupt sore so loathsome thatthose near her must stop up their nostrils to avoid the stench.17

Catherine tirelessly cares for her but is utterly disgusted by the filthand foul odor of disease. The heroic saint reprimands herself andthen, in an act of marvelous strangeness, drinks the water in which

she has washed the putrefying sore: As the Lord lives, who is thebeloved Spouse of my soul, you will be made to swallow down thething for which you show such deep disgust. So saying, she gatheredinto a bowl the water with which the ulcer had been washed and thecorrupt matter which had come away with it, and going to one sideshe swallowed it. On the instant, all feeling of disgust died downwithin her ().18 Raymonds description demonstrates Cather-

ines desire to overcome the tremendous obstacle of her own repul-sion. Raymond then describes how Christ appears to her in a vision,praising her for having overcome disgust for this extraordinary

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drink, and rewards her with the delicious blood flowing from hisside. She eagerly swallows his blood to satiate her mystic thirst:

[she] fastened her lips upon that sacred wound, and still more eager-ly the mouth of her soul, and there she slaked her mystic thirst forlong and long. At last our Lord gave a sign and she drew away fromthe Fountain, her thirst at the same time quenched and re-kindled().19 While modern readers of Catherines Vita may find them-selves before such depictions of unusual mysteries and gape in dis-belief, in the medieval mind they were accepted and even expected.

Like Catherine of Siena, a few other saints who ate or drank filthare depicted as having a fervent desire to overcome their own repul-sion for lepers, the sick, or the festering wounds of the ailing. Thepractice is not limited to women or to Italians. Some ate filth as apenance. For example, the Italian founder of the Franciscans, St.Francis of Assisi () felt disgust for lepers. On one occa-sion, he ate out of the same bowl as a leper whose bloody, putrefy-

ing hands mingled with the food therein. The account states thatFrancis did this in order to impose a penance on himself for havingoffended and humiliated the man.20 In an elaborate theatrical ges-ture, Francis carried this out in front of his disciples, who heinstructed by eating his leprous meal. Contrarily, the most peculiarcase of these actions involves the Italian Blessed Angela of Foligno (c.), a Franciscan tertiary. She told her confessor (who was

also her scribe) that she drank the bloody wash water and ate the scabof a leper for whom she cared but that she felt no disgust in doingso. Instead, she identified the leper with Christ and declared that eat-ing and drinking the filth from his body was just as if she had receivedHoly Communion.21 Angela is thus represented as having consumedhuman filth as a monstrous Eucharist. There are several otherexamples, such as the Italian St. Catherine of Genoa (),

who refused to join any religious order. She attempted to overcomeher disgust by eating pus and lice from the bodies of impoverishedsick.22 Both the Spanish Jesuit St. Francis Xavier () and the



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Italian Franciscan St. Joseph of Copertino () consumed thepus from the festering, loathsome wounds of the sick in an effort to

overcome their own great nausea.23 The Spanish Jesuit St. PeterClaver (), owing to continuous victory over himself,treated foul-smelling sick slaves by putting his mouth to their worm-infested sores, sucking out the pus, and cleaning their wounds withhis tongue.24 The account claims that he managed after many yearsto take pleasure in such things repugnant to nature and found theputrefied matter of infected bodies sweet and agreeable. The Peru-

vian St. Rose of Lima (), a Dominican tertiary, was soashamed of her disgust for the corrupted blood of an ill woman thatshe drank it in order to overcome her queasiness.25 The French Vis-itandine St. Margaret Mary Alacoque (), in a desire to con-quer herself, describes how she ate the vomit of an ill patient andeven filled her mouth with the excrement of a woman afflicted withdysentery.26 Indeed, other eccentric examples certainly exist but

remain buried in archives or are perhaps even unrecorded.27Clearly, in these accounts, the practice represents more than

simply a manifestation of self-punishment. Perhaps the narrationsattempt to show how these saints incorporate disease as a means toidentify with the suffering of the afflicted. Yet when biographersdescribe the events, they usually present them as something worthyof admiration and wonder. Healing is not the focus of the descrip-

tions. More important is the fact that the nauseating acts are fre-quently associated with an effort to gain control over personalrepugnance, the achievement of heroic feats of self-conquest, or theperformance of a penance. The saints are often represented as hav-ing gained power over their own bodily senses after they eat filth.

Maria Maddalenas wound lickings and worm eating fail to lendthemselves to an interpretation as heroic self-discipline, as in the case

of these other saints. Furthermore, her strange episodes are notperformed as a response to some kind of involuntary testing, nordoes she seek to conquer aversion for dirty things. Puccinis descrip-

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tions are repeated (and amplified) by Maria Maddalenas sister nunswho testified regarding these events in at her beatification

trial. Neither Puccini nor the nuns depict Maria Maddalena as hav-ing been repulsed by her leprous sister nuns. Nor do they indicatethat she considered her wound lickings as a form of penance. Thenuns statements are contained in the Summary of the Actions, Virtuesand Miracles of Maria Maddalena dePazzi.28 Their testimony also asso-ciates all three episodes with Maria Maddalenas effort to heal.

In the nuns testimony, Maria Maddalena is presented as having

seen her actions as a form ofimitatio Christi. In the Summary, Vange-lista describes how she discovered that Maria Maddalena had eatenworms from Matteas sore. Vangelista questioned Maria Maddalena,who responded by paralleling her own actions to those of Christs:because asking her if she had done such a thing, she responded tome:What did Jesus do for us?29 Here, the saint acknowledges hergreater spiritual purpose by associating her actions with those of

Christs for the benefit of humankind. Her reply calls to mind theimage of Christ, the great doctor, who heals the disease (sin) of theworld. In The Sacramental Remedy, St. Bonaventure described Jesus asthe great physician who effects our cure. He is the remedy for sin:

Because the restorative principle, which is Christ crucified,namely the incarnate Word, who takes care of all things mostwisely, is divine and cures most mercifully. . . . He ought torestore and heal the ailing human race in a manner suitable tothe one ailing, the sickness, the occasion of his becoming sickand the cure of the sickness itself.30

Christ, as the great doctor, healed both spiritually and physically.I am not suggesting that Christ licked leprous sores. He did not

ingest pus or drink bathwater. However, the presentation of Maria

Maddalenas licking of wounds in order to heal clearly echoes cer-tain miracles of Christ using his holy spittle.31 On more than oneoccasion,Christ applied his spit in order to physically heal others. In



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John :-, Christ heals a blind man by spitting on the ground, mak-ing mud with the saliva, and applying it to his eyes.32 Another exam-

ple in Mark :- narrates that Christ healed a deaf mute when hetouched the mans tongue with his saliva.33 Last, Jesus heals anoth-er blind man with the direct application of his spittle on the blindmans eyes in Mark :-.34 Likewise, Maria Maddalena is shownas being aware of the healing power of her spittle and becomes ahealer. She has no concern for taking filth into herself but rather isconcerned for making others well. In her case, the power of God

working through her is clearly associated with this practice.35The accounts state that Maria Maddalena did not perform a

miraculous cure on Mattea but instead urged the woman to endurewith patience. Puccini notes, She did not fail, with loving words, toexhort the sick patient to tolerate everything with patience, assur-ing her that in Paradise she would have a great recompense.36 Afterthe two women die, Maria Maddalena prepares their bodies for bur-

ial, prays for their souls, and asks God to punish her for their faults.God complies with her request and after several days of experienc-ing great pains, God shows Maria Maddalena her sisters souls inheaven. Here, the absence of a performed miracle enables MariaMaddalena to heal on a spiritual level. Emphasizing that Maria Mad-dalena is instrumental in the spiritual welfare of the soul rather thanjust the physical illness of the body, Puccini mentions the episode in

order to demonstrate her charity toward her neighbors and todescribe her religious fervor:the zeal, that she had for the health ofothers was not less than her charity, and she demonstrated it towardsher neighbors in their needs, both spiritual and corporal.37 Whilein this case no miracle is performed, her filth eating is still associat-ed with a spiritual healing of sorts, which is then reinforced byMaria Maddalenas vision of the two lay sisters in Paradise.

Puccini emphasizes Maria Maddalenas conscious effort to heal,mentioning twice that she licked Barbara and Maria Benigna wher-ever the pestiferous disease was worst. Maria Maddalenas repug-

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nant acts are motivated solely by her charitable concern for herpatients recuperation. Unlike the narrations regarding other saints,

Maria Maddalenas filth lickings are carried out after specific requestsfor her intervention.The nuns testimony in Summaryalso associatesMaria Maddalenas behavior solely with curing.38 The Mother Supe-rior (Vangelista) indicates that she found out about the first miracleby suddenly discovering the woman restored to health: I used to seethe said sick woman every day. Having seen her then unexpectedlyhealthy, and having asked her how this happened, she told me how

Sister Maria Maddalena, with the greatest of charity, had done thiskind gesture and how she had immediately begun to improve inhealth.39 The miraculous nature of the cure remains the focal point.In the related case of Mattea, who died, Maria Maddalenas inter-vention proves to function as a spiritual healing for the woman.

What is clear with regard to the accounts of these other saints isthat the abhorrent practice focuses on the marvelous nature of the

consumption rather than healing. I am not implying that in thedescriptions of the other saints (such as Catherine of Genoa), they arenot shown as having tirelessly served the sick with great kindness andgenerosity, but when they ate the putrefied matter from theirpatients infected bodies, the narrators focus was on the consumptionof it. As contradictory and outrageous as it may seem, the saintsemerge as individuals who spiritually benefit from eating the lice

from a human body or sucking putrid blood and pus. With some, suchas Catherine of Siena, their ingestion of filth represents triumph andself-liberation. In essence, the saints in question profit by conqueringpersonal weakness or aversion for dirty things. No longer hinderedby their own bodily senses, their self-conquest enables them to con-tinue their assistance to the destitute. Additionally, in some cases,such as that of Francis of Assisi, the repulsive gesture serves the saint

as penance or a form of suffering. The penance, however, ultimatelybenefits the saints own personal spiritual journey and serves anillustrative lesson to his followers. Even more shocking, as in the



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case of Angela of Foligno, the loathsome act does not benefit theleper but instead offers her spiritual nourishment as a substitute for

Christs body in eucharistic form (putrid blood as Christs blood inthe chalice, dirty scabs as Christs body in the Host).

Like other biographers, Puccini uses the episodes regarding filtheating in order demonstrate the saints spiritual strength in the faceof loathsome illness. However, Puccinis accounts (as well as those ofthe nuns) highlight Maria Maddalenas heroism as a selfless miracleworker. In the stories of the other saints, the focus of the practice

remains on the self. With Maria Maddalena, the practice is carriedout in order to alleviate others suffering. Her focus shifts to others.In Maria Maddalena, this peculiar practice is represented as a com-pletely selfless actit is a gift solely for the sake of the well-beingof those served. Maria Maddalenas licking of bodily filth becomes apractice that associates her with Christ in his role as physician andhealer (not merely as a vehicle to overcome her own repulsion). Her

licking is also a form of imitating faith in spittle as a Christ-like, heal-ing substance. Perhaps her gestures are also an act of faith in whatChrist says in Mark :-:there is nothing outside a person thatby going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.Likewise, this might apply to all saints who take Christs words to theextreme when they eat the filth of human wounds. For Maria Mad-dalena, her actions become an act of faith in order to make others

clean.Maria Maddalenas transformation of a sickening deed into

repeated miraculous healings compels us to reexamine the meaningof such acts in a new context. In effect, she turns the abhorrent actof consuming putrid matter into two performed miracles. Christsnumerous miracles, many of them healings, were not for his owngood but for the spiritual good of others.As I have demonstrated, in

all cases, the practice of eating putrid matter from human bodies hasspiritual significance for the saint in question. Furthermore, it revealsthat even the most depraved actions can exemplify a saints aspira-

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tions toward holiness. With Maria Maddalena, the practice itself isredefinedher distinctiveness lies in her association with Christ as

he offered healing and hope to those he served. In a wider context,these cases demonstrate that themes often illustrated in hagio-graphical literature (such as personal suffering, self-discipline, andpenance) are only part of a saints spiritual journey toward theDivine. Those practices that succeed in focusing on others in com-plete selflessness complete that path toward God. Maria Maddalenasstrange miracles remind us that the imitation of Christ can be as

astonishing and as paradoxical as the lives of the saints themselves.

Notes

1. The convents confessor ordered the nuns to write down her utterances during hervisions. These mystical discourses comprise her works. They are contained in Tuttele opere dai manoscritti originali, ed. Bruno Nardini,Bruno Visentin,Carlo Catena, andGiulio Agresti, vols. (Florence: Nardini, ). The majority of scholarship

pertains to her visions (works) and does not concern my study. However, I cite themost noteworthy here:Armando Maggi,Blood as Language in Maria Maddalena dePazzis Visions, Rivista di Letterature Moderne e Comparate (): ;Armando Maggi, The Voice and the Silences of Maria Maddalena de Pazzi,AnnalidItalianistica (): ; Armandi Maggi,Uttering the Word:The Mystical Per-

formances of Maria Maddalena dePazzi, a Renaissance Visionary(Albany: State Univer-sity of New York Press, ); Antonio Riccardi, The Mystic Humanism of MariaMaddalena de Pazzi (), in Creative Women in Medieval and Early ModernItaly: A Religious and Artistic Renaissance, ed. E. Ann Matter and John Coakley

(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press,), ; and Claudio Cate-na, S.Maria Maddalena dePazzi Carmelitana:orientamenti spirituali e ambiente in cui visse(Rome: Institutum Carmelitanum,).

2. I am grateful to the Carmelitana Collection in Washington, D.C., for allowing meto use the Italian edition of Vicenzo Puccinis biography titled Vita della Veneran-da Madre Suor M.Maddalena dePazzi fiorentina monaca dellordine Carmelitano nel Monas-

tero di S.Maria de gli Angeli di Borgo S.Fridiano di Firenze (Florence: Giunti, ),aswell as other rare texts they own. For an anonymous early English translation, seeThe Life of Suor Maria Maddalena de Patsi , vol. ofEnglish Recusant Literature

(London: Scolar Press, ).Puccini composed his Vita in order to promote the cause for Maria Maddalenascanonization, and it played a central role in bringing about her beatification process,which began in . Tiziana Zaninelli argues that the convent sisters were really the



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true authors of Puccinis text. See Santa Maria Maddalena de Pazzi e lambienteculturale in cui visse, (PhD diss., University of Fribourg, ), .

3. Karen-Edis Barzman has discussed Puccinis Vita in her study titled Sacred Imageryand the Religious Lives of Women, ,in Women and Faith: Catholic ReligiousLife in Italy from Late Antiquity to the Present, ed. Lucetta Scaraffia and Gabriella Zarri(Cambridge:Harvard University Press,), . Barzman discusses instancesin which Maria Maddalenas own mystical speech (in her works) is changed in Puc-cinis biography, arguing that it neutralizes the political tenor of her own voice.

4. In this essay, the filth from human bodies to which I refer is considered loathsomeit is diseased, infectious, and dirty. Mary Douglas, in Purity and Danger(New York:Frederick A. Praeger, ), , describes the matter issuing from the orifices ofthe body as marginal stuff of the most obvious kind because it has traversed theboundary of the body. See also Julia Kristeva, Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection,trans. Leon S. Roudiez (New York: Columbia University Press, ), , where sheoffers one of the most well-known theoretical explanations for filth: filth is theabject. It is often repulsive not so much because of the lack of cleanliness or healthbut because it disturbs identity, system, and order.

5. I am grateful to Armando Maggi and John Coakley for their valuable suggestions andcomments on this article.

6. Ironically, Barbara Bassi was once a nurse to Maria Maddalena during one of her ill-

nesses in

. See Claudio Catena, Le malattie di S. Maria Maddalena de Pazzi,Carmelus (): .7. All English translations of Puccinis Vita are my own. Andata un giorno visitarla

fu talmente accesa di carit, che si diede a leccarle con la lingua, e le mani,e le brac-cia dove pi laffliggeva quel pestifero male ().

8. Senand da lei, e havendole tolti i veli di capo, con la propria lingua lecc lorec-chie, ed il capo di quella, ove maggiore era il male, con si gran carit ().

9. Volle con la sue mani medicar la piaga; anzi generando quella de vermi si ponevacon grand diligenza a levargli, e talora vi metteva la bocca mostrando di gustare

qualche esquisita vivanda ().10. Puccini narrates fourteen miracles Maria Maddalena performed in life. Three ofthem involve restoring spoiled wine and casting out a demon from a possessedchilds body. The remaining eleven are healing miracles. Nine miracles performedin life were approved by the Sacred Congregation of Rites in before MariaMaddalenas beatification in the same year.

11. See Eric John Dingwall, Very Peculiar People: Portrait Studies in the Queer, the Abnormal,and the Uncanny(New Hyde Park, N.Y.: University Books, ). In his chapter onMaria Maddalena he states that she is an example of a masochistic exhibitionist and

claims she had a neurotic personality, .12. Le got de labjection en tant quil a quelque chose voir avec la mre autour des

matires fcales. . . . Dans cette perspective, bien des mystiques sadonnent lascatophagie. Jacques Matre,Anorexies Religieuses Anorexie Mentale (Paris:Les ditionsdu Cerf, ), .

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13. See Caroline Walker Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy Fast:The Religious Significance of Foodto Medieval Women (Berkeley: University of California Press,), . The corpusof nine texts referred to as the Nonnenbcher consists of spiritual autobiographieswritten by cloistered women in the fourteenth century. Romana Guarnieri alsopoints out that the followers of the sect of the Spirit of Freedom would drinkworm-infested water and eat rotten meat. Il movimento del Libero Spirito: dalleorigini al secolo XVI, inArchivio italiano per la storia della piet (): .

14. For discussions regarding the filth eating of Catherine of Siena and Angela of Folig-no, see my two studies, Ingesting Bodily Filth: Defilement in the Spirituality ofAngela of Foligno, Romance Quarterly50, no. 3 (2003): 204216, and RepulsiveFeasts: St. Catherine of Sienas Trials and Rewards in Raymond of Capuas LegendaMajor, Fides Quaerens Intellectum , no. (): .

15. Mary Douglas mentions Catherine of Siena as an example in her discussion on howhumanitys rules of dirt-avoidance can be set aside for the sake of friendship: whenshe felt revulsion from the wounds she was tending, [she] is said to have bitterlyreproached herself. Sound hygiene was incompatible with charity, so she deliberatelydrank off a bowl of pus, (Douglas, Purity and Danger, ).

16. Maria Maddalena had even read Catherines famous letters, as well as her Vita. Theconvents library holdings contained both Catherines letters and Raymonds biog-raphy. Both Puccini and Maria Maddalenas convent sister Maria Pacifica note her

particular devotion to Catherine and remark that Maria Maddalenas baptismal namewas Caterina. See Maria Pacifica, Breve Ragguaglio della Vita della Santa Madrefatto dalla Madre Suor Maria Pacifica del Tovaglia, in vol. I ofTutte le opere, .Modern scholars have also pointed to the profound influence the Sienese saint hadon Maria Maddalena. In particular see Bruno Secondin, Santa Maria Maddalena dePazzi:esperienza e dottrina (Rome: Institutum Carmelitanum,) ;S.Thor-Salviat, La dottrina spirituale di Santa Maria Maddalena dePazzi (Careggi: Monasterodi S.Maria Maddalena de Pazzi,), xivxv;Maggi, Blood as Language ;Rudolph Bell, Holy Anorexia (Chicago, University of Chicago Press,), ;

and Zaninelli, Santa Maria Maddalena de Pazzi e lambiente culturale in cui visse,.

17. These women were also known as the Mantellate (Third Order Dominican). Theywere devoted to prayer, penitential acts, and service to the sick and poor.

18. Vivit, inquit,Altissimus, Sponsus dulcissimus animae meae, quia id quod tan tumabominaris, infra tua viscera recondetur. Mox que illius foedi vulneris loturam cumsanie in scutellam recolligens, ac seorsum abiens, totum bibit. Quo facto, cunctacessavit abominationis illius tentatio (IV, ). All English quotations of Raymondof Capua are from The Life of Catherine of Siena, trans. Conleth Kearns (Wilmington:

Michael Glazier, ). All Latin quotations are from Raymond of Capua, Vita S.Catharinae Senensis, inActa Sanctorum,vol., April (Paris: Palm,), .Chapter and section numbers are indicated.

19. At illa cernens se positam ad fistulam fontis vitae, sacratissimo vulneri os applicanscorporis, sed longe amplius os mentis, ineffabilem et inexplicabilem potum hausit



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per non parvae morae spatium,tam avide quam abunde. Tandem innuente Domino,ab ipso fonte sejungitur, satiata simul et sitibunda (IV, ).

20. See I fiori dei tre compagni, trans. Nello Vian, ed. Jacques Cambell (Milan: Vita e Pen-siero, ), .

21. See Angela of Foligno, Il libro della Beata Angela da Foligno,ed.Ludger Thier and AbeleCalufetti (Grottaferrata, Rome: Collegii S. Bonaventurae ad Claras Aquas, ),.

22. See Umile Bonzi da Genova, Santa Caterina Fieschi Adorno, vol. (Turin: Marietti,), . According to a Vita dated , the Italian St. Catherine of Bologna(), a member of the Poor Clares, is said to have licked the wounds of her fel-low religious sisters and by so doing healed some of them. This is briefly mentionedin passing and there are no names or details given. See Giovanni Sabadino degli Ari-enti, Gynevera de le clare donne, ed. Corrado Ricci and A.Bacchi della Lega (; repr.Bologna: Romagnoli-DallAcqua, ),. It is mentioned again by GiacomoGrassetti, Vita di S.Caterina da Bologna (Bologna: Clemente Maria Sassi, ), ,but no names or details are given.

23. See Orazio Torsellino, The Admirable Life of S. Francis Xavier, trans. Thomas Fitzher-bert (; repr. London: Scolar Press, ), ; and Domenico Bernino, Vita delvenerabile padre Fr. Giuseppe da Copertino (Rome: Ludovico Tinassi and GirolamoMainardi, ), .

24. See Longaro degli Oddi, Della vita del Beato Pietro Claver della Compagnia di Ges dettolApostolo degli Etiopi cavata da processi formati per la sua canonizzazione (Rome:Tipografia delle Belle Arti, ).

25. See Leonardum Hansen, Vita mirabilis et mors pretiosa B. Rosae de Maria Limensis(Lovanii: Nempaei, ), .

26. See Marguerite-Marie Alacoque, Vie et oeuvres,vol.,ed.Mgr.Gauthey (Paris:Anci-enne Libraire Poussielgue,), .

27. For example, a certain Capuchin nun named Giuseppa Teresa used this unhealthypractice as penance.In an unpublished manuscript dated August , , the authorrecords that she put filthy things in her mouth until she had sucked out all the putridmaterial, consumed bed bugs and human lice, licked up disgusting spit from theground, and ate bread dipped in rotting and putrid blood. The manuscript is locat-ed in the general archives of the Servite Order in Rome, in Moniales et Mantellate, (a manuscript collection called Esame dello spirito di alcune Monache di Vailate, tredelle quali sono Servite ed una Capuccina ed alcune lettere de loro Direttori). Theydate from to . I am grateful to Conrad M. Borntrager, O.S.M. for mak-ing this available to me.

28. The complete title of the work that I refer to as the Summaryis Summarium,actionum,

virtutum et miraculorum servae dei Mariae Magdalenae de Pazzis ordinis Carmelitarum exprocessu remissoriali desumptorum, ed. Ludovico Saggi (Rome: Institutum Carmeli-tanum, ). All English translations of the nuns testimony in the Summaryare myown. First published in in honor of the fourth centenary of the birth of MariaMaddalena, the Summarycontains selections of the saints beatification process.

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29. Perch domandandoli io se haveva fatto tal cosa, rispose: Che ha fatto Gies pernoi? ().

30. See part of Bonaventures Breviloquium, trans. Erwin Esser Nemmers (London: B.Herder Book Company, ), .

31. E. Cobham Brewer, inA Dictionary of Miracles: Imitative,Realistic,and Dogmatic (;repr. Detroit:Gale Research Company, ), , collects a number of mirac-ulous cures by saints using saliva, including a repair of a cut-off thumb by St.Attalus() and the forming of a mouth and two eyes by St. Francis of Paula ()for a baby born deformed. None of the miracles Brewer discusses involves lickingwounds or ingesting bodily filth. He fails to mention Maria Maddalenas strange lick-ing miracles.

32. When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva andspread the mud on the mans eyes, saying to him,Go, wash in the pool of Siloam[which means Sent]. Then he went and washed and came back able to see. Allscriptural quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version.

33. He took him aside in private, away from the crowd,and put his fingers into his ears,and he spat and touched his tongue. Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and saidto him,Ephphatha, that is,Be opened. And immediately his ears were opened, histongue was released, and he spoke plainly.

34. He took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village; and when he hadput saliva on his eyes and laid his hands on him, he asked him,Can you see anything?And the man looked up and said,I can see people, but they look like trees,walking.Then Jesus laid his hands on his eyes again; and he looked intently and his sight wasrestored, and he saw everything clearly.

35. Maria Maddalenas licking of wounds to heal must have been regarded with greatinterest by later generations. Francesco Lorenzinis Vita di S. Giuliana Falconieri(Rome:Komarek,) , reports that St. Juliana (), foundress ofthe Servites, licked putrid blood from the wounds of the sick, healing them. Ironi-cally, Lorenzini even names Maria Maddalena as having done the same,and confirmsthat she modeled her actions on those of Juliana. Early sources do not confirm thatJuliana licked diseased wounds. The source of Lorenzinis information regardingJulianas filth licking is most likely a writing called Giornale e ricordi of fra Nicol ofPistoia, said to have been written in , but not discovered until . In the twen-tieth century it was established that this writing is spurious and was actually writtenin . Julianas fictitious filth licking was probably added in order to promote hercause for canonization. See Monumenta ordinis servorum Sanctae Mariae, vol. (Roulers, Belgium: Jules de Meester, ), . I am grateful to Conrad Born-trager, O.S.M., for supplying me with these hard-to-find documents.

36.

Non restava poi con parole amorevoli dessortar linferma a tolerare il tutto conpazienza, assicurandola, che in Paradiso nhavrebbe ricevuto larghissima rimuner-azione ().

37. Il zelo, chella hebbe dellaltrui salute, non fu gi minore la carit, la quale eserci-tava verso i suo prossimi ne loro bisogni si spirituali, come corporali ().



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38. Herman Boerhaave () stated that it is a known observation among thevulgar, that the saliva is efficacious in cleansing foul wounds, and cicatrizing recentones; thus dogs by licking their wounds which are accessible, have them heal in a veryshort time, quoted in G. Chowdharay-Best,Notes on the Healing Properties of Sali-va, Folklore ():. It is interesting to note that in Christian symbolismthe dog was an emblem of priests, who are appointed to be caretakers of Christsflock (humans). It was thought that the tongue of a dog heals a wound by licking it.Comparing the dog to priests, a Latin bestiary of the twelfth century confirms thatthis is because the wounds of sinners are cleansed, when they are laid bare in con-fession, by the penance imposed by the priest. T. H.White, trans. The Bestiary:A Bookof Beasts (New York: G. P. Putnams Sons, ), .

39. Vedevo ogni giorno la detta inferma e vedendola poi inaspettatamente sana edomandandoli come ci era seguito, disse come Suor Maria Maddalena con gran-dissima carit se lhaveva fatto un tale ossequio e come subito haveva cominciato amigliorare (). Maria Maddalena was quite reserved about other unusual eventsof her life in the convent. See Armando Maggi, Performing/Annihilating the Word:Body as Erasure in the Visions of a Florentine Mystic, The Drama Review:A Journal ofPerformance Studies (): .

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