Molly Morri son

Strange Miracles
A Study of the Peculiar Healings
of St. Maria Maddelena de Pazzi
The Renaissance Italian nun St. Maria Maddalena de Pazzi
(.,tt.t-,) entered the Carmelite convent of Santa Maria degli
Angeli in Florence as a teenager and remained there until her death
at the age of forty-one. In the convent, fellow nuns transcribed what
she uttered during her numerous ecstasies, today known as her
works.
1
However, up until about thirty-ve years ago when they
were rst 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 saints
reported 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 is
said to have performed by licking the putrefying sores of two nuns,
as well as another related episode in the convent that involves her
eating the lth of human wounds.
4
There are similar stories present
in saints lives and devotional texts of the Middle Ages and the
Renaissance. I want to show that the representation of saints who lick
or 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 of
self-discipline. I will argue that in these accounts, it is the saints
themselves who benet from this practice. I will show that the rep-
resentation of Maria Maddalenas actions is distinguished from the
actions 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 esh is the healing of the patients for
whom she cares. With Maria Maddalena, the representation of this
unusual religious practice shifts from an act focused on the self to
one that is concerned solely with the well-being of others. The
episodes involving Maria Maddalena are ultimately used to associate
her 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 inrmary,
no doubt because she was prohibited from mingling freely among the
impoverished sick of public society. The rst of the two miracles
under discussion occurs in .,,. It involves a nun named Barbara
Bassi who suffered from a contagious disease that had spread
throughout her whole body, eating away at her flesh.
6
Puccini
remarks that the woman had repeatedly asked Maria Maddalena for
prayers. One day Maria Maddalena went to visit the woman in the
infirmary and licked her wounds: having gone to visit this sick
woman, she [Maddalena] was so inflamed with Charity that she
began to lick her [Bassis] hands and arms with her tongue, and she
licked wherever the pestiferous disease afflicted her the most.
7
Maria Maddalena then told Bassi to have condence in God and the
Virgin, and a few days later the woman was completely healed. In
.,,., Maria Maddalenas second bizarre miracle was performed on
Sister 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 having
removed the veils from her head, with her own tongue she licked the
womans 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 another
extraordinary event that also involves Maria Maddalenas licking of
wounds. Maria Maddalena lovingly nursed two lay sisters and, in
.,, or .,,, one of the women (Mattea) fell ill with an incurable
sore. The wound was offensive and smelly, and, eventually, worms
grew within it. While attending Mattea, Maria Maddalena removed
the vermin, and it is implied that the saint then ate them. Puccini
recounts the story as part of Maddalenas effort to care for the
woman: with her own hands she wanted to dress the wound, and
even when worms began to grow within it, she dedicated herself
with great diligence to removing them, and even sometimes she
would 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 lth
from 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.
11
Maddalenas self-mortications 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 esh, mysterious
illnesses and diabolic attacks, a severely restricted diet, and a refusal
to wear shoes. As mentioned earlier, her licking of foul sores and
ingestion of the disease of human wounds certainly places her among
various saints who did the same. Matre briey 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 and
attributes it to a taste for abjection in so much as it has something
to do with the mother and fecal matter.
12
Bynum remarks that
some Italian saints drank pus or scabs from lepers sores, eating and
incorporating disease, and the desire for illness is a common theme
in the Nonnenbcher, where the sisters expose themselves to bitter
cold or pray to be aficted with leprosy.
13
Indeed, many mystics and
saints 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 reasons
other than those identied here.
14
One example appears in Raymond
of Capuas Vita of Catherine of Siena (.,,-).
15
Catherines lth
eating was sometimes imitated by subsequent saints. Perhaps Pucci-
ni wishes to illustrate Maria Maddalena following in her Sienese
predecessors footsteps. Maria Maddalena was well acquainted with
the 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, a
woman suffers from a horrendously corrupt sore so loathsome that
those near her must stop up their nostrils to avoid the stench.
17
Catherine tirelessly cares for her but is utterly disgusted by the lth
and foul odor of disease. The heroic saint reprimands herself and
then, in an act of marvelous strangeness, drinks the water in which
she has washed the putrefying sore: As the Lord lives, who is the
beloved Spouse of my soul, you will be made to swallow down the
thing for which you show such deep disgust. So saying, she gathered
into a bowl the water with which the ulcer had been washed and the
corrupt matter which had come away with it, and going to one side
she swallowed it. On the instant, all feeling of disgust died down
within 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 owing from his
side. 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 for
long and long. At last our Lord gave a sign and she drew away from
the Fountain, her thirst at the same time quenched and re-kindled
(.,t).
19
While modern readers of Catherines Vita may nd 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 lth
are depicted as having a fervent desire to overcome their own repul-
sion for lepers, the sick, or the festering wounds of the ailing. The
practice is not limited to women or to Italians. Some ate lth as a
penance. For example, the Italian founder of the Franciscans, St.
Francis of Assisi (...t) 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 that
Francis did this in order to impose a penance on himself for having
offended and humiliated the man.
20
In an elaborate theatrical ges-
ture, Francis carried this out in front of his disciples, who he
instructed by eating his leprous meal. Contrarily, the most peculiar
case 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 scab
of a leper for whom she cared but that she felt no disgust in doing
so. Instead, she identied the leper with Christ and declared that eat-
ing and drinking the lth from his body was just as if she had received
Holy Communion.
21
Angela is thus represented as having consumed
human filth as a monstrous Eucharist. There are several other
examples, such as the Italian St. Catherine of Genoa (.,,,.,.-),
who refused to join any religious order. She attempted to overcome
her disgust by eating pus and lice from the bodies of impoverished
sick.
22
Both the Spanish Jesuit St. Francis Xavier (.,-t,) and the
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Italian Franciscan St. Joseph of Copertino (.t-t) consumed the
pus from the festering, loathsome wounds of the sick in an effort to
overcome their own great nausea.
23
The Spanish Jesuit St. Peter
Claver (.,,.t,-), 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 with
his tongue.
24
The account claims that he managed after many years
to take pleasure in such things repugnant to nature and found the
putreed matter of infected bodies sweet and agreeable. The Peru-
vian St. Rose of Lima (.,t.t.,), a Dominican tertiary, was so
ashamed of her disgust for the corrupted blood of an ill woman that
she drank it in order to overcome her queasiness.
25
The French Vis-
itandine St. Margaret Mary Alacoque (.t,,,-), in a desire to con-
quer herself, describes how she ate the vomit of an ill patient and
even lled her mouth with the excrement of a woman aficted with
dysentery.
26
Indeed, other eccentric examples certainly exist but
remain buried in archives or are perhaps even unrecorded.
27
Clearly, in these accounts, the practice represents more than
simply a manifestation of self-punishment. Perhaps the narrations
attempt to show how these saints incorporate disease as a means to
identify with the suffering of the aficted. Yet when biographers
describe the events, they usually present them as something worthy
of 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 personal
repugnance, the achievement of heroic feats of self-conquest, or the
performance of a penance. The saints are often represented as hav-
ing gained power over their own bodily senses after they eat lth.
Maria Maddalenas wound lickings and worm eating fail to lend
themselves to an interpretation as heroic self-discipline, as in the case
of these other saints. Furthermore, her strange episodes are not
performed as a response to some kind of involuntary testing, nor
does she seek to conquer aversion for dirty things. Puccinis descrip-
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tions are repeated (and amplied) by Maria Maddalenas sister nuns
who testified regarding these events in .t. 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 indicate
that she considered her wound lickings as a form of penance. The
nuns statements are contained in the Summary of the Actions, Virtues
and Miracles of Maria Maddalena de Pazzi.
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 of imitatio Christi. In the Summary, Vange-
lista describes how she discovered that Maria Maddalena had eaten
worms 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 to
me:What did Jesus do for us?
29
Here, the saint acknowledges her
greater spiritual purpose by associating her actions with those of
Christs for the benet of humankind. Her reply calls to mind the
image of Christ, the great doctor, who heals the disease (sin) of the
world. In The Sacramental Remedy, St. Bonaventure described Jesus as
the great physician who effects our cure. He is the remedy for sin:
Because the restorative principle, which is Christ crucied,
namely the incarnate Word, who takes care of all things most
wisely, is divine and cures most mercifully. . . . He ought to
restore and heal the ailing human race in a manner suitable to
the one ailing, the sickness, the occasion of his becoming sick
and 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 one
occasion, Christ applied his spit in order to physically heal others. In
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.,
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John ,:t-,, 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 he
touched the mans tongue with his saliva.
33
Last, Jesus heals anoth-
er blind man with the direct application of his spittle on the blind
mans eyes in Mark :-,.
34
Likewise, Maria Maddalena is shown
as being aware of the healing power of her spittle and becomes a
healer. She has no concern for taking lth into herself but rather is
concerned for making others well. In her case, the power of God
working through her is clearly associated with this practice.
35
The accounts state that Maria Maddalena did not perform a
miraculous cure on Mattea but instead urged the woman to endure
with patience. Puccini notes, She did not fail, with loving words, to
exhort the sick patient to tolerate everything with patience, assur-
ing her that in Paradise she would have a great recompense.
36
After
the 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 in
heaven. Here, the absence of a performed miracle enables Maria
Maddalena to heal on a spiritual level. Emphasizing that Maria Mad-
dalena is instrumental in the spiritual welfare of the soul rather than
just the physical illness of the body, Puccini mentions the episode in
order to demonstrate her charity toward her neighbors and to
describe her religious fervor: the zeal, that she had for the health of
others was not less than her charity, and she demonstrated it towards
her neighbors in their needs, both spiritual and corporal.
37
While
in this case no miracle is performed, her lth eating is still associat-
ed with a spiritual healing of sorts, which is then reinforced by
Maria 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 her
patients recuperation. Unlike the narrations regarding other saints,
Maria Maddalenas lth lickings are carried out after specic requests
for her intervention. The nuns testimony in Summary also associates
Maria Maddalenas behavior solely with curing.
38
The Mother Supe-
rior (Vangelista) indicates that she found out about the rst miracle
by suddenly discovering the woman restored to health: I used to see
the said sick woman every day. Having seen her then unexpectedly
healthy, and having asked her how this happened, she told me how
Sister Maria Maddalena, with the greatest of charity, had done this
kind gesture and how she had immediately begun to improve in
health.
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 is
that the abhorrent practice focuses on the marvelous nature of the
consumption rather than healing. I am not implying that in the
descriptions of the other saints (such as Catherine of Genoa), they are
not shown as having tirelessly served the sick with great kindness and
generosity, but when they ate the putrefied matter from their
patients infected bodies, the narrators focus was on the consumption
of it. As contradictory and outrageous as it may seem, the saints
emerge as individuals who spiritually benet from eating the lice
from a human body or sucking putrid blood and pus. With some, such
as Catherine of Siena, their ingestion of lth represents triumph and
self-liberation. In essence, the saints in question prot by conquering
personal weakness or aversion for dirty things. No longer hindered
by 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, ultimately
benets the saints own personal spiritual journey and serves an
illustrative lesson to his followers. Even more shocking, as in the
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case of Angela of Foligno, the loathsome act does not benet the
leper but instead offers her spiritual nourishment as a substitute for
Christs body in eucharistic form (putrid blood as Christs blood in
the chalice, dirty scabs as Christs body in the Host).
Like other biographers, Puccini uses the episodes regarding lth
eating in order demonstrate the saints spiritual strength in the face
of loathsome illness. However, Puccinis accounts (as well as those of
the nuns) highlight Maria Maddalenas heroism as a seless miracle
worker. In the stories of the other saints, the focus of the practice
remains on the self. With Maria Maddalena, the practice is carried
out in order to alleviate others suffering. Her focus shifts to others.
In Maria Maddalena, this peculiar practice is represented as a com-
pletely seless actit is a gift solely for the sake of the well-being
of those served. Maria Maddalenas licking of bodily lth becomes a
practice that associates her with Christ in his role as physician and
healer (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 what
Christ says in Mark ,:.,-.,: there is nothing outside a person that
by going in can dele, but the things that come out are what dele.
Likewise, this might apply to all saints who take Christs words to the
extreme when they eat the lth 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 meaning
of such acts in a new context. In effect, she turns the abhorrent act
of consuming putrid matter into two performed miracles. Christs
numerous miracles, many of them healings, were not for his own
good but for the spiritual good of others. As I have demonstrated, in
all cases, the practice of eating putrid matter from human bodies has
spiritual signicance for the saint in question. Furthermore, it reveals
that even the most depraved actions can exemplify a saints aspira-
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tions toward holiness. With Maria Maddalena, the practice itself is
redenedher 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, and
penance) are only part of a saints spiritual journey toward the
Divine. Those practices that succeed in focusing on others in com-
plete selessness complete that path toward God. Maria Maddalenas
strange 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 her
visions. These mystical discourses comprise her works. They are contained in Tutte
le opere dai manoscritti originali, ed. Bruno Nardini, Bruno Visentin, Carlo Catena, and
Giulio Agresti, , vols. (Florence: Nardini, .,t-tt). The majority of scholarship
pertains to her visions (works) and does not concern my study. However, I cite the
most noteworthy here: Armando Maggi, Blood as Language in Maria Maddalena de
Pazzis Visions, Rivista di Letterature Moderne e Comparate , (.,,,): .,,;
Armando Maggi, The Voice and the Silences of Maria Maddalena de Pazzi, Annali
dItalianistica . (.,,,): ,,.; Armandi Maggi, Uttering the Word:The Mystical Per-
formances of Maria Maddalena de Pazzi, a Renaissance Visionary (Albany: State Univer-
sity of New York Press, .,,); Antonio Riccardi, The Mystic Humanism of Maria
Maddalena de Pazzi (.,tt.t-,), in Creative Women in Medieval and Early Modern
Italy: A Religious and Artistic Renaissance, ed. E. Ann Matter and John Coakley
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, .,,,), .t; and Claudio Cate-
na, S. Maria Maddalena de Pazzi Carmelitana: orientamenti spirituali e ambiente in cui visse
(Rome: Institutum Carmelitanum, .,tt).
2. I am grateful to the Carmelitana Collection in Washington, D.C., for allowing me
to use the .t.. Italian edition of Vicenzo Puccinis biography titled Vita della Veneran-
da Madre Suor M. Maddalena de Pazzi orentina monaca dellordine Carmelitano nel Monas-
tero di S. Maria de gli Angeli di Borgo S. Fridiano di Firenze (Florence: Giunti, .t..), as
well as other rare texts they own. For an anonymous early English translation, see
The Life of Suor Maria Maddalena de Patsi , vol. of English Recusant Literature
(London: Scolar Press, .,,-).
Puccini composed his Vita in order to promote the cause for Maria Maddalenas
canonization, and it played a central role in bringing about her beatication process,
which began in .t... Tiziana Zaninelli argues that the convent sisters were really the
the healings of st. maria maddelena depazzi
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true authors of Puccinis text. See Santa Maria Maddalena de Pazzi e lambiente
culturale in cui visse, (PhD diss., University of Fribourg, .,t), ,.
3. Karen-Edis Barzman has discussed Puccinis Vita in her study titled Sacred Imagery
and the Religious Lives of Women, .t,-.,-, in Women and Faith: Catholic Religious
Life in Italy from Late Antiquity to the Present, ed. Lucetta Scarafa and Gabriella Zarri
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, .,,,), .,. Barzman discusses instances
in 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 lth from human bodies to which I refer is considered loathsome
it is diseased, infectious, and dirty. Mary Douglas, in Purity and Danger (New York:
Frederick A. Praeger, .,tt), .., describes the matter issuing from the orices of
the body as marginal stuff of the most obvious kind because it has traversed the
boundary of the body. See also Julia Kristeva, Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection,
trans. Leon S. Roudiez (New York: Columbia University Press, .,), ,, where she
offers one of the most well-known theoretical explanations for lth: lth is the
abject. It is often repulsive not so much because of the lack of cleanliness or health
but because it disturbs identity, system, and order.
5. I am grateful to Armando Maggi and John Coakley for their valuable suggestions and
comments 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 .t (.,t,): .,,..
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 lafiggeva 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 (t,).
9. Volle con la sue mani medicar la piaga; anzi generando quella de vermi si poneva
con 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 of
them involve restoring spoiled wine and casting out a demon from a possessed
childs body. The remaining eleven are healing miracles. Nine miracles performed
in life were approved by the Sacred Congregation of Rites in .tt before Maria
Maddalenas beatication 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, .,t). In his chapter on
Maria 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 la
scatophagie. Jacques Matre, Anorexies Religieuses Anorexie Mentale (Paris: Les ditions
du Cerf, ---), .-.
logos
.,-
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13. See Caroline Walker Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy Fast:The Religious Signicance of Food
to Medieval Women (Berkeley: University of California Press, .,,), -,. The corpus
of nine texts referred to as the Nonnenbcher consists of spiritual autobiographies
written by cloistered women in the fourteenth century. Romana Guarnieri also
points out that the followers of the sect of the Spirit of Freedom would drink
worm-infested water and eat rotten meat. Il movimento del Libero Spirito: dalle
origini al secolo XVI, in Archivio italiano per la storia della piet , (.,t,): t.
14. For discussions regarding the lth eating of Catherine of Siena and Angela of Folig-
no, see my two studies, Ingesting Bodily Filth: Delement in the Spirituality of
Angela of Foligno, Romance Quarterly 50, no. 3 (2003): 204216, and Repulsive
Feasts: St. Catherine of Sienas Trials and Rewards in Raymond of Capuas Legenda
Major, Fides Quaerens Intellectum , no. . (--): ...
15. Mary Douglas mentions Catherine of Siena as an example in her discussion on how
humanitys rules of dirt-avoidance can be set aside for the sake of friendship: when
she felt revulsion from the wounds she was tending, [she] is said to have bitterly
reproached herself. Sound hygiene was incompatible with charity, so she deliberately
drank off a bowl of pus, (Douglas, Purity and Danger, ,).
16. Maria Maddalena had even read Catherines famous letters, as well as her Vita. The
convents library holdings contained both Catherines letters and Raymonds biog-
raphy. Both Puccini and Maria Maddalenas convent sister Maria Pacica note her
particular devotion to Catherine and remark that Maria Maddalenas baptismal name
was Caterina. See Maria Pacica, Breve Ragguaglio della Vita della Santa Madre
fatto dalla Madre Suor Maria Pacica del Tovaglia, in vol. I of Tutte le opere, t,,-.
Modern scholars have also pointed to the profound inuence the Sienese saint had
on Maria Maddalena. In particular see Bruno Secondin, Santa Maria Maddalena de
Pazzi: esperienza e dottrina (Rome: Institutum Carmelitanum, .,,,) ,-; S. Thor-
Salviat, La dottrina spirituale di Santa Maria Maddalena de Pazzi (Careggi: Monastero
di S. Maria Maddalena de Pazzi, .,,), xivxv; Maggi, Blood as Language t;
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). They
were devoted to prayer, penitential acts, and service to the sick and poor.
18. Vivit, inquit, Altissimus, Sponsus dulcissimus animae meae, quia id quod tan tum
abominaris, infra tua viscera recondetur. Mox que illius foedi vulneris loturam cum
sanie in scutellam recolligens, ac seorsum abiens, totum bibit. Quo facto, cuncta
cessavit abominationis illius tentatio (IV, .t). All English quotations of Raymond
of 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, in Acta Sanctorum, vol. , April (Paris: Palm, .tt), t,t,.
Chapter and section numbers are indicated.
19. At illa cernens se positam ad stulam fontis vitae, sacratissimo vulneri os applicans
corporis, sed longe amplius os mentis, ineffabilem et inexplicabilem potum hausit
the healings of st. maria maddelena depazzi
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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, .t).
20. See I ori dei tre compagni, trans. Nello Vian, ed. Jacques Cambell (Milan: Vita e Pen-
siero, .,tt), -,.
21. See Angela of Foligno, Il libro della Beata Angela da Foligno, ed. Ludger Thier and Abele
Calufetti (Grottaferrata, Rome: Collegii S. Bonaventurae ad Claras Aquas, .,,),
,.
22. See Umile Bonzi da Genova, Santa Caterina Fieschi Adorno, vol. (Turin: Marietti,
.,t-), ,t. According to a Vita dated .,, the Italian St. Catherine of Bologna
(.,.t), 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 briey mentioned
in 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 Giacomo
Grassetti, Vita di S. Caterina da Bologna (Bologna: Clemente Maria Sassi, .,,), .t,
but no names or details are given.
23. See Orazio Torsellino, The Admirable Life of S. Francis Xavier, trans. Thomas Fitzher-
bert (.t; repr. London: Scolar Press, .,tt), ; and Domenico Bernino, Vita del
venerabile padre Fr. Giuseppe da Copertino (Rome: Ludovico Tinassi and Girolamo
Mainardi, .,), ,,.
24. See Longaro degli Oddi, Della vita del Beato Pietro Claver della Compagnia di Ges detto
lApostolo degli Etiopi cavata da processi formati per la sua canonizzazione (Rome:
Tipograa delle Belle Arti, .,).
25. See Leonardum Hansen, Vita mirabilis et mors pretiosa B. Rosae de Maria Limensis
(Lovanii: Nempaei, .tt), -,,.
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 unhealthy
practice as penance. In an unpublished manuscript dated August ,, .,.t, the author
records that she put lthy things in her mouth until she had sucked out all the putrid
material, consumed bed bugs and human lice, licked up disgusting spit from the
ground, 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, tre
delle quali sono Servite ed una Capuccina ed alcune lettere de loro Direttori). They
date 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 Summary is Summarium, actionum,
virtutum et miraculorum servae dei Mariae Magdalenae de Pazzis ordinis Carmelitarum ex
processu remissoriali desumptorum, ed. Ludovico Saggi (Rome: Institutum Carmeli-
tanum, .,t,). All English translations of the nuns testimony in the Summary are my
own. First published in .,t, in honor of the fourth centenary of the birth of Maria
Maddalena, the Summary contains selections of the saints beatication process.
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29. Perch domandandoli io se haveva fatto tal cosa, rispose: Che ha fatto Gies per
noi? (,.).
30. See part t of Bonaventures Breviloquium, trans. Erwin Esser Nemmers (London: B.
Herder Book Company, .,,,), .,,.
31. E. Cobham Brewer, in A Dictionary of Miracles: Imitative, Realistic, and Dogmatic (.,;
repr. Detroit: Gale Research Company, .,tt), ,,,t, collects a number of mirac-
ulous cures by saints using saliva, including a repair of a cut-off thumb by St. Attalus
(t,) and the forming of a mouth and two eyes by St. Francis of Paula (.,.t.,-,)
for a baby born deformed. None of the miracles Brewer discusses involves licking
wounds or ingesting bodily lth. 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 and
spread 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. All
scriptural quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version.
33. He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his ngers into his ears,
and he spat and touched his tongue. Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said
to him,Ephphatha, that is,Be opened. And immediately his ears were opened, his
tongue 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 had
put 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 was
restored, and he saw everything clearly.
35. Maria Maddalenas licking of wounds to heal must have been regarded with great
interest by later generations. Francesco Lorenzinis Vita di S. Giuliana Falconieri
(Rome: Komarek, .,) ,,, reports that St. Juliana (.,-.,.), foundress of
the 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 conrms
that she modeled her actions on those of Juliana. Early sources do not conrm that
Juliana licked diseased wounds. The source of Lorenzinis information regarding
Julianas lth licking is most likely a writing called Giornale e ricordi of fra Nicol of
Pistoia, said to have been written in .,, but not discovered until .t,,. In the twen-
tieth century it was established that this writing is spurious and was actually written
in .t,,. Julianas ctitious lth licking was probably added in order to promote her
cause 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-nd documents.
36. Non restava poi con parole amorevoli dessortar linferma a tolerare il tutto con
pazienza, 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 (.tt.,) stated that it is a known observation among the
vulgar, that the saliva is efcacious in cleansing foul wounds, and cicatrizing recent
ones; thus dogs by licking their wounds which are accessible, have them heal in a very
short time, quoted in G. Chowdharay-Best, Notes on the Healing Properties of Sali-
va, Folklore t (.,,,):.,,--. It is interesting to note that in Christian symbolism
the dog was an emblem of priests, who are appointed to be caretakers of Christs
ock (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 conrms that
this 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 Book
of Beasts (New York: G. P. Putnams Sons, .,t-), ttt,.
39. Vedevo ogni giorno la detta inferma e vedendola poi inaspettatamente sana e
domandandoli come ci era seguito, disse come Suor Maria Maddalena con gran-
dissima carit se lhaveva fatto un tale ossequio e come subito haveva cominciato a
migliorare (). Maria Maddalena was quite reserved about other unusual events
of 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 of
Performance Studies ,. (.,,,): ..-.
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