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Title: Autobiography of an Aspiring Saint (The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe) by Cecilia Ferrazzi, Anne Jacobson Schutte, Cecelia Ferrazzi ISBN: 0-226-24447-4 Publisher: University of Chicago Press Pub. Date: December, 1996 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (1 review)
Rating: 4
Summary: Mental Illness, Religious Vigor, and the Inquisition
Comment: Cecilia Ferrazzi was certainly a woman who did not slip through the cracks of 1600's Italy. Some say she was blessed with the stigmata and visions of the Holy Mother, others that the Devil had his grasp within her mind and led her through acts of temptation and corruption. She ran a home for "girl in danger" those who were in danger of becoming prostitutes or falling into disgrace with a man. She was denounced to the Inquisition by a rival woman who ran the same kind of home and her trial testimony recounts all of the incidents of divine interaction throughout her life. In the introduction we are given background and relevant facts, by the editor, that are needed to lay the scene, but the text of the volume is solely in Ferrazzi's words as taken by a scribe of the court.
An intriguing woman for certain, she was afflicted with visions, and times of blankness that could not be accounted for when she gave testimony. However, for all of the ills she claimed (be it fevers, falling, beatings by her confessors, stigmata that made her side bleed, beatings by the devil, malnourishment, the vomiting of blood) she lived until the age of 73, quite the accomplishment for someone under the stresses she attested to enduring.
I found this book highly engrossing and a better read than most films or novels that have tried to take this internal religious war as a topic. It is the raw truth of the perception of her life and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in the course of the Inquisition and what it is to be caught in the void between heresy and sainthood, between grace and insanity.
It is extremely well edited and very accessible to the modern day reader, there is no language stylistic to keep it from being clearly felt and understood.
While I did not agree with Ferrazzi's interpretations of things that she experienced, to hear the passion in her conviction towards the belief she held in her religion, in redemption, obedience, and punishment for her vices, was impressive and at times, mind boggling. After reading all of her testimony it was the first time in all of my study that I thought "I would have had to denounce this person to the court as well." And she denies nothing.
This was a very powerful book and I understand why it was chosen to lead the series.
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