Judith C. Brown

Sister Benedetta Carlini, Abbess of the Theatines was a visionary who suffered from stigmata: or did she.....

We really do not know until the end of the book, where we read of the investigations into her miraculous day & night time visions, and it is then we learn of the testimony of her roommate and the sexual acts perpetrated in the name jesus & of angels with ridiculous names....

Seriously, I believe that people have visions.... and most everyone who knew this woman believed her visions, but then she seemed to get a little carried away with her power and investigations began.

The book was easy to read and it was interesting....… (altro)

The subtitle lied. Benedetta Carlini was not a lesbian. She was a mystic. And possibly a sexual predator. She didn't have the category of lesbian, she seems to have experienced heterosexual arousal vis-a-vis Jesus as well, and the lesbianism was not the only thing that made her fucked up. There was also a king hell lot of narcissism, "holy anorexia," and self-mutilation.

Ballsy, though. I have to give her credit for having the nerve to give herself stigmata as part of her years-long campaign to be acknowledged as a saintly visionary in the tradition of Catherine of Siena.

Brown really should not have gone for the sex appeal in the subtitle & introduction. It's a relatively minor part of the story and undercuts the central tension of this microhistory: is Carlini faking the visions? Will she be found out?

Not a good introduction to microhistory or the history of sexuality, but a good solid piece of the former.… (altro)