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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2016
In Italy, the years around 1500 were fraught for a number of reasons. There were renewed fears about the second coming of Christ and the end of the world. The expansion of the Ottoman Empire gave rise to a sense of instability and impending doom. In this climate many people became increasingly concerned about their fate in the afterlife and the need to be prepared for death and judgement. Central to this was the doctrine of purgatory. Yet, in the first decades of the sixteenth century, ideas surrounding purgatory were highly contested as heretical ideas from northern Europe began to filter into northern Italy. This paper investigates Catholic beliefs about the alleviation of purgatorial suffering through a case study of one holy woman from the north of Italy, the Dominican tertiary, Stefana Quinzani, who, according to a letter of 4 March 1500 written by Duke Ercole d’Este, endured every Friday ‘the whole of the Passion in her body, stage by stage, from the Flagellation to the Deposition from the Cross’.
* I would like to thank Gabriele Neher of the University of Nottingham for her generous help on aspects of Brescian history during this period.
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30 Ibid. 128: ‘Quando voleva vedere el stato de li sui filioli giera dimostrato, unde ley me disse un giorno de sancta croce, “Filiol mio, questa notte ho veduto el stato de tutti li miei filioli et vivi et morti”’.
31 Ibid. 146: ‘“… dal principio de la quadragesima per fina a questa hora” – chi era infra la octava di pascha – “tutti li mei ossi mi sono stati estorciti, et spesse volte apparevami che fusseno stati tolti fora dil corpo e poi fussero posti dentro” cum tanti dolori e pene che molte volte pareva cha mancasse e cadeva in terra per grande dolore. Ma niuno ha saputo dove procedesse. Dicando lui, “El fructo el quale seguita per tale passione vi fa voluntiera sustenire”. Respose, “L’è vero, figliol” Dicando lui, “El giorno del venerdì sancto non patesti per mio fratello? L’haveti liberato dalle pene del purgatorio?” Respose, “Lui e molti altri furno liberati quel giorno”. Questo suo fratello era morto a l’austo precedente e, secondo che paulo aveva ditto, doveva stare in purgatorio per dece anni, et così per meriti de questa sposa de cristo non gè stete otto mesi compiti.’
32 Ibid. 97.
33 Ibid. 109: ‘tollerate de bon animo e non dubitati che io sono stata certificata che voi siete del numero de li eletti e spero far tal cosa per voi che non sentireti pena alcuna dil purgatorio’.
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