by Hubert Wolf
When Hohenlohe arrived at the convent early next morning, the abbess and the novice mistress seemed very concerned about the princess’s condition. “But they told me flatly that I could not go to her, as she was out of her mind with pain.” The archbishop wasn’t put off so easily, however, and he insisted they tell him more about his cousin’s illness. Finally he received the information that she had suffered a “syncope.” This meant a circulatory collapse, which could have any number of causes, from impaired circulation in the brain to a cardiac irregularity, or a metabolic disorder. They told Hohenlohe he should come back in an hour or two with a blessing from the pope. He went to Pius IX, obtained his blessing, and, on his return, met Leziroli in the sacristy, from whom he demanded the right to be allowed to see his cousin. “He answered abruptly that I would be doing Luisa Maria a great favor if I did not visit her. This was her express wish. She wanted to be alone at this terrible time, and did not wish to be disturbed.”
At this moment, as Hohenlohe recalled, it became clear to him that those in charge of Sant’Ambrogio were doing everything in their power to keep him from seeing his sick cousin. He was angered and deeply offended by this, and resorted to invoking his authority as a bishop and close friend of the pope. He accused Leziroli of acting in his “typical girlish way” even in this serious matter. “I needed to see Katharina urgently, and was adamant that I would achieve this.” He therefore ordered them to open the door to her cell. After a “remarkably long time” he was finally led into his cousin’s chamber. “I found her there with her face aglow, and with a glassy stare; I was shocked at how dazed she was.” It was impossible to have a private conversation, as the novice mistress and two other nuns remained in Katharina’s cell the whole time. He could sense there was something Katharina wanted to tell him, but couldn’t while her guardians were in the room. When he asked about the cause of her illness, she merely pointed to the madre vicaria and said, “Do tell him what I am suffering from!”
The archbishop didn’t press her further, instead inquiring whether she needed anything from him or her relatives. Katharina was very “offended” by his apparent reluctance to get to the bottom of the matter, ending the conversation by telling him it would be best for him to follow the rules and refrain from visiting her again. Sant’Ambrogio was a strictly enclosed convent, and its statutes barred visitors from the clausura. The madre vicaria reminded him of this fact forcefully on his way out. “The whole thing left me with a feeling of great sadness, and I went away deeply pained.”
This begs the question of why Hohenlohe and his cousin didn’t just speak to each other in their native German. The other nuns present in Katharina’s cell spoke no German, so the two could have exchanged the relevant information without revealing themselves to the others. In her written complaint, Katharina explained that she had consciously spoken Italian throughout her illness so that Maria Luisa would understand her every word, in an attempt to avoid angering her.88
Immediately after his visit, Hohenlohe sought out Katharina’s confessor, Padre Peters, in the Jesuit college near the Il Gesù church.89 He was hoping that Peters could shed more light on his cousin’s illness. But in this he was disappointed. The Jesuit merely told him he was certain “she would die the following night, as the sickness in her heart left her with only a few hours to live.” These words enraged the archbishop. What made the Jesuit so sure he could predict Katharina’s death with such precision?
Several members of the convent, and the doctors treating her, repeatedly advised against Hohenlohe paying Katharina another visit, and he didn’t go to see her again for six months. Even Cardinal Patrizi told him the princess wished to be left in peace, and didn’t want to see him. What made Cardinal Patrizi side with the abbess, the novice mistress, the confessors, and Katharina’s doctors to keep Hohenlohe away and prevent him speaking to her in private? Did they have something to hide, or were they simply trying to protect her?
Hohenlohe heeded the high-ranking cardinal’s advice. He only returned to Sant’Ambrogio to see his cousin in the summer of 1859—but he was denied entry. “The following day she sent me a letter, in which she begged me on Christ’s mercy90 to come to her and have her called to the parlatory. I set off for the convent at once.” Several nuns came out to meet him and begged him to dissuade the princess from leaving the convent, because they loved her so much. Finally, Hohenlohe managed to speak to the princess in private. She first thanked him for his letter, in which he had reminded her of her religious calling and encouraged her to remain in her cloistered state. But then she said: “At this moment, it is not a question of my calling; it is simply a matter of saving my life and my soul, as I am afraid I will die here without the presence of the father confessor.” Frightened, she told him of that night in December, when she had almost died without Padre Peters looking in on her once, though he had spent all night in the convent.
Finally, Katharina voiced her suspicion “that this illness was brought on by illicit and poisonous substances mixed into her medicines, and her food and drink.” Katharina was convinced it was only Hohenlohe’s visit in December that had saved her life and prevented further attacks on her person. “She was afraid that something like this would happen again, and begged me for the love of God to take her away from there.” She had already written to the cardinal vicar and the Holy Father, begging them to let her leave the convent “on health grounds.” She hadn’t mentioned to either of them the real reason for her desire to get out of Sant’Ambrogio as quickly as possible: the fact that somebody was trying to murder her.
Hohenlohe also spoke to Katharina’s spiritual guide, Cardinal Reisach. The interview with the cardinal must have left him with a very conflicted impression. Hohenlohe thought his cousin’s fear of poisoning would be news to Reisach, but the cardinal had been in the picture for months, apparently informed by Peters. Reisach simply hadn’t thought it necessary to inform Katharina’s closest relative in Rome. Hohenlohe also told the Inquisition that Cardinal Reisach had leapt to defend the convent, especially its beautiful young madre vicaria and the father confessor Peters, against all the accusations. He called Katharina fanciful and thought she had imagined the whole poisoning affair. The noble lady just had “too much imagination.” She should subordinate herself once more to the guidance of her confessor “with blind obedience,” as befitted a nun.
After much insistence from Hohenlohe, Reisach finally had to concede that poison had been found in Katharina’s soup. The cardinal put this down to an “oversight in the kitchen,” an accidental “contamination” of the ladle. He dismissed the story about a letter “filled with obscenities and immoral things” that the novice mistress had supposedly given Katharina to read, saying that this was beyond belief. But at least neither of the two clerics was willing to attribute the incident to the influence of the devil.
Hohenlohe remained suspicious. When exactly had Reisach been informed of what was happening in Sant’Ambrogio? Why didn’t he step in, as was his duty as Katharina’s spiritual guide? Was the Jesuit sympathizer protecting the Jesuit confessor, Padre Peters, even if it meant the possible death of Princess von Hohenzollern?
In Tivoli, Katharina told her cousin she had made a will during her illness, leaving the greater part of her wealth to the convent. The bequest was made on the provision that a new convent would be founded as a daughter institution to Sant’Ambrogio, with the novice mistress, Maria Luisa, as its first abbess. A solid gold heart should go to the Jesuit church Il Gesù. Katharina explained that the madre vicaria had been “very concerned” that the will might fall into Hohenlohe’s hands during his visit in December, thinking that he would immediately persuade the princess to alter it. Once she was in Tivoli, Hohenlohe did just that: on his advice, Katharina revoked the will, though she didn’t claim back her dowry from the convent.91
Their conversations in Tivoli convinced Hohenlohe that his cousin wasn’t talking nonsense. By and large, Katharina’s denunciation tallied with his perspective o
n what had taken place in Sant’Ambrogio. He, too, saw the madre vicaria as the main culprit in this affair. The archbishop was certain that Maria Luisa had hated the princess from the moment the latter uncovered her affair with the Americano. But he laid more blame than his cousin did at the feet of the Jesuit confessor Padre Peters. In Hohenlohe’s view, Peters’s prediction of Katharina’s imminent demise made him at least a passive accomplice to the poisoning. And there was more: Hohenlohe also believed that Cardinals Patrizi and Reisach, high-ranking friends of the pope, were caught up in the matter—though how, or to what extent, was not yet clear to him.
CHAPTER TWO
“The ‘Delicatezza’ of the Matter as Such”
Extrajudicial Preliminary Investigations
INFORMAL QUESTIONING
Once Katharina had presented her report to the Inquisition, the next move was up to Vincenzo Leone Sallua and his officials. They had to decide how to deal with the princess’s Denunzia. Sallua was born in 1815, took holy orders with the Dominicans in Santa Sabina in Rome, and was ordained as a priest in 1838.1 The Dominicans had played a major role in the Inquisition and the detection of heretics since the Middle Ages, and people referred to the Dominicanes mockingly as canes Domini, “God’s dogs.” The Inquisition of the Middle Ages was very different from the Holy Roman and Universal Inquisition, founded in 1542. The latter had local Inquisitions in many of Italy’s episcopal cities, though its headquarters was in Rome. Somebody who had earned his spurs in one of these local organizations was often invited to Rome as a reward. So it was with Sallua, who had begun his career as vicar to the local inquisitor in Lugo. In 1850 he became an investigating judge of the Roman Inquisition and, in 1870, commissary of the Holy Office. He was aided by the second investigating judge, Enrico Ferrari, who was entrusted with keeping the files in the Sant’Ambrogio case. Ferrari was a fellow Dominican. He was born in 1816, and had been in office since the start of 1851.2
Giacinto Maria Giuseppe De Ferrari, born in 1804, had been commissary and chief justice of the Inquisition since 1851. He took holy orders in 1821—he was another Dominican—and was ordained as a priest in 1827. In 1839, he became the librarian of the famous Biblioteca Casanatense, the Roman Inquisition’s library. He had worked for the Congregation of the Index since 1843, and there was no more dedicated evaluator in the field of Catholic book censorship in the nineteenth century. He appraised over 150 works during his career.3 While the remaining offices of the Inquisition were occupied by members of various other orders and secular priests, the office of commissary and his two deputies, the investigating judges, were firmly in the hands of the Dominicans.4
The assessor, who was the real head of the Inquisition’s Tribunal, was the secular priest Raffaele Monaco La Valletta. La Valletta, who was born in 1827, was a canon of Saint Peter’s, and became pro-assessor in January 1859, before being promoted to assessor in December 1860.5
On September 17, 1859, Sallua informed Pope Pius IX privately of Katharina von Hohenzollern’s denunciation.6 The Dominican viewed the denunciation as a very grave business, “not only due to the delicatezza of the matter as such,” but because of the wide repercussions that news of the case would have if it spread through Rome. He therefore tried to keep the whole thing as secret as possible.7
The Inquisition’s files state that the padre socius believed he “should lay this denunciation most humbly at the feet of His Holiness,” which at first glance seems to suggest that Sallua took this step on his own authority as investigating judge. But it is highly unlikely that a second-ranking inquisitor would have gone straight to the pope without consulting his superiors. Before taking the matter to the pontiff, he would at least have gained the agreement of his immediate superior, Commissary De Ferrari. Tradition suggests that he probably also discussed it at the Inquisition’s Congregazione Particolare. This meeting was always held on a Saturday, and its main aim was to distribute the pending cases among individual members. As a rule, the assessor, the commissary, the investigating judges, the “fiscal” (who played a similar role to a modern state prosecutor), and a representative from the chancellery all took part in this. This meeting also decided “to whom each matter should be communicated: the consultors, the cardinals, or even the pope.”8 In this case, the Congregazione Particolare may have made the decision to inform the pope immediately. This task fell to Sallua, since at this point he was the only one familiar with the case. He was received by the pope in a private audience, and handed him a written summary of the allegations.
Pius IX studied the princess’s denunciation and the Dominican’s report thoroughly, but remained skeptical about the truth of Katharine’s claims. For one thing, she had made allegations against people whom he held in such high regard that he couldn’t believe they would be mixed up in this sort of affair: Cardinal August, Count Reisach, Katharina’s spiritual guide, and Cardinal Costantino Patrizi, the cardinal protector of Sant’Ambrogio. Or was it possible that the two Jesuit confessors, the abbess, or even the beautiful madre vicaria could have enjoyed a similar prestige with the pope? The “nature of the offences” also placed doubts in the pope’s mind. He could scarcely imagine that all these crimes had been committed in a place of pious women, and in such a short space of time.9
For Pius IX, this wasn’t necessarily a case of heresy, for which the Roman Inquisition would have been responsible. Heresy meant denying a Catholic article of faith, or refusing to let go of a notion that went against Catholic dogma. If a Catholic consciously and stubbornly questioned the dogma, this was a “formal heresy.” When this denial happened unconsciously, and the culprit showed a willingness to change, it was classed as a “material heresy.”10
The pope thought that if there was anything in the princess’s accusations, then the case was a matter of discipline and smaller criminal offenses. These weren’t crimes against the Faith. The pope was also keen to prevent the affair becoming public at all costs, and instructed the Dominican to keep the whole thing under wraps. An Inquisition trial would bring more attention from within the Curia, and create a hotbed of rumor—something the pope was eager to avoid. And so he transferred the case from this larger stage to a smaller one, telling Sallua to hand the matter over to the cardinal vicar.11
The cardinal vicar represented the pope in his function as bishop of Rome. He looked after the administration of the diocese of Rome, and had full jurisdiction over all disciplinary aspects of religious life in the Eternal City. The Church officials and courts under his auspices included the Tribunal of the Vicariate. He was provided with administrative support by one vicegerent, who was a titular bishop, and had another for juridical matters. The Vicarius Urbis was one of the few officials of the Roman Curia who didn’t lose his position when a pope died; a sede vacante led to most other offices being lost.12
In 1859, the office of cardinal vicar happened to be held by Costantino Patrizi, the cardinal protector of Sant’Ambrogio.13 Patrizi was born in 1798 in Siena, and belonged to one of Rome’s richest families. He studied canon and secular law in Rome, and was ordained in 1819. He quickly rose through the ranks of the Curia, and by 1828 he was titular bishop of Philippi. He was made a cardinal in 1836, and became a member of the Inquisition in 1839. He was cardinal vicar of Rome from 1841 until his death in 1876. A close friend and confidant of Pius IX, he was described as pious and reactionary. His opponents in the Curia held him to be a man of “dull wits,” though more than a few commentators saw him as the most influential of the cardinals, and the supporting pillar of Pius IX’s “authoritarian system of government.” Patrizi had very close links with the Society of Jesus, not least through his brother Saverio, who had gone into the order.14
As cardinal protector of Sant’Ambrogio, Patrizi had to supervise the convent. Elections to offices within the convent were only valid when carried out in his presence, and with his blessing.15 If anyone in the Catholic hierarchy was party to the convent’s dark secrets, it would have been Patrizi—particularly with regard to th
e cult surrounding its founder, Maria Agnese Firrao. If the investigation ordered by the pope had uncovered anything, it would have incriminated the cardinal protector. We should therefore have a degree of skepticism about his objectivity in the case of Sant’Ambrogio. In any event, Pius IX placed the Dominican Sallua at Patrizi’s side to keep an eye on him. This was a very smart move by the pope. He had found a compromise that involved the Holy Office, even if the case was officially under the cardinal vicar’s jurisdiction. Cardinal Patrizi ordered an initial, cautious, extrajudicial investigation.16
Sallua’s first task was to question a nun who had been expelled from Sant’Ambrogio a few years previously on disciplinary grounds, and had since been compelled to live in the convent of San Pasquale.17 He was told to exercise “extreme discretion.” It was hoped that she could provide information on any irregularities within the convent.
Sallua also had to collect other information, in secret, “especially on the ominous ‘Americano’ possessed by the devil.” Finally, the Roman authorities tasked the local inquisitor of Gubbio18 with questioning some of the sisters at the convent of San Marziale in the town.19 The Holy Office had sentenced Maria Agnese Firrao, Sant’Ambrogio’s mother founder, to live in monastic imprisonment there until her death.
This suggests that to start with the investigation was entirely focused on the veneration of Firrao as a saint, and whether she had secretly continued to lead the Catholic community of Sant’Ambrogio from her cell in Gubbio. That was evidently where the authorities in Rome saw the real crime: a woman who had been condemned as a false saint and expelled from Rome by the highest Church tribunal had allowed people to call her Beata, and the cult she had inspired among her devotees in Sant’Ambrogio had extended to the driving out of devils and demons.