The Nuns of Sant'Ambrogio: The True Story of a Convent in Scandal

by Hubert Wolf

  After mentioning Reisach, Maria Luisa brought the subject back to the princess’s sudden illness, starting with the scene in the choir on December 8, which she claimed was still incomprehensible to her. Maria Luisa gave the following version of events:

  Katharina: “Take pity on your soul; say yes to what I am saying.”

  I replied: “Are you not well? Stay calm.”

  And she: “No! You must answer yes, for the love of Jesus Christ and the Madonna. I have prayed so hard for you—convert! I won’t say anything; I am fond of you,” and countless other things of this sort.

  I told her she should not upset herself, and asked what I should do. In the middle of this conversation I was called away, and the scene was ended.

  As a cardinal member of the Inquisition and a confidant of the pope, Cardinal Reisach was able to intervene in the trial at any point. (illustration credit 6.1)

  The “violence of this act” caused Katharina to suffer a stroke two or three days later. The whole poisoning business had been nothing more than the imaginings of a sick mind—and perhaps also a result of the stroke, which had caused severe damage to the princess’s brain. Maria Luisa also claimed that Katharina’s exit from Sant’Ambrogio had gone without a hitch. Nobody put any kind of obstacle in the princess’s way. When he came to collect Katharina, her cousin Hohenlohe told Maria Luisa the princess was so upset at the death of her young relative (the queen of Portugal) that he now had to take her to his country villa in Tivoli. However, both she and the abbess feared that when she left, the confused princess might try to pin something on them in connection with the cult of the mother founder.

  In an attempt to ward off this accusation, Maria Luisa consistently tried to shift the blame for this cult, which she called “fanciful,” onto Padre Leziroli.23 She said that he alone had been responsible for the veneration of the mother founder’s relics: her hair, a tooth, numerous items of clothing, scourges, writings, and letters had been treated as relics in Sant’Ambrogio. Leziroli had also written a saint’s life of Firrao. He had sermonized about her constantly, and included her as a saint in the liturgy. He had believed her writings to be the product of divine inspiration, and the nuns always called him “the Mother’s vicar.” Maria Luisa’s own attempts to put a stop to this false cult had, alas, been in vain.

  In her interrogations throughout the first half of June, Maria Luisa also distanced herself from any responsibility for the policy of secrecy that the visitators and inquisitors had encountered at every turn in Sant’Ambrogio. She claimed that the confessors and the abbess were solely to blame for the nuns having hidden (and in some cases destroyed) the mother founder’s writings, Leziroli’s saint’s life, and texts by the Jesuit Giuseppe Pignatelli. The abbess also told her she had no need to fear the Visitation: “We will have to bear the burden, if they keep coming back. We will do as they ask; I will say yes and no, as they wish, and this virtue will see us victorious.”

  Maria Luisa repeatedly told the court she was ready to beg for forgiveness, while at the same time making it very clear she had done all this because she believed “neither in the mother founder nor in her cult.” She was just doing everything she could to stop the nuns venerating a false saint. As she couldn’t display her opposition to this openly in Sant’Ambrogio, she had proceeded with extreme caution, “but not in order to claim holiness or anything else for herself.” It had simply been necessary to act as she had done, “to provide a remedy for this sickness.”

  Just as in March 1860, the Dominican Sallua remained unconvinced by Maria Luisa’s account of events in Sant’Ambrogio: “She began to speak about the main charges ex se; she reported every incident and conversation in a way that was favorable to her, and did not correspond to the truth of the witness hearings,” he told the cardinals in his Ristretto.24

  EVIDENCE AND FIRST CONFESSIONS

  During her first interrogations, Maria Luisa denied all guilt. Now Sallua began to confront her with the evidence and the witness statements; now the investigating court started calling the shots. Its task was to prove the charges that had been formulated during the informative process, point by point. Ideally, this would be topped off with a confession from the defendant.

  Over the course of several days, the investigating court gave Maria Luisa a series of “harsh warnings” as it confronted her with witness statements that corroborated each other in detail. Only then, during the month of June, did she gradually begin to confess her responsibility for the offenses with which she had been charged.25 Still, her confessions remained incomplete, and her statements often contradicted each other.

  Her first admission concerned her participation in the cult of Firrao. In her interrogation on June 24, 1860, she said:26 “I freely confess that I supported and spread the veneration and the cult of the mother founder in various ways, and through various pretenses.” But, at least to begin with, she had only been doing what was required of the nuns, as they had been instructed by the confessors—in particular, Padre Leziroli. Everyone in Sant’Ambrogio had joined in the “adoration” and “glorification” of Maria Agnese Firrao. She herself had only gone along with all these “deceptions” because she didn’t know any better: ever since she was young, since she entered the convent, this was all she had learned from the example of the older nuns and superiors, and the readings from the founder’s texts.

  Maria Luisa was also finally prepared to confess to her own pretense of holiness. “Not just with my tongue, but with my heart I confess that I feigned all these things.” She said she had been motivated by “pride.” She wanted to appear “favored by the Lord” in order to gain power, so that she, too, would be venerated within Sant’Ambrogio.

  The inquisitors were particularly interested in the practice of confession in Sant’Ambrogio. When questioned, Maria Luisa admitted forcing the novices to make a detailed confession of all their sins before they entered the convent, especially their “dishonesties”—by which she especially meant their sexual transgressions. She also made the novices confess to her before their weekly confession, and then told them what they could and couldn’t say to the father confessor. And she had dispensed absolution. For this, the novices had to fall to their knees as she “gave them the blessing, assigned a penance and let them take Communion.” She used the “information” gleaned from these confessions to steer individual nuns in whatever direction she thought best. “It is true that the father confessors Peters and Leziroli imparted to me what they had heard from the novices and some of the nuns in confession.”27 This proved to the investigating court that the seal of the confessional had been continually broken, via “intimate communication” between Maria Luisa and the confessors.

  Maria Luisa then confessed to the financial misdemenors of which she had been accused. She had embezzled the “money from heaven” from the nuns’ dowries. She had also failed to observe fast days and other Church commandments, such as the obligatory Liturgy of the Hours. She admitted to having a relationship with the Americano, though without making it clear exactly how far this relationship had gone. Kreuzburg, she said, came to the parlatory every day, and wrote her a letter after each meeting. These letters were very muddled. He was unable to believe that “one day, once he had been released from the devil, he could become a Jesuit.” He kept giving in to the “vice of dishonesty.” “He went to the Pincio, where he met women and sinned with them.” In several of his letters, he wrote “that we nuns tended toward this same vice; that even we harbored unclean desires. Once he even made one of these claims about me personally.”

  MARIA LUISA AND HER NOVICES

  On June 21, 1860, Maria Luisa was questioned about the lesbian practices and initiation rites in Sant’Ambrogio.28 Before giving her testimony, she wept bitter tears, and knelt in humility to beg for forgiveness for what she now had to describe. “As I said yesterday evening towards the end of the hearing, I want to confess all the wicked deeds I committed. When Agnese Eletta was still in Sant’Ambrogio, after her so-cal
led conversion, I began to allow myself deceitful intimacies with her, in that I studied her private parts very closely with my eyes, and also touched them with my hands.”

  Then she explained how she had happened upon the idea of “these villainies”:

  When we were taken to Santi Quattro Coronati, at the time of the Republic, the nuns’ most important task was to rescue and take with them the writings of the mother founder, and her father confessors and spiritual guides. I was given three large bundles; I read some of them, and found the following instructions from the mother founder to Sister Maria Maddalena: she said she entrusted her daughters to her. Maddalena must consider how much her daughters had cost her; Maria Agnese had paid for them with her spirit and her body, since she had nourished them with her milk. Maddalena should always keep in mind that nuns who entered the convent at an advanced age and knew something of the world should be examined and purified.

  But what sort of purification was this?

  I asked the late Sister Maria Crocifissa, who was then vicaress. By and by, under the seal of secrecy, she told me how these things were done. She said that Sister Maria Maddalena entered the convent because the mother founder had called her in an extraordinary way. As she was of an advanced age, and had knowledge of worldly matters, the founder examined and purified her through touching various parts of her body with her own.

  So that I might better understand how this worked, Maria Crocifissa gave me the example of Elijah,29 saying, “Just as Elijah laid himself over the child, causing warmth to enter his body and bring him back to life, so God gave the mother founder the gift of being able to impart her virtue, her spirit, her purity, by laying herself over a nun. She would examine the nun and made the sign of the cross in her private parts, to purify her. And as she did this she filled her with a special liquor.”

  I recall reading in the letters from the mother founder that she also recommended Maria Maddalena should carry out this purification. With regard to the late Maria Giuseppa, who entered the convent at an advanced age, she told Maddalena to treat her at least once a week in this way. So I imagine that those of the older nuns who are still living also know of this—at least Sister Maria Caterina and Sister Maria Gertrude. They have told me many times of the slander against the late Sister Maria Maddalena during the Holy Office’s trial, where she was accused of dishonest and terrible things. After the trial, some people painted satirical verses under the window of the convent. She suffered very much from the slander.…

  I confess that, being steeped in these precepts, I committed the acts I have described with Agnese Eletta.

  I also committed the same deceitful acts with Sister Maria Giacinta as I had with Agnese Eletta, and although these did not go as far as with Agnese Eletta, they were more frequent and lasted longer. But with this nun there were no visions or strange occurrences.

  I have spoken of these disgraces, and let me say that in Sant’Ambrogio, where things have always been this way, it will be impossible to stamp out these precepts and practices, because they are rooted in the holiness of the mother founder. As long as there is the vaguest memory of her, this depravity will remain in Sant’Ambrogio.

  According to Maria Luisa’s testimony there was a tradition going back to Agnese Firrao, of Sant’Ambrogio’s abbess performing lesbian initiation rites with each new entrant to the convent—particularly if they were already sexually experienced. Sallua must have been delighted with this testimony, particularly as it supported his historical reconstruction of the original case against Firrao. Sexual intercourse had taken place, under the pretext of purifying the novices’ sexual organs, during which vaginal fluid—the “liquor”—was exchanged. The requirements for the offense of female sodomy were thus fulfilled. As the vicaress and novice mistress, Maria Luisa was a senior nun, and she therefore engaged in this element of Firrao’s “reform program” as a matter of course. She believed that sexual purification was one of the essential features of the Regulated Third Order of Holy Saint Francis at Sant’Ambrogio, independently of the specific people involved.

  This argumentation, however, didn’t completely convince the tribunal. The mention of Maria Maddalena’s sexual practices, which were so widely known in the city that ordinary people had written rude verses about them on the convent wall, set the inquisitors thinking. After all, Maria Luisa had entered the convent under the aegis of this abbess. Was her induction to these practices really just theoretical?

  SEXUAL ABUSE

  On July 20, 1860, Maria Luisa was finally ready to tell the whole truth.30

  When I was in the convent of Santi Quattro Coronati, I received the writings of the mother founder and her spiritual guides to keep safe. When I read these, I came across descriptions that she had given to her father confessor. She said the Lord had appeared to her and entrusted the institute to her, with the solemn injunction to oversee the keeping of the vows, and chastity most of all. For this purpose the Lord had filled her with a liquor. He had poured this over her person and left it with her, so that she could use it to purify her daughters and make them holy, particularly those who had entered the convent as adults or had already sinned in their worldly lives.

  I read about this matter in various letters; in two of these the mother founder said she had twice seen this liquor flowing from the mouth and from the ribs of the Lord, and had used it to purify Mother Maddalena. Thus the Lord had chosen Mother Maddalena to replace the founder in the institute. I also read letters from the founder to Maria Maddalena, where she urged her to oversee and carry out this command from the Lord. Elijah was mentioned in these letters, as I said before.

  In another letter, the mother founder told her father confessor that she lacked feeling, and said that the Lord no longer appeared to her. She also said she had to take in a particular lady from Venice, who was given the name Sister Maria Giuseppa. She must be purified. The Virgin Mary appeared to her five times, and five times she allowed the founder to suck at her breast, to draw out the liquor which the founder must then use to purify Maria Giuseppa. She spoke of five times, because the name Maria has five letters.

  I confess that with Maria Giacinta, I performed the same acts the mother founder said she had performed with the Madonna.

  Now the purification of the sexual organs of newly veiled nuns had acquired a Mariological dimension. The nuns linked the act of suckling at the breast to Maria Lactans, a widespread image from the mysticism and piety of the Middle Ages, showing the Mother of God feeding the faithful with milk from her breasts.31

  Maria Luisa was keen to bring the matter to a close with this statement, but the inquisitors now pressed her to testify in full. Only after being severely reprimanded was she finally prepared to do this.

  I entered the convent of Sant’Ambrogio at the age of 13 or 14. The abbess at the time was Maria Maddalena; she lived from that April until Christmas, when she died. During those months I was the only postulant in the convent (apart from one who only stayed a very short time), so I had the attention and the affection of the old lady all to myself. The mother abbess gave me special affection and attention; she wanted to have me in the cell next to hers, and kept me in her company almost the whole day. She was constantly instructing me on the virtues and the philosophy of the institute, and speaking of the persecution and the holiness of the mother founder. She called me “her little lamb,” “her treasure”; she kissed and embraced me. She was very strict, when she taught me humility and decorum, saying that one day I should be like her. Her attention and the affection she showed me were so great that some of the nuns grew jealous and told me how lucky I was, for they were hardly permitted to exchange even a few words with the abbess.

  A few months later … I was called by the late vicaress, Sister Maria Crocifissa … after lunch. She told me that the mother abbess wanted to give me a gift. She sent me into the abbess’s bedroom; she was lying on the bed in a swoon.

  Maria Crocifissa said to me: “See how the mother abbess hides her virtue and
her holiness? She lets the nuns believe that she wants to rest, but really she is sunk in prayer. Now she is illuminated by the Lord, who allows her to comprehend all manner of things, and see into people’s hearts; this is why she can speak so well of virtue. Do you see? The way her face is so enflamed is a sign of God’s love.”

  She made me go nearer to the bed and kiss her hand. Then she began to undress the abbess completely and to touch her in her private parts with her hands. She showed me a white liquid that appeared as she did so, saying: “This is a heavenly liquor, imparted to her by the Lord.”

  She also told me that if I loved the abbess and was her little lamb, I must take heed to steal this liquor from her, so I could become like her. She made me bend my head down to the abbess’s private parts. I was gripped by fear and showed my disgust, saying: “and what if she then throws me out?”

  Maria Crocifissa replied: “On the contrary, afterwards you can be sure she will not expel you, because this is a precious gift for you, which the Lord has commanded her to bestow.”

  She then bade me lick this liquid with my tongue. She took my hand and made me dip my fingers in this liquid, with which I had to make three signs of the cross on my forehead and lips with my own hand. Then she signed herself in the way I have described, and laid her head on Maria Maddalena’s private parts. Then she covered her up and we walked away slowly, but the abbess, Maria Maddalena, called to me, and I went back to her bed. Maria Crocifissa went away and left me alone with her.

  The abbess started saying, very lovingly: “Little thief of my heart, come here, what have you stolen from me? I know everything.”