Benedetta Carlini, a lesbian nun in the 17th century Tuscany

Article of Irantzu Monteano published on the website of the Lesbian magazine Mirales (Spain) on June 12, 2014, freely translated by Anna Iaderosa

In the process of reconstruction of a (coherent) story of lesbism it is common that it is difficult to find sensational historical evidence that allow to support certain biographies that this story claims for themselves. The absence of final data that make it easier to make statements is always a handicap for those who try to reconstruct this memory, but in the case of Benedetta Carlini the lack of evidence takes a dizzying fold.

When the historic Judith C. Brown became aware of her during an investigation into the economic and social history of Pescia (Italy), he could not underline this important fact, and after having rescued by the oblivion Benedetta Carlini (1591-1661), he developed the first document on the lesbism of the West.

The daughter of a wealthy family of Tuscany, Benedetta was a rather revolutionary mystical religious of the Italian Renaissance. Cultured, spontaneous, devoted and passionate, he distinguished himself for his particular character and from the first moment he received a special treatment from his sisters of the convent in which he was interned as a consequence of his visions on the Virgin Mary and his mystical relationship with God. Because of his peculiar form of religiosity and his peculiar character, soon the nominated abbess.

The Renaissance was already in itself an era of great agitations and profound changes. In this context of cultural revolution, the story of Benedetta is the symptom of a company in the process of transformation. These profound transformations touched all the areas and the conservative response to the latter did not wait.

The counter -reform was one of these responses, which tried to curb the progress of the Protestant reform trying to return religious orders to its traditional origins, trying to curb the incipient development of new forms of understanding Christianity and punishing any creative attempt of religiosity. At that moment, therefore, the manifestations of heretical spirituality were heavily punished and the inquisition was very attentive to any acute lighting.

The popularity of Benedetta's visions, which grew in intensity, soon extended to Italy of the time and quickly reached the Pope's ears. As part of that current of alternative manifestations that spread in Christian kingdoms, it was decided that this fame had to be sanctioned. The veneration that Benedetta's sisters had initially professed towards her went down and her credibility began to be questioned. After various scandalous episodes of supernatural faces, her sisters accused her of being possessed. Soon they raised her from her assignment.

Starting from this moment, the scandal broke out. In his commitment to silence the dangerous mystics, the Papacy of Rome opened an investigation to try to clarify what happened with Sister Benedetta, since in its episodes of religious intensity she resided something dark. Thus, investigating the on -alleged demonic nature, the ecclesiastical authorities questioned the protagonists several times, trying to find a rational explanation and a reasonable theological justification.

It was contacting Sister Bartolomea that the pieces of the puzzle began to match. From her he learned about the sexual encounters that Sister Benedetta had had with several residents of the convent. According to Bartolomea's story, they were lovers: Benedetta forced her to make love with her while she was possessed by a male angel called Splenditello and both lived the mystical epiphanies that Sister Benedetta described. The ecclesiastical authority, strongly worried, developed a relationship on the case, a relationship that is still preserved today and which constitutes the essence of the investigation work of the author Judith C. Brown. In it, the declarations of the people involved in facts are collected and situations such as:

"Behaving as if he were a man, she [Sister Benedetta] moved above the subordinate with such an intensity that both remained corrupt."

"Benedetta, to get more pleasure, put his face between the breasts of the other and kissed them, and wanted to always be above her."

"During the day, pretending to be sick and showing that he needed something, he squeezed the hand of his partner strong and, putting it under you, put on the finger of his partner in his genitals and kept him there, was excited to corrupt."

Having come to the current of these facts, the inquisition condemned Sister Benedetta to the prison for life, where he died in 1661, a year later Sister Bartolomea.

Starting from the recognition of these facts, in the last part of the twentieth century, Benedetta Carlini has become a great icon of the reconstruction of the history of lesbism, and is understandable. There have been many scholars who were interested in his figure. The aforementioned Judith Brown told his life in Immodest acts ("Impure acts"), explaining the events that led her to be important for historians of female spirituality and lesbism.

The Canadian playwright and theatrical director Rosemary Rowe wrote a theatrical work on the love relationship with Sister Bartolomea entitled Benedetta Carlini: Lesbian Nun of Renaissance Italy (Benedetta Carlini: a lesbian nun in Renaissance Italy) and E. Ann Matter, a feminast theologian, conducted a deep investigation into the case in Discourses of Desire: Sexuality and Christian Women's Visionary Narratives (Speeches on desire: sexuality and visionary narratives of Christian women).

Whatever the nature of his passion, and without discussing the subtle line between the sexual and the spiritual that Sister Benedetta (and also many other contemporary mystics) dared to transgress, it is right to highlight that the events that marked its history offer a new perspective to the theological investigation and are today an indisputable point of reference in the history of femininity and lesbism.

Original text: Benedetta Carlini: the Monja Lesbiana del Siglo XVII