Benedetta Carlini (20 January 1590 – 7 August 1661) was an Italian Catholic nun. As abbess of the Convent of the Mother of God at Pescia, she was best known for her claims of experiencing mystic visions as well as a reported lesbian relationship with a nun. Her scandalous career resulted in life imprisonment until her death in 1661.
The case of Benedetta was described in the 1985 nonfiction book Immodest Acts: The Life of a Lesbian Nun in Renaissance Italy by Judith C. Brown, later fictionalized in the 2021 film Benedetta.
Early life Benedetta Carlini was born on 20 January 1590,Klemens Löffler (1912). "St. Sebastian". In Catholic Encyclopedia. 13. New York: Robert Appleton Company. in , located in the Apennine Mountains, northwest of Florence. She was born as an only child to Giuliano Carlini, a landlord who owned various properties in Vellano, and Midea Carlini ( d'Antonio Pieri), a sister of the village's parish priest. Giuliano selected the name Benedetta, meaning “blessed,” and designated her for a religious vocation from birth. Soon after her birth, her family retired to her father's farm in the mountains.
Giuliano assumed responsibility for his daughter’s education, a role that typically belonged to mothers in Renaissance Italian households. She had memorized several prayers, including the Litany of the Saints, by the age of five. Under her father's tutelage, Benedetta recited the Litany on her rosary several times a day. A year later she had learned to read and knew some Latin.
Her mother instructed her to recite five Our Fathers and eight Hail Marys every day, seemingly directing Benedetta toward female guides—the Virgin Mary, a statue of whom had been acquired especially for Benedetta, and St. Catherine of Siena, whose feast day was widely celebrated. In spring 1599, Giuliano decided to fulfill his vow by bringing Benedetta to be brought up by a group of religious women in Pescia.
Career In 1599, 9-year old Carlini was left to join a semi-monastic community founded nine years earlier (in 1590) by Piera Pagni, the widow of a prominent Pesciatine. The community did not live in a regularly enclosed convent, and were not recognised religious sisters; they led a communal life engaged in prayer, spiritual exercises and production of raw silk. This community were nicknamed Theatines by locals despite their gender, as they were backed by male organization Fathers of the Holy Annunciation, founded by Piera's relative Antonio Pagni. Pagni offered holistic services for the cheap price of 160 scudi, compared to most convents' requests of dowries of 1500 scudi, which was considered to be affordable by Carlini's parents. Carlini was considered to be an obedient and faithful woman in her early years by her peers.
In 1610, the community acquired a farm in the commune of Fucecchio for 1750 scudi, becoming economically successful and self-sufficient. The group's annual revenues came to 300 scudi, of which half came from the silk work done by its members and the rest from their dowries and from this farm and others. Thus, the following year, they received permission from Rome to organize a general chapter and accept new girls. A convent building was built and enlarged within years.
Visions In 1614, 23-year old Carlini started reporting supernatural visions; they were fantastical in nature, often involving imagery of Heaven and internal encouragement. Carlini would always emerge a more determined and faithful figure, notifying her superiors of them while seeking guidance. On the contrary, witnesses noted that Carlini went into a trance-like state, uttering gibberish and gesticulating in incomprehensible ways during such visions. Carlini was recommended by her superiors to resist such visions by praying, only to suffer various ailments from mental anguish for two years without visions.
In 1617, Carlini started having visions in her sleep, though this return pivoted into traumatic experiences; she would envision men tempting her to divert from her monastic lifestyle while also beating her to near-death. These incidents finally came to the community's attention after she came forward to her superiors for help instead of sleeping; young Bartolomea Crivelli was assigned to watch over her in case of danger. Carlini was also excused from participation in daily routines due to her poor condition.
In 1618, the community's staff resettled to a newly built convent building in a solemn procession. Carlini envisioned fantastical visions of angels and flowers during this walk, going into a trance yet again; many witnessed her in this state, making her poor mental state known to the public.
Supernatural events Three months after the resettlement, on the second Friday of Lent, Benedetta received the stigmata. By her own words, these appeared between two and three at night when she was in bed. She saw a crucifix and bright rays from wounds of Christ to her head, hands, feet and side of the chest. These rays caused tremendous pain, but then Benedetta felt such contentment in her heart that she had never experienced before. Bartolomea Crivelli witnessed the event, helping her up and discovering red marks like small rosettes on Benedetta's hands, feet, and side, and also a deep red band around her head, but it was bloodless. The stigmata were the first material evidence of supernatural phenomena that happened with Benedetta. She was elected as abbess sometime between February and May 1619 for this event.
Paolo Ricordati of the Fathers of the Holy Annunciation regularly visited the convent to hear Carlini give sermons to the other nuns while they purified themselves with their whips as part of their penance. Ricordati was impressed by Carlini's trance-like state during her sermons, noting her to be an exception to her role's men-only nature.
On 21 March 1619, Ricordati summoned Carlini and told her: "Today is the day of St. Benedict, your saint's day, go in ecstasy at your pleasure, I give you permission." It was an experiment to examine if her visions would come on command. That evening, during compline, Benedetta fell into a trance more powerful than the last, where an apparition claiming to be Jesus was the centre of it.
Once settled in their new quarters, the Theatines began the final round of administrative procedures to become a regular convent. In 1619, they asked Pope Paul V to grant them complete enclosure. When the papal officials who handled such petitions received the request, they asked the provost of Pescia to send in a report about them.
Wedding incident On 20 May 1619, Carlini had a vision where Jesus instructed her to initiate a marriage between them both, with highly detailed instructions on the ceremony's item placement and rituals. She doubted this as an act of temptation by Satan, but was surprised to see it be approved by Ricordati. A servant was sent to borrow an altar cloth from several people outside the convent, with other religious institutions in the vicinity to contribute candles and other convents contributing pillows and flowers.
Word of the event spread and many wanted to participate, but, no one, not even Father Ricordati, was allowed by the provost to enter the convent during the preparation or the ceremony itself; the community had amassed an overwhelming amount of gifts from fellow passing Catholics.
On 27 May 1619, the morning of Holy Trinity, Carlini heard an inner voice telling her that she should dress the two novices as angels. She quickly wrote a note to Father Ricordati to obtain his permission. This done, she and the others went to Choir, where she picked up a basket of flowers, scattered its content throughout, and then lit the candles, giving one to each. Benedetta instructed nuns to get on their knees and to do as she instructed. Taking up the crucifix, she began to intone Veni Creator Spiritus as she led a procession out of the choir, onto the garden, and then back around the choir where all of them sang various hymns and the litanies to the Virgin. After scattering incense and bowing several times in the direction of the altar, Carlini knelt and resumed singing by herself. Her voice was scarcely audible and her words could not be made out. After more visions of Jesus, Benedetta finally spoke audibly to the surprise of witnesses, in a more beautiful tone than her usual voice. Carlini returned to her own senses at the end of the ceremony and left as if nothing happened. Along the way, she stopped to chat with the wife of the Vicar who, in defiance of the provost's orders, had come to the convent to witness the wedding.
This incident was deduced by some to be fraudulent on Carlini's part; women were denied a place in the social and public discourse at the time, with little leeway for their voices to be heard. It was proposed that Carlini faked everything for approval from fellow monastic staff as well as praise from the most faithful.
The First Investigation The wedding incident came to the attention of many, offending powerful individuals such as Provost of Pescia Stefano Cecchi and Pescian secular authorities. Carlini's claim that Jesus had said extravagant words of praise for her and threatened damnation to those who did not believe in her was one point of scrutiny due to its uncharacteristically aggressive nature. To their horror, Carlini's news had spread to the public to the point of mass interest in her acts; the public were ordered not to discuss the incident as a result.
On 28 May 1619, the day after this ceremony, he came to examine Carlini himself. Benedetta was relieved of her duties as abbess until further notice, and Felice di Giovanni Guerrini came to this duties. Cecchi first examined the stigmata of Benedetta Carlini since they were the only visible signs of miraculous intervention. Christ had said during Benedetta's sermon of the previous day that the wounds on her body would be open and larger in appearance than before. The provost, therefore, looked at her hands, feet, and side, where he could see bits of dried blood about the size of a small coin. When they were washed with warm water, each revealed a small opening from which drops of fresh blood trickled out. When the blood was dried with a towel, more came out. On Benedetta's head were many bloody marks, which also bled into the towel when washed with warm water. The stigmata, which days ago had been nothing more than small red marks, had changed just as Christ predicted. Then the provost asked Benedetta to recount how wounds came to be on her body. She told about five days from the crucifixion in her vision during Lent and about that she felt pain not all time: "On Sundays, they seem to be numb; on Mondays and Tuesdays I have almost no pain; and all the other days I have great pain, especially on Fridays."
After the first visit of the provost, Carlini went into a trance-like state yet again and wrote two letters, respectively to Ricordati and Cecchi. But after the trance, she could remember only former, in which she asked her father confessor for permission to write directly to the provost or meet with him. Ricordati denied her request because if Christ wanted to communicate with the provost, he would find other means for doing so. But then Ricordati forwarded to Cecchi the letter that Benedetta had written to himself. Benedetta did not know about this, and when Cecchi came again on 7 June 1619 and asked her what she wanted to tell him, she seemed nonplussed and had nothing to say. The provost had examined Benedetta's stigmata again and saw a few changes. The wound on the right hand did not bleed when washed and dried with a towel. The puncture marks on the head were also dried and looked partly healed. The provost was perplexed, but there was nothing to be done, and the visit came to an end. Fourteen further times between late May and early September were recorded.