Stones of Passion: Stones in the Internal Organs as Liminal Phenomena between Medical and Religious Knowledge in Renaissance Italy

In Renaissance Italy, stones growing inside the kidneys, bladders and gallbladders of people with a reputation of holiness could evoke veneration. Not only did these stones test the saints’ endurance, they were also natural phenomena approaching the miraculous. Yet they never figured as juridically recognized miracles in the canonization proceedings of early modern saints. A medical historical perspective shows why internal stones fascinated contemporaries, but did not constitute formally recognized markers of sanctity. For natural philosophers internal stones were enigmatic in themselves, eliciting awe, but precluding a definitive decision as to whether God intervened directly into the order of nature.