Sposa di Cristo: Mistica e comunità nei Ratti di Caterina de’Ricci. Con il testo inedito del XVI secolo by Anna Scattigno (review)

Caterina de’Ricci (1522–90), prioress of the Dominican convent of San Vincenzo in Prato, was famous during her lifetime for her visionary raptures and ecstasies of the Passion. Like many other religious women in sixteenth-century Italy, she venerated the Dominican prophet Girolamo Savonarola (1452–98); indeed, she was the only female Savonarolan visionary to be proclaimed as a canonized saint (in 1746). Caterina’s life and the variegated testimonies of her mystical spirituality have been studied mostly by Dominican historians, notably by Domenico Di Agresti. Drawing on Di Agresti’s studies, but influenced by recent historiographical approaches to female monasticism and early-modern women’s writing and mysticism, Anna Scattigno has devoted several important essays in the last couple of decades to Caterina and her religious community. Sposa di Cristo: Mistica e comunità nei Ratti di Caterina de’Ricci includes revised versions of these essays, followed by a critical edition of codex 2363 of the Biblioteca Riccardiana (Florence) that contains Caterina’s Ratti (“Raptures”)—accounts of her ecstatic visions as recorded by her fellow nuns and later redacted by Sister Tommasa Martelli in 1583.

Scattigno’s edition of the Ratti reveals new facets of Caterina’s promotion of Savonarolan devotion. Thus we learn that Caterina described her visionary contacts not only with Savonarola but also with Iacopo da Sicilia (c.1462–1530)—who had played a crucial role in the initial formation of Savonarola’s cult—and confirmed his soul’s ascension to heaven (pp. 257–59). The Ratti also attest to convents’ contribution to the Tuscan silk industry, by describing Caterina’s repeated prayers to Savonarola that he increase her productivity and enable her to work “like the other nuns” (p. 174). A striking document incorporated into the Ratti is the testimony given by Sister Maria Gabriella Mascalzoni, who recounts her initial doubts about Caterina’s divine gifts until she once looked at her and saw “not the face of Sister Caterina, but [that] of Jesus” (p. 248). Mascalzoni’s account, which corroborated Caterina’s claims to convey Christ’s message in her ecstatic raptures, reveals the role of her community in constructing her religious discourse.

In the essays that precede the Ratti, Scattigno portrays Caterina as a “transitional figure” (pp. 25–26). Although she had much in common with the uncloistered Italian sante vive (living saints) of the early-sixteenth century, Caterina lived through the years of the Council of Trent and through the subsequent compulsory enclosure of her monastic community. Hence, although her devotion to Christ’s Passion and her emulation of St. Catherine of Siena were reminiscent of the spirituality of earlier Dominican tertiaries such as Stefana Quinzani (1457–1530), the prophetic aspect of Caterina’s spirituality was considerably toned down.

In keeping with the Tridentine precepts of desired female religiosity, Caterina’s visions stressed humility, strict observance of monastic rules, and obedience as the keys to religious renovation. Ironically, in her insistence on the importance of obedience and the “reverence of [one’s] superiors” (p. 62), Caterina claimed to be transmitting the instructions of Savonarola, whose own disobedience to the pope had brought about his downfall. According to Caterina, when the Dominican prophet first appeared to her, he promised to facilitate her miraculous healing on the condition that she thereafter express utter obedience to her superiors.

As a whole, Scattigno’s book sheds light on the complex production of women’s visionary texts and on the changing contours of female sanctity in Tridentine Italy. Adding nuance to our understanding of sixteenth-century Savonarolism, it also provides an invaluable testimony of female monasticism in Medicean Tuscany. Sposa di Cristo should be translated into English so that Scattigno’s important insights can be made available to a...