Following in the Apostles’ Footsteps

Martyrdom, Mysticism, and Protofeminism in Lucrezia Marinella’s Holocausto d’amore della vergine Santa Giustina (1648)

Bibliographic Data

ID10420752
AuthorsCarlotta Moro (0000-0001-8263-5365, University of Exeter, corresponding author)
Year2024
Volume77
Issue3
Pages923-962
Publication date2024-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueRenaissance Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0034-4338 • E-ISSN: 1935-0236
PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1017/rqx.2024.211
OpenAlexW4408154800
LanguageEN
References cited21

This article examines the relationship between protofeminism and faith in Lucrezia Marinella’s “Holocausto d’amore della vergine Santa Giustina” (1648). In particular, it explores Marinella’s departures from her sources, which serve to assert women’s excellence as preachers, exegetes, and rulers. Situating the life of the martyr Saint Justina within the context of the querelle des femmes and the Counter-Reformation backlash against public displays of female mysticism and religious authority, this contribution proposes that the hagiography promotes a form of female holiness inspired by the mystics and living saints who dispensed with male ecclesiastical mediation and exercised power beyond the monastic enclosure. This reading complicates the hypothesis that Marinella relinquished her pro-woman advocacy in her later years

Apostles · Art · Mysticism · Theology · History · Philosophy · Reformation and Early Modern Christianity

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