ABOUT THIS BOOK

A new edition of all of de Varano's known works, several of which have never before appeared in English.

Camilla Battista da Varano (1458–1524) was a Franciscan nun and the author of profound spiritual writings in both prose and verse. Raised in the princely household of Camerino in north-central Italy, she put her thorough humanist education to use explaining her own spiritual experience and delivering advice to others. Varano composed ecstatic revelations, prayers, poems, hagiography, spiritual direction, and commentary on convent legislation. She drew on a wide variety of sources, including scripture and Church Fathers, plus popular literature and proverbs. Varano was an erudite woman of considerable complexity, defying many of the commonplace images we associate with religious women of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Camilla Battista da Varano (1458–1524) was born in Camerino, in the Marche region of Italy, and was elected abbess of the convent of Santa Maria Nova in Camerino on four occasions. She was beatified in 1843 and canonized in 2010. William V. Hudon is professor of history, emeritus at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania and the author of Theatine Spirituality: Selected Writings and Marcello Cervini and Ecclesiastical Government in Tridentine Italy.

REVIEWS

"Illegitimate daughter of a duke, abbess, mystic: Camilla Battista da Varano lived a tempestuous life during tempestuous times in Italy, marked by political unrest and the arrival of the Reformation. And not even her withdrawal to a Clarissan convent over her father’s protests could still the dark nights of her soul. Canonized in 2010, Varano left behind a considerable body of writings in both Italian and Latin that is now available in English thanks to historian William Hudon’s meticulous edition and translation. Those writings include poems, prayers, spiritual autobiographies, and her audacious Mental Sufferings of Jesus during His Passion in Gethsemane—so audacious that she strategically claimed that she had simply transcribed the words of another nun. Her rescripting of gender norms, her deep self-awareness, her interest in other women writers: all make of Varano a remarkable figure whose defiance of stereotypes complicates our understanding of early modern spirituality."

— Jane Tylus, Andrew Downey Orrick Professor of Italian and Professor of Comparative Literature, Yale University

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Illustrations

Abbreviations

Introduction

Autobiographical Works
The Spiritual Life (La vita spirituale), 1491
Instructions to a Disciple (Istruzioni al discepolo), 1499–1501

Devotional Works
Memories of Jesus (Ricordi di Gesù), 1483; 1491
Prayers, 1488–1490, some with unknown date
The Mental Sufferings of Jesus during His Passion (I dolori mentali di Gesù nella sua passione), 1488
Treatise on Purity of Heart (Trattato della purità del cuore), 1499–1501
Considerations on the Passion of Our Lord (Considerazioni sulla passione di nostro signore), perhaps 1488

Treatises on Religious Persons and on Religious Institutions
The Happy Passing of the Blessed Pietro da Mogliano (Del felice transito del beato Pietro da Mogliano), 1491
Remembrance of the Olivetan Antonio da Segovia (Memoria dell’Olivetano Antonio di Segovia), 1492
Exposition of the Rule of the Poor Sisters of Saint Clare (Dechiarazioni sopra i capituli de la regola de le sore povere di Santa Chiara), c. 1500

Correspondence
Letters, 1513–1521

Poetry
Poems, ca. 1479–1506, one undated

Chronology

Bibliography
Index