Description
(Text)
The aim of this book is to investigate the delicate relationship between female sanctity and madness, in a time-frame extending from medieval until contemporary times. Constellated by visions, ecstatic raptures, morbid rituals, stigmata and obsessions, the complex phenomenology of female mysticism appears in fact to be articulated and polymorphous, traversed by 'representations' that it seems possible to link to the wide spectrum of mental disorders, as well to the hagiographic stereotypes and anthropological implications. Male and female scholars from different disciplines (from history to philology, from anthropology to art history, from theology to literary criticism, from psychiatry to psychoanalysis) try to outline a thematic and problematic itinerary, intended to examine, step by step, potential pathological aspects and contexts of reference for the purpose of attempting to reconstruct the complex evolutionary trajectory of female mystical language.
(Table of content)
Mattia ZangariParoxysms, stigmata and dolls in convents. Female Sanctity and Mental Illness between the Middle Ages and the Modern Ages (introduction)Isabella GagliardiDiscretio, diagnosi e patente di santità alla prova della "pazzia" (secc. XI-XIV)Maurizio GronchiSante e malate, non solo d'amore? Uno sguardo storico-teologicoMartina Bengert, André OttoBetween Pathology and Pathos. Spectacular Utterances in The Book of Margery Kempe Alfonsina BellioUn <>? Femminilità profetiche tra letture di tipo psicopatologico e antropologiaMattia ZangariFemale Visionary Saints: an alternative Interpretation. Female sanctity, Visionaryism and Hysteria in the Medieval and Modern Age Torsten Passie, Elisabeth PetrowThe Ecstasies of St. Teresa of Avila. Phenomenology, Illness and ResilienceArmando MaggiL'abbandono al Male. Le esperienze di Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi e Veronica Giuliani .Rudolph M. BellSaint Veronica Giuliani. The Five Autobiographies of Orsolina Giuliani Tine Van Osselaer, Leonardo Rossi, Kristof Smeyers, Linde TuybensMystical phenomena as symptoms of social disease .Manuela Fraire (a cura di Greta Maria Alessia Redaelli)Baby doll. La "maternità" in convento Chiara BastaTra pedagogia e amour fou. Il culto di Gesù bambino nei monasteri femminili (secoli XV-XVII) Curricula Index of names
(Author portrait)
PhD at the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa (2016), Dr. Mattia Zangari's research interests are directed at female sanctity, from the Middle Ages to the modern period. As well as studying the biographies of female saints, for many years he has studied the relationship between female sanctity and mental disturbance, and he has carried out cutting-edge research (he was the first Marie Sklodowska Curie Fellow to conduct research at the Vatican, in the frame of a co-supervision with Università Ca' Foscari Venezia). Dr. Zangari carried out research at prestigious centres abroad, such as the CRRS of the University of Toronto. He is author of many publications, the most important are: Santità femminile e disturbi mentali fra Medioevo ed età moderna (Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2022); La santa e il Giglio: mistiche nella Firenze del Seicento (Roma, Carocci, 2022); Tre storie di santità femminile tra parole e immagini: agiografie, memoriali e fabulae depictae fra Due e Trecento (Narr, Tübingen, 2019).
