In Absentia: Politics of Religious Life in Maria Carafa’s Vita by Francesco Maggio (1670)

Abstract

This essay examines the interplay between politics and religion through the lens of correspondence between the future Pope Paul IV and his sister Maria Carafa, largely published in 1670 in Francesco Maria Maggio’s Life of the Venerable Maria Carafa. The analysis reveals how Carafa strategically used this epistolary relationship to shape his public image and religious–political agenda. The letters serve as a carefully crafted narrative tool. Carafa’s portrayal of himself as a leader seeking spiritual guidance from his saintly sister can be interpreted as a calculated political move to legitimize his religious authority and reform initiatives. This correspondence thus becomes a nexus where personal piety and public policy intersect. Maria Carafa’s writings, reconstructed in absentia, offer a perspective on the religious–political landscape of the time. Her role as both sister and spiritual mother to the future pope challenges traditional gender hierarchies within the Church, while also serving Carafa’s narrative of divine guidance for his actions.

1. Introduction

I had understood from several parts your grave infirmity, and then your convalescence, and lately I have understood it through your letters of the twenty-second of this, which have been most pleasing to me. And for the Glory of God […] I will confess to you the weakness of my soul. So, I had thought you dead when I saw no letters from anyone, nor could I understand the truth of your sight from any quarter. […] And therefore I comfort you, dearest Sister, with the thought that if the Lord has given you life this time, perhaps it was because your bread is not yet baked in such a way that the Lord can eat it. And therefore, he grants you this delay, so that you may strive with greater diligence to adorn your lamp (‘lampana’) […] so that […] we may find ourselves prepared […] to long for the coming of the Bridegroom.

(Maggio 1670, p. 31)

So wrote Gian Pietro Carafa from Rome on 29 April 1525 to his sister, enclosing with the letter “ten rules of St Augustine, translated into the vernacular, and reprinted, for your spiritual Daughters”. This short passage is taken from the oldest letter among the two hundred transcribed by Francesco Maria Maggio in the voluminous seventeenth-century Vita della venerabile Maria Carafa, who died in the odour of sanctity in 1552. Over a period of twenty-two years, her brother Gian Pietro Carafa addressed the prioress of La Sapienza monastery as sister, mother, confidante and, above all, as his spiritual daughter and “new creature in Christ” called “to walk” in His footsteps, founding the first reformed monastery “in the holy newness of Christian life, not according to the lukewarmness of those miserable times, but according to the will of God” (Maggio 1670, p. 63).

This essay examines the interplay between politics and religion through the lens of the private correspondence between Gian Pietro Carafa (1476–1559), elected Paolo IV in 1555, and his older sister Maria Carafa1 (1468–1552), largely published in 1670 in the Vita della venerabile Maria Carafa by Francesco Maria Maggio (1612–1686), biographer, historian and a member of the Theatine Order of Clerics Regular. This initial analysis reveals how, several years later, Maggio strategically used this epistolary relationship to spread a particular perspective which consolidated and integrated the Theatine story with a female counterpart; revive the original spiritual significance of cloistering as a fundamental element in the development of the female monastic experience; and recover the fame and works of the late Pope, Paul IV.2

Maria Carafa’s life—born in 1468 and dying aged over 80—takes place in the arc of that evolution of female leadership first outlined by Gabriella Zarri who highlights that, between the 1430s and 1460s, female religious life progressively abandoned expressions of ardent prophetism and the figure of the spiritual mother was recognised as having “particular charisms in order to reach perfection”, while “the exercise of charity and virtues became the way to work in religion” (Zarri 1994, pp. 198, 218). The time of the living saints, spiritual mothers and preachers came to an end with the death of Chiara Bugni in 1514, that of Clarissa Camilla Battista da Varano in 1524, and that of the Augustinian Laura Mignani in 1525: all were strongly involved in the process of theological renewal of the Church (Zarri 2009).

The year of Maria Carafa’s death coincides instead with a turning point in Church history: the condemnation of the doctrine of Fra Battista da Crema and the persecution of the adherents to the doctrines of Battista da Crema, including Paola Antonia Negri, condemned to enclosure in the monastery of St. Clare (Zarri 2009; Firpo 2014). Gian Pietro Carafa sought to implement an emerging vision of the Order that regulated cloistered life, obedience and the structures of vocation. The correspondence and communication through trusted messengers with his sister serve as a preliminary test for the principles outlined in the Tridentine decree De regularibus et monialibus, part of Session 25 of the Council of Trent, that would later mandate the reinstatement of enclosure in all female monasteries and require tertiaries living in communities to take solemn vows.3 It is indeed significant that, unlike the examples given above, in the hagiography dedicated to her by Francesco Maria Maggio in 1670, her voice unfolds in an absent dialogue: the silence of Maria Carafa’s voice is, instead, the ground on which her brother’s voice and reflections emerge and expand, leaving no room for the elaboration of a theological pathway constructed through sharing but rather substituting one that was learned.

Without claiming to be exhaustive, this essay intends to outline some ways to understand certain aspects of Maria Carafa’s profile and the functions of her figure in religious politics around the time of the Council, specifically via the tool of literary and textual analysis. It emerges, for example, how the language of spiritual motherhood as attributed to her by Carafa and Thiene—and progressively diluted in Marinoni’s letters—reveals the distance from the truly salvific, prophetic and mystical value of the correspondence that took place years earlier, in Thiene’s case, with Laura Mignani. Gaetano Thiene and Giovanni Marinoni are two other prominent figures in the life of Maria Carafa: both are linked to the Theatine experience and were committed to the realisation of those ideals of clergy reform and the care and control of souls that were destined to soon become one of the pillars of the Counter-Reformation Church. Both were involved in the spiritual direction of La Sapienza monastery in Naples, of which Maria Carafa was prioress. The beatification of the two men duly came to fruition, while that of Maria did not. At the same time, the essay engages in dialogue with the more aristocratic aspect, and true agency, of the prioress who in fact directs and continues to modify the monastery assigned to her, negotiating its physical boundaries and her authorial agency.

2. Reading Maggio’s Vita della Venerabil Madre D. Maria Carafa

The Clerics Regular, known as Theatines, were founded at the request of Pope Clement VII.4 On 24 June 1524, the Pope issued two apostolic briefs, both titled Exponi nobis. With the first, he authorized Gian Pietro Carafa to establish a new form of religious life within the Catholic Church. With the second, he granted Carafa, along with Gaetano Thiene, Bonifacio de’ Colli and Paolo Consiglieri, permission to officially found the order on 14 September 1524, in St. Peter’s Basilica.

The first female experience linked to the directives of the Clerics Regular revolves around Maria Carafa.

The Vita, which remains the primary source for attempting to give a certain three-dimensionality to the profile of Maria Carafa, reintroduces, however, the problem that Andrea Vanni had already noted and made clear in his historical reappropriation of the figure of Gaetano Thiene, with respect to the apologetics of the order to which Thiene belonged (Vanni 2016, pp. 9–16). Furthermore, the hagiography is presented as a text motivated and constructed according to the needs of the time, such as the decisive and consistent expansion in Northern and Central Italy of female orders, such as the female followers of the Jesuits.5 Last but not least, it is necessary to consider the representative value, even in its absence, of Maria Carafa’s voice and compare it with a period in which colleges and conservatories became the most prevalent and popular types of quasi-monastic female institutions in post-Tridentine Italy (Arlati 2024, p. 52). These institutions attracted the female members of the highest levels of the aristocracy, and from a historiographical point of view, they serve to dismantle deep-rooted convictions about the developments of post-Tridentine religious life linked to the figure and centralizing action of Carlo Borromeo (Arlati 2024, pp. 56–57).

According to Maggio’s account, Maria Domitilla Carafa, born into a noble Neapolitan family, daughter of Antonio Carafa and Vittoria Camponeschi, ran away from home on Christmas Eve 1490 with her brother Gian Pietro, both intending to take religious vows. She found refuge in the Dominican monastery of San Sebastiano in Naples, where at the age of 22, renouncing a wealthy marriage to Camillo Pandone, she took the veil and remained there for thirty-eight years. In 1528, due to the siege by French troops under Lautrec, she moved with her sisters to the safer convent of Santa Maria Donna Romita, where she made her profession. After two years, through the papal brief that Bonifacio de’ Colli had obtained, on 25 June 1530 she moved definitively from Donna Romita to the monastery of La Sapienza, having with her, according to Maggio, only her breviary and a few nuns who had followed her. Maria Carafa introduced the Rule of the Dominicans of Regular Observance and became its prioress. The former convent had belonged to the Carafa family for generations, as it stood in the building that Oliviero Carafa had bought to establish a shelter for poor students called Sapienza. It had been bequeathed by Lucrezia Dentice to her niece Sancia Carafa, a nun in the monastery of Donna Romita, and it was she who urged her relative Maria Carafa to take over the monastery, changing it from Franciscan to Dominican.

As anticipated, the main sources on the life of the prioress derive from Theatine historiography, in particular, her Vita, compiled, edited and printed in Naples in 1670 by Francesco Maria Maggio, and commissioned by the Prioress of the time, Angelica Caterina Carafa. The front title of the book makes clear that the latter was also responsible for at least some of the text, as indicated by the co-authorship. The hagiography is dedicated to Anna Fernandez of Cordova, the second wife of the Viceroy of Naples, Pietro of Aragon: the viceroy’s wife is held to be the model of a Catholic queen who was “very noble” (“chiarissima”) in blood and spirit, a symbol of Prudence and promoter of works of piety (Maggio 1670, a2r). Since the foundress must, as the prioress writes, “come out […] into the light, and expose herself to the eyes of all”, Anna Fernandez Cordova is the ideal dedicatee to welcome her (Maggio 1670, b2v).

The voluminous biography is then accompanied by a further dedication to the Virgin, guardian of the garden of the virgins of La Sapienza, and to Maria Carafa herself, whose life is held up as an example for her community: a “mirror of”, “norm for” and “spur to” (Maggio 1670, b2v). Maggio defers to Prioress Angelica Caterina and the sisters for “censorship and correction”, proposing the same role of biographer–hagiographer that he assumed in drafting the biography of Orsola Benincasa. After a work that, according to the author, took years of research, in presenting the life of the foundress, he begs:

Your Reverences from the heart, to read it, re-read it, and correct it all: changing, deleting, or tearing up everything (or very little if that should be the case) that their wise opinion does not like: so that, just as the Work recognises its origin in their commandment, and its material from their many reports and writings, so also it receives its end and perfection from their censure.

(Maggio 1670, c1v)

While the sisters of the community must have played an important role in the drafting of the Vita, they were also involved in a larger project of reconstruction and artistic decoration of the monastery, whose façade they rebuilt in 1614 and for which they commissioned sculptures and paintings that recalled the visionary experience of the foundress and reinforced their charisma as chosen brides of Christ.6 One hundred years after her death there was, therefore, renewed interest regarding Maria Carafa, both among the community of the Monastery of La Sapienza and in the larger order to which it belonged. The Theatine order was involved in those years in the foundation of collegiate (not cloistered) communities, in northern Italy, for example the Collegio di S. Maria del Presepio in Bologna.7 They were also involved with the Collegio delle Celibate in Ravenna, founded in 1661 by Giovanna Zambeletti (Masini 1666, p. 142; Guidicini 1980, p. 257; Modesti 2005, pp. 55–56; Arlati 2024, p. 56, n. 148). In particular, given the proximity of the two establishments, that of Zambeletti represented an attractive alternative for women who did not want to follow the path and the rules approved by Archbishop Fabio Guinigi (1674–1691) (Belloni and Orselli 1755, pp. 27–28; Bassi Angelini 2000, p. 74).

The Vita, edited by Maggio, cannot, therefore, be separated from the experiences of renewed religious life that were occurring in Northern Italy. The renewed prestige and primacy of the monastery and its nuns and the life of the foundress and the posthumous miracles came together. As the historian Chavarria writes, “once the authorisation for the publication of Maggio’s biography had been obtained in 1669” the nuns’ testimonies “would have been indispensable in supporting the beatification of Sister Maria”, which, however, never came to fruition (Novi Chavarria 2001, p. 160).

Returning to Vanni’s considerations of Theatine spirituality and the difficulties of confronting seventeenth-century profiles based in apologetics, Maria Carafa’s hagiographical Vita aligns with various interpretative axes. Firstly, the reconstruction of the Theatine past, which begins with the path of emancipation and liberation from the heavy legacy of the founder-Pope, reinstating the figure of Gaetano Thiene as the spiritual fulcrum of Theatine identity. A crucial moment in this process was the publication of the hagiography of Gaetano da Thiene in 1612, a work on which the canon for the latter’s beatification process was built, including “endorsements of important figures” (Vanni 2016, p. 154). Thiene’s beatification took place in 1629 and his canonisation in 1671, a year after the publication of Maria Carafa’s Vita. The latter was to take advantage of the success of Thiene’s beatification and, therefore, construct a parallel female profile for the order of Theatine Regular Clerics.

Secondly, the Vita links the identity of the Theatines to a regular and noble model with respect, as we have mentioned, to the proliferation of colleges and congregations and to the parallel attention that the cult of Saint Francesca Romana, promoted by the Jesuit Robert Bellarmine, was absorbing as a “point of reference” for the new non-cloistered congregations (Arlati 2024, p. 33). The seventeenth century saw the publication of several hagiographies dedicated to Francesca Romana by Jesuits such as André Valladier, Giulio Orsini and Virgilio Cepari. In these works, the saint was presented as an ideal example for women of the aristocracy “who wanted to reconcile their wealthy social status with the attainment of perfection” (Arlati 2024, p. 33). Devotion to Francesca Romana also spread among various communities of religious women linked to the Jesuit order, including the Collegio delle dame di Hall in Tyrol and the colleges founded during the century in Castiglione delle Stiviere and Panicale (Arlati 2024, p. 189).

The traditional model of Maria Carafa is compared with several other symbols of the various orders that were being consolidated, and the female followers of the Jesuit order proposed a model in stark contrast to the Theatine one, the latter based on the observance of strict enclosure. In fact, according to the overall vision proposed by Arlati, southern Italy remained a stronghold with respect to the model of community life proposed by the Jesuits, a territory in which, despite the presence of bizzocche and figures linked to local prophetism, “more traditional forms of religious living (monasteries, convents, retreats, etc.)” seemed to prevail, in part due to “the limited penetration of demands of the Borromean reform” (Arlati 2024, p. 189).

In his dedication to the nuns, Francesco Maria Maggio expounds his methodical and painstaking approach, very likely based on the direction taken by seventeenth-century hagiographic composition in the Bollandian style: he relies mainly on the Vite of Paul IV edited by Tufo, Silos and Caracciolo, the triad of Theatine historiography. He also cites a manuscript of some twenty pages on the life of Maria Carafa, the Registro of the Monastery of La Sapienza, various Ragguagli and the volumes of Faraggini from the Archives of San Paolo.8

However, the letters of Maria Carafa’s brother, Paul IV, stand out in the hagiographical schema: as Maggio writes, he “diligently gleaned her virtues from many of her brother’s letters, which I found in the archives of San Paolo de’ Santi Apostoli and S. Maria della Sapienza”, and the letters were therefore collected not from “a single archive, but from several, and industriously sought out by us and all collected and faithfully transcribed, with the toil and sweat of days neither few nor short” (Maggio 1670, cc. a1v–a1r). The letters are clearly the most valuable element because with them, he writes, he managed to “shed light on obscure things, bringing to light many things that were not known before, confirming the true and refuting the false, using a pure and simple style throughout the work” (Maggio 1670, c. c1r). A specialist in the subject, Maggio also aims to redeem Gian Pietro Carafa from the damnatio memoriae, offering the public a fraternal, intimate and private voice, also characterised by the caring tones that emerge in the correspondence with his sister, especially in the recollection of their shared childhood.

The hagiographer assembles and reconstructs a picture of little Maria’s childhood, spent in full accordance with the heroic Catherinian model, including fasting, reading, devotional practices and rejection of marriage. Obstructed by her parents, according to the Vita, the decision to found the Monastery of La Sapienza was forced upon her and not taken directly by her. In this she follows the other hagiographic topos of reticence, not so much to the divine call as to embarking on a path of religious leadership. According to the story, Abbess Ciancia Carafa forced her niece to accept the task of becoming in turn foundress of the establishment, and this choice was also supported by Gian Pietro, who thus persuaded his elder sister to undertake the “new enterprise” (“nuova impresa”) (Maggio 1670, p. 233).

In this regard, there is also a letter from the prioress of San Sebastiano, Sister Geronima d’Alagno to Maria Carafa, from ms. 89 of the National Library in Naples, in the S. Martino collection and reproduced among the selection edited by Monti in 1923. The nun, speaking on behalf of the convent, communicated to her:

the affection of everyone, that there was great weeping, so much so that it was necessary for that Holy Father to comfort us, because we hoped to have you for ourselves, because certainly by your great goodness you are cordially loved by all! But because it has pleased Our Lord to give you this charge, to do so much laudable good and to grow our religion, in this respect all have rejoiced.

This is followed by the Prioress’s blessing, which emphasises the heroic nature of the task to which Maria Carafa has been called to respond:

My mother, I beseech my Lord Jesus Christ, who is supreme wisdom, to give you help, and advice, and favour […] for the love of God, who places burdens on those who please him, and exalts the humble, this was necessary, for which you […] have given yourselves to humility, and God has willed to employ your humility, and give you great merit.

Maria Carafa is part of the history of the first generation of Theatines: those who joined the order, which was founded primarily, in the words of Andrea Vanni, to “examine and select ordinands and decide between the worthy and the unworthy”, having first and foremost to set an example as upright religious believers (Vanni 2010, p. 176). As reconstructed by Vanni, who highlighted, among other things, the split between the first- and second-generation Theatines, the first group had to dress more antiquo, profess solemn vows, live in common and follow the Rule, drafted around 1527. Their ascetic and eremitic appearance made them different and singular in the eyes of their contemporaries: Sanudo described them as the “hermits from Rome” who “were sequestered from the world” and even Ignatius of Loyola was perplexed and critical of these new figures, perceived as excessively rigorous.

Invited to flee the world and embrace the solitude of the hermit life, the men also had to maintain a moral lifestyle, profess poverty and live in community, abandoning worldly occupations and even charitable activities in order to focus on their own perfection and that of others.9 The Theatine apologetic interpretation of Maria Carafa’s Vita thus unfolds as the progressive implementation of the future Pope’s desire to see in the Theatines the most authentic embodiment of Christian virtues. The female reform envisaged by her brother was to implement a withdrawal from the world: this is what happened, not without resistance, in La Sapienza Monastery and what would happen elsewhere from 1563 onwards.

As mentioned, the nuns of La Sapienza were the first to experiment within their community with the experience of enclosure, having adopted it a good twenty years before the Council. This, however, did not prevent them, as evidenced by contributions from art and architectural historians, from engaging in the internal and external renovation of the monastery. The fame and model of Maria Carafa constituted a unique experience and, precisely because she was Gian Pietro Carafa’s sister, the attention of the first wave of Theatines converged on Maria Carafa, trying to shape and mould her through constant contact. This resulted in more than two hundred letters from her brother, at least twenty from Gaetano Thiene, and many from Bonifacio de’ Colli and Giovanni Marinoni.

She is visibly manifested and revealed to passersby in a high-relief coat of arms, still visible on the façade of the church, created in the seventeenth-century, confirming her role as foundress and exemplary woman, which sits alongside Gian Pietro Carafa’s coat of arms. In the hagiography, however, Maria Carafa’s voice emerges, in absentia, through her brother’s words. Moreover, the literary structure and the choices of Maggio also reflect the experience that the devotees must have had at the Monastery of La Sapienza. Indeed, the singing of the nuns must have echoed from above, from the newly built choir that hid them from the view of the devotees in the beautiful, raised choir that they had built in that period, while opening themselves to contemplation, looking up at the ceiling of the choir vault, which represents one of the Marian visions of their foundress.

To reconstruct Maria Carafa’s voice in absentia, it is therefore essential to move away from apologetic intent and focus on differences between her hagiographic character, as portrayed by Maggio, and her apparent personality, as revealed in the letters from her brother. Her brother, while expressing himself in intimate tones, especially in the first group of letters he sent her, is not slow to show his dissatisfaction with certain choices and her adherence to the rules. Thus, the first lacuna is found here in these letters, which demonstrate how Maria Carafa found herself facing a real dilemma between the Neapolitan conception of a religious life, often unchosen and reserved for the nobility, which transferred comforts from the court to the cloister, and the need for a reform that included a cloistered, passionate and committed observance.

Looking at the purchase records and other sources at La Sapienza, we see that Maria Carafa found herself at the centre of a centrifugal movement. While the monastery was closing itself off from the world, Maria Carafa expanded it, increasing its spatial extent, embellishing it and decorating it. This is indeed the direction taken by the research of Helen Hills regarding the convent’s external renovations and extensions and that of Aislinn Loconte focused on the interior decoration—both faithfully follow the foundress’ visions.

The figure that emerges is, therefore, more varied than the devout and extremely humble one described by Giuseppe Silos, Domenico Maria Marchese and Francesco Maria Maggio. Indeed, the success of the monastery, which became an important hub for the Neapolitan nobility and its Carafa branch, lay in its foundress’s skill in investing and managing the nuns’ donations and dowries. This is not why the young women approached her: indeed, to date, there has been insufficient emphasis and exploration of the similarities in attitude between the two siblings in the intelligent combination of business, prayer and election that constituted a formula that served as a powerful invitation for nobles to take the veil in the new role of being Brides of Christ. The Theatines, on the other hand, were the order that continued, unlike the Barnabites, for example, to accept only noble girls, albeit with the proviso of requiring proof of the true vocation of the new arrivals. Certainly, as Zarri states, “the age that was about to open did not allow nuns any task other than contemplation”, although the post-council clericalization provided a significant boost to female religious education, within which women, too, could assert and legitimize a certain margin of action in society (Zarri 1990, p. 127).10 The model of Maria Carafa is not the norm, so much as an exception: through her, her brother gives ideal form to a model of holiness that was already Counter-Reformational before Trent, one that excluded the prophetic word and instead included, with controlled circumspection, the Marian visionary experience communicated to her brother or to other protagonists of the Order, and which would be an important link between her and the first Theatine cohort.

The project of reconstructing the correspondence between the two siblings thus allows us, on the one hand, to get closer to the private voice of Paul IV, which revives childhood memories—the death of his mother and his “smarmy” (“vezzoso”) and “annoying” (“fastidioso”) childhood character. Above all it is a voice that relies on and finds solace in writing to, and receiving letters from, his sister, suggesting a long tradition of exchange between the male and the female (Maggio 1670, p. 11). This is the intimate face of a Pope that Theatine historiography will take on the task of redeeming.

For the Vita, a two-pronged analysis must be undertaken, in part already outlined: first, the strategies adopted by the narrative framework constructed by Maggio, with the dedication to the noblewomen, the interweaving of the letters and the hagiographic content that emerges from the correspondence interspersed throughout his extensive work. Second, one must distinguish the levels of this correspondence, currently in absentia: this means the models according to which it is organised, from primarily biblical and patristic examples to the fully sixteenth-century ones adopted by Carafa in the expression of his own voice and selected by Maggio. Of no less importance is Gian Pietro Carafa’s and the other Theatines’ attitude towards women: referred to as spiritual mothers, they live a circumscribed and imposed motherhood, free of any prophetic intent and praised for their virtues of obedience, fidelity and chastity, which are expressed precisely in accepting the rules of the spiritual fathers imposed on them, in being an example for the other sisters and in being responsible for a female community that was to be an example of a new and renewed Counter-Reformation religiosity ante litteram.

3. The Correspondence with the Spiritual Fathers: Carafa, Thiene and Marinoni

As Maria Carafa’s hagiographer writes, and as is evident from the number of her brother’s anthologized letters, “there was a constant correspondence between them: and thus both communicated about their own thoughts and experiences; and from each other they received advice as if from heaven” (Maggio 1670, pp. 29–30).

The reciprocal communication between Gian Pietro Carafa and his sister Maria is evident from the hundreds of letters written by the brother, spanning the period from 1525 to 1552. They were sent primarily from Venice and Rome through family members, prominent spiritual figures from the newly formed group of Clerics Regular and authors such as Giovanni Berardino Fuscano, a poet and Carafa’s confidant.11 The spiritual fathers and confessors of the monastery of La Sapienza were first Gaetano da Thiene and later Giovanni Marinoni who, with other Theatines, also oversaw the celebration of the Mass. From Gian Pietro Carafa’s letter of 13 July 1538 to Maria, we learn, however, that the Clerics Regular could no longer provide divine services, due to new commitments, and Fuscano was instructed to procure two new chaplains (Maggio 1670, p. 147). It is a substantial body of letters, mainly preserved in Vat. Lat. 10652 and in other codices and folios scattered between Rome and Naples. It lacked a critical edition beyond the attention of Francesco Maria Maggio, whose apologetic purpose cannot be separated from his careful organization and interpretation of the sources.12 Giovanni Maria Monti partially filled this gap as part of a larger project to edit Pope Carafa’s correspondence, selecting a sample of letters between the brother and sister and publishing them in 1923.

Monti had already emphasised the importance of these letters in understanding the figure of Carafa and his correspondence, which remains, to this day, a project to be completed, not least because of the wide geographic spread of his letters, which, between originals and copies, ranges across Europe. According to the current state of research, only one reply from his sister can be linked directly to one of his letters, preserved as a copy in the Barberino Latin manuscript 5697 and ignored in the Vita.

This essay, more interpretative than purely philological in nature, links the interest in women’s writing with the meanings of its representation. For this reason, its focus will be on the in absentia dimension of the recipient, a dimension that in many ways mirrors both the reception of the writing and the narrative of Maria Carafa’s life itself. Her face is perceived as elusive and impenetrable, but this does not reflect the real agency of the prioress of La Sapienza. While the future Pope’s correspondence with his elder sister undoubtedly forms the core and structural foundation of the Vita edited by Maggio, the striking absence of Maria Carafa’s own letters and voice is profoundly felt by the reader. It is as though the multiple layers of the veil she wore for over two decades, concealing not just her body but also her face, even before enclosure was officially mandated, have rendered her voice tangibly obscured in the narrative and hagiographic depiction. Her voice is portrayed as sacred precisely because it is spiritually present but physically absent. Rather than thinking of this as a real absence, one might think of it as a literary artifice that recalls and celebrates La Sapienza monastery as the first place where a new form of religious life was practiced. This is also the approach of Maggio’s Sermons on Maria Carafa, insisting on the choice and meaning of the veil as an element of original Christian synthesis resolutely promoted by the Pope’s sister (Maggio 1676).

Certainly, the future Pope saw in the implementation of the reform, which became stricter over the years, the possibility of enhancing the image of his own family, in keeping with its rigour and long tradition of faith. From the beginning, the life of the Monastery had a reformist purpose, centred on three fundamental principles: strictly communal living, perfect seclusion (with the adoption of a veil over the face and grilles in the parlour, protected by iron plates) and absolute poverty. Gian Pietro’s directions were collected, at his sister’s request, in a letter of the year following the foundation, dated 17 February 1531: the duty of gratitude for the benefit of the “call to Holy Religion” and the commitment to be a “new creature in Christ”, but not by walking

in the holy newness of Christian life […] according to the lukewarmness (“tiepidezza”) of these miserable times, but according to the will of God, revealed to you through his chosen Bride and holy Catholic Church, venerable Virgin and our Mother.

(Maggio 1670, p. 63)

The ascetic principles that Carafa suggests in a few pages are based on a spirit of faith and prayer, principles guiding an interior life that must be “suspicious” of everything “which to the world seems beautiful and good and holy and honourable and great” (Maggio 1670, p. 64 et seq). There follow the criteria that will govern the internal life of La Sapienza, according to “true Christian simplicity”, as opposed to “lukewarm” Monasteries.

Carafa insisted on the importance of simplicity in various aspects of monastic life: the sacred offices were to be “devoutly said, without song or sound, but with gravity and modesty”, with the sole exception of the use of a “single bell that serves only among them”. Simplicity should also permeate daily communal living, clothing and even relations with relatives, from whom no financial support should be received, which instead had to be given over entirely to charity.

Regarding admissions to the monastery, Carafa emphasised that candidates for religious life must show signs of a true vocation, characterised by “spiritual fervour” and the feeling of a

continuing inspiration from God by whom they are called to the contempt of the world and to mortification and self-denial and particularly feel drawn to follow true poverty and lowly status, rather than the reputation of rich monasteries.

(Maggio 1670, p. 69)

Furthermore, the character and free will of the aspiring nuns were to be taken into consideration. As far as the confessor is concerned, he must be irreproachable, not young, must not live in the monastery and must be able to choose, rephrasing Deuteronomy 17:8, “inter lepram et lepram”, that is between one plague and another, and thus show the ability to make subtle and accurate distinctions in situations that might appear similar on the surface but which require deeper analysis to be understood correctly.

Gian Pietro Carafa’s voice at various points echoes the emphasis, imagery and clarity of Catherine of Siena’s letters, both in terms of the lexical choices that have become canonical in the vocabulary of expectation in preparation for the coming of the Bridegroom, and in the carefully crafted balance between the languages of affection, politics and diplomacy. The correspondence with his sister clearly shows how blurred the boundaries are between the family and the diplomatic spheres and between private emotion and public artifice, especially when compared with Maria Carafa’s only currently accessible response.

In that single available letter, a copy without the sender’s own signature, signed simply “unworthy servant Sister M. A. Carafa” (“Indegna serva Sore M. A. Carafa”), she rejoices in her brother’s health, gives news of the sisters and thanks him for having sent a young man to help the monastery and for having made him renew his obedience because “the fathers have taken a certain care of him and of all those who serve the monastery” (“li padri nde anno pigliato un cerrto penciero de isso e de tucti quilli che serveno lo Monasterio”). She says he has received letters from Venice from another member of the Carafa family, namely Beatrice, and begs him “from now on, read all the letters that come to her, and I beg you to quickly console us about them” (“da ora innanci tucte le lictere che veneno ad essa le legite et io ve prego che presto de esse nce consololate”). She concludes with an apology for not being able to send the requested corporali (altar linens), a fleeting but important indication of the clear division that was being drawn between male duties and those of the female, those latter being duties of praying, embroidering and materially supporting the Theatine brothers.

This letter is certainly written in a halting Italian, full of Neapolitan inflections, in which, however, Gian Pietro rejoices, emphasising how happy he was to hear “her voice” in the immediacy of the writing that conveyed a spirituality born from the heart, free from the use of belles lettres. Furthermore, her brother praises the very simplicity of the “silly writing” for which his sister apologised: “how could you not know”, says her brother, “that the candour of that sincere and sacred breast of my sweetest mother, is dearer to me than Ciceronian eloquence” (Maggio 1670, pp. 211–12). Pietro Carafa prizes the prioress’s sincerity and purity of soul much more than elaborate and rhetorically sophisticated language.

At another point, lamenting his sister’s infirmity, he states that it is “no less serious […] for being the cause of depriving me of the consolation, which I have of reading, and re-reading your, as you say foolish, but as I feel, holy and wise, and truly Christian letters” adding the note that he would have the deficiency remedied “by one of these daughters, provided they write your words, for I shall know them, if they are yours” (Maggio 1670, p. 215).

If Pietro Carafa emphasises and encourages humility in writing as a Christian virtue and the modesty of the addressee, on the other hand, he demonstrates a degree of supervision that he will never relinquish over his sister—he will be able to recognise, in fact, whether the letters that Maria Carafa sends are from her own hand or from someone else’s—showing that he values spiritual correspondence but not an excessive attention of ornamentation and form, and a control of the content that must reflect an obedient voice.

Based on this, one may question the boundary between the need to read, spiritual enjoyment and the realisation of a tight supervision and discipline that Carafa exercised through letters. It also seems improbable that the memory of such an important persona as the foundress of La Sapienza monastery would be commemorated by an insignificant, submissive letter, which perhaps, precisely for this reason, was considered perfectly passable and preservable.

Indeed, in the progression of letters selected by Maggio for the hagiography, a certain difference in tone can be seen, enough to suggest a trend in the relationship between the two siblings: praise of the sister is punctuated by moments of reproach, followed by the affirmation of the Theatine rule until we return to a dialogue between equals, where Carafa repositions himself as the spiritual “son” of his sister-mother.

The brother’s tone, therefore, is varied and the moments of conflict are interesting, reflecting a different portrait from the exclusively pious, solitary and cloistered one that emerges from the compendium of, for example, the Sagro Diario Domenicano of Marchese (1668, pp. 21–30). In fact, the breaches relate to the management of the monastery and the resolute desire to expand it, so much so that the tone of some letters reproaches her, as in that of 16 December 1531:

that you no longer raise such a question, nor have others raise it with me: because at your request some letters have been written to me, in which I have seen little of the light of God and little Christian truth […] because all the letters were full of nothing other than your poverty, and the need to build the Monastery, and the need to receive many daughters so that they might bring money to spend on the building.

(Maggio 1670, p. 82)

Pietro Carafa reproaches his sister for focusing too much on material rather than spiritual matters, including the practical needs of the monastery and the acceptance of novices for financial reasons. The requests of the prioress were, in fact, related to the handling and growth of the community for financial reasons, and the exchange sheds light on the tension between the practical running of a monastery—and its corruption as it increases contact with the outside world—and spiritual ideals.

Although Carafa did not forbid his sister from possessing some real estate and a long list of privileges, a delicate issue (beyond the beautification of the place) arose at La Sapienza—which, in the meantime, had taken in four of the family’s nieces—when enclosure was violated by Beatrice Carafa, who had entered La Sapienza accompanied by a small retinue. After attempting mediation through his sister and Fuscano, he sent Gaetano Thiene and Giovanni Marinoni to Naples, giving rise to the first Theatine cadre in the city (Vanni 2010, pp. 182–87).

Beatrice Carafa was a real thorn in the side of the future Pope. In a letter dated 29 March 1533, he says that he had been warned that Beatrice “lived as a secular woman” at La Sapienza and “not as a nun”, having brought her daughter and, as mentioned earlier, an entourage with her. He wrote about her on several occasions and, addressing his elder sister, warned that “she came to bring you back into the world”, reminding the prioress that she had left “San Sebastiano to establish a reformed monastery in poverty and a stricter life” and not “to establish a fondaco and an open house for secular women”. Carafa goes on to regret having to reverse roles, from an obedient son to the temporary role of spiritual father: “but I beg and exhort you […] bear with patience this little chapter that I have written to you, because you deserve it. And I am your obedient son, and I want to be so: but in these necessities I must act as your spiritual father” (Maggio 1670, pp. 101, 109, 111; Boccadamo 2011, pp. 156–57).

Maria Carafa is entrusted, therefore, with the custody of her brother Gian Piero’s memories, emotions, frustrations and inspiration in being the realisation of his highest spiritual desires (charity, purity and obedience), but also the one who is not spared tones of reproach and admonishment. In the letters to his sister—and this is in fact the cornerstone of the Vita as constructed and assembled by Maggio—Gian Pietro Carafa illustrates the spiritual significance of the female reform, in a clear break with the female protagonism among the Waldensians and followers of Ochino, and not least those of the Oratory of Divine Love. The cloistered project was intended to involve body and soul, person and building, to instil the desire for communal collaboration in a higher spiritual project for the benefit of Christian society, which did not have its raison d’être in prophecy and divine mediation (and therefore politics), as much as in mysticism and detachment from the world. And yet enclosure, practised in La Sapienza even before its official diffusion and implementation in the reformed monasteries, was experienced with resistance even by the foundress herself, who was intent on counterbalancing the reform, as we have seen, with requests to enlarge the monastery. Indeed, the latter then became a centre of the nepotistic politics of Gian Pietro Carafa.

The exchange of letters between Thiene and Maria Carafa unfolded in a very different tone and manner from the earlier fascination with the central figures of the prophecy of the Oratory of Divine Love.13 The release of the Vita, which includes ten letters from Thiene, came at a crucial time for the Order: the culmination of the protracted and contentious proceedings that began with the beatification of Gaetano Thiene by Pope Urban VIII on 8 October 1629, and ended with his canonization by Pope Clement on 12th April 1671 (Vanni 2016, pp. 158–74).

In 1533, Gaetano Thiene was assigned to Naples, where he took up residence at the church of Santa Maria della Misericordia, located outside Porta San Gennaro, and at the same time assumed the spiritual direction of the local monastery. By this point in his life, he had already experienced significant encounters with Battista da Crema, Caterina Freschi and the Divine Love movement, as well as a particularly significant experience with Laura Mignani, considered a living saint. Beginning in 1524, Thiene, together with Carafa, Bonifacio Colli and Paolo Consiglieri, had dedicated himself to the foundation of the Company of Clerics Regular. This experience had contributed to a significant shift in Thiene’s direction from his previous inclinations toward a restless spirituality, which had previously exposed him to the risk of embracing potentially unorthodox theological positions. In this context, Carafa, acting as an authoritative intermediary, was appointed to deal with the question of Battista da Crema and to examine the alleged irregularities found at La Sapienza.

During the period characterised by the presence of Juan de Valdés and Bernardino Ochino, the content of his words to Maria Carafa stands out with relevance. It is an exhortation to obedience and submission, presented as the principles that firmly preserve the faith and the path that leads to salvation. Thiene, in fact, envisions scenarios of grave doctrinal instability for which the sisters must prepare, metaphorically described as the tottering of columns and the tumbling of mountains into the depths of the sea, warning them to remain vigilant to temptation (“My daughter, sisters, mothers, be humble, do not trust yourselves at all, and be daughters of the Virgin Mary in believing nothing of others”) (Andreu 1954, p. 97). Thiene, therefore, exhorts them to distrust both their own judgements and the doctrinal innovations of others, inviting them to place themselves under the maternal protection of the Virgin, emblem of prudence, humility and exaltation through faith.

The epistolary corpus of Gaetano Thiene is primarily aimed at the spiritual direction of the monastery but, as highlighted by Boccadamo, his intervention was limited to “recommend[ing] unity in the monastery and diversification of functions in the annulment of individual wills in Christ” (Boccadamo 2011, p. 157). In addition to Carafa’s spiritual teachings, Maggio asserts that Maria Carafa transcribed Thiene’s advice in a Memoriale degli ottimi Consigli del P.D. Gaetano a istanza nostra della Sapienza on 6 March 1540 (Maggio 1670, pp. 167–68). Indeed, he stated that Maria wrote with her own hand on a sheet (“la scrisse di sua mano in un foglio”). In Thiene’s view, the Monastery and the Congregation must be one body while having diverse members. Each member, however, must perform their office according to the principle by which “the foot must not be an arm nor the head, nor must the head be an arm or a foot”. In addition, “one must never depend on nor hope in any person except Christ” and “one must think that if there were no self-will, there would be neither hell nor purgatory in which one must remain until one’s self-will is purged, and it is to be considered that Christ and His most holy Mother have taught us all this in deed”. He concludes by stating that “up to here is noted by Sister Maria’s hand”.

Thiene’s words, transcribed by Sister Maria, reflect various aspects of the reformed Catholic doctrine being implemented at La Sapienza. The analogy of the monastery as a body with different members recalls Pauline ecclesiology (1 Corinthians 12:12–27), emphasizing unity in diversity within the religious community. The insistence on exclusive dependence on Christ, not on other people, underscores a Christocentric inflection that should be read in the context of the contrast with Bernardino Ochino’s doctrine and other forms of divergent spirituality that Carafa opposed. The reflection on self-will as a source of “purgatory” and “hell” aligns with the ascetic tradition and the doctrine of mortification that are central to monastic thought and in close union with the virtue of obedience for the functioning of a solid and renewed community structure.

In addition, the letters offer an insight into the daily life of the monastery and its protagonists. Among the recipients most frequently mentioned in the greetings, in addition to the young Caterina Carafa, are prominent figures such as Madama Aloisa and her relative, Madama Cassandra, identifiable with the celebrated Cassandra Marchese, the object of praise from the poet Jacopo Sannazaro, who undertook the religious life by entering La Sapienza Monastery in 1542, taking the name of Sister Elisabetta two years later. Another example is the letter dated 28 July 1542, addressed to the prioress and concerning Caterina Carafa, a young novice who entered the monastery in 1543 at the age of eight following the premature death of her father Ferrante. The text begins with a brief exhortation to Sister Maria, urging her to entrust herself unconditionally to the Divine Will. The focus then shifts to the young Caterina, with the intention of offering her comfort and encouragement amidst the family difficulties she was facing. Thiene exhorts the young woman to persevere, pointing to the sanctifying grace emanating from the Cross as a source of inspiration, and proposes to her the Marian model of perseverance at the feet of her crucified Son. The values emphasised in the letter include: the combination of robust humility and humble strength; the rejection of pride and worldly vanity; and ardent zeal for the salvation of souls.

Thiene, as spiritual director, reiterates how, through prayers and tears, the Bride of Christ can enjoy a sublime spiritual motherhood, the fruits of which will be fully revealed only in the heavenly dimension. These elements are presented as the benefits resulting from the holy acceptance of pain, as outlined in letter 31 of the collection.

Thiene was thus charged with the recruitment and evaluation of the spiritual discernment of new girls at La Sapienza, as shown by the episode involving two young Venetian women, Cecilia de Marinis and Barbara. In the spring of 1545, Thiene, at the time Provost of San Paolo Maggiore in Naples, undertook a journey to Venice to attend the Chapter of the Order. En route, he stopped off in Rome, where he was a guest of Carafa for three days. She entrusted him with meeting and evaluating the spirituality of the two Venetian women. Both women took their vows in 1547, and Sister Cecilia was subsequently elected prioress for three terms, in 1558, 1561 and 1564.

In letter 38, Thiene addresses the theme of spiritual motherhood as opposed to carnal motherhood. The occasion for this reflection is provided by two significant events: the taking of the veil by two new candidates in La Sapienza Monastery and the issuing of a Papal Brief that officially conferred on the prioress the relevant rights and powers over the community. In this context, Thiene addresses a message to Sister Maria, offering an elaborate meditation on the nature of motherhood. The future saint uses the metaphor of maternity to illustrate the process of spiritual growth and religious devotion. In the letter, he draws a contrast between carnal and spiritual motherhood, emphasising the merits and joys of the latter. Thiene encourages the recipient to maintain a posture of strength and constancy in the face of difficulties, inviting her to consider such challenges as precious opportunities for spiritual growth. In this way, he transforms the concept of motherhood into a powerful rhetorical and spiritual tool, using it to inspire and guide the nuns on a path of faith and dedication far removed from the practice of prophecy.

Giovanni Marinoni joined the Theatine Orders of Clerics Regular in December 1528. In 1533, he accompanied Gaetano Thiene on a mission to expand the work of the Theatines in the Kingdom of Naples. The two devoted themselves to the development of the congregation, rigorously selecting novices and engaging in the reform of women’s monasteries. Their collaboration was so close that it is often difficult to distinguish the responsibilities and actions of one from the other. In relation to La Sapienza, both were instructed by Pietro Carafa to “dedicate all their efforts to freeing that monastery from its servitude to secular people”.

Marinoni was spiritual director of La Sapienza monastery from 1539 to 1562, except for the four years from 1543 to 1547, becoming the nuns’ confessor in 1540 (Paschini 1926, p. 128). In the ten letters he addressed to Maria Carafa, beginning 26 November 1540 and passed down to us by Maria Maggio,14 the tone oscillates between reproach, encouragement and congratulations regarding the observance of religious reform among the nuns.

Surely Marinoni did not much appreciate this “serious and troublesome burden”, the monastery’s failure to meet his desiderata.15 In a letter of 26 November 1540, Marinoni reproaches the sisters, showing his frustration openly:

And I find myself in this bitterness and torment of conscience because I see that no emendation follows. You say words to me and then you do not follow up with deeds and you have no compassion either for my soul, or for your souls, or for the Passion of Christ Our Lord, or for his Precious Blood shed for you. Now no more words: let us come to deeds.

(Maggio 1670, pp. 284–87; see also Andreu 1954, p. 79)

In the other letters, spiritual development and the path of reform to follow are connected to a path of self-renewal, cultivation of a spirit of prayer and a love for a life of silence, retreat and work. Above all, Marinoni focuses on obedience, penitence and the humble submission of the nuns, providing guidelines with which to measure and examine their consciences. Marinoni then regularly sends summaries and reflections to the nuns. In a letter of 1548, he acknowledges the importance of studying and meditating:

Through study, I have found the great merit of nuns who are voluntarily cloistered for the love of Christ and the harm caused by those who do the opposite. I am sending you what I have written that you may have it read to the nuns, so that they may be more compliant and more fervent in serving Christ and may pray to the Lord for me.

(Maggio 1670, p. 296)

Marinoni’s letter of 30 November 1555 confirms that Maria Carafa had written to him, as she did previously to her brother and Thiene. In this letter, for example, he had heard of her fragile health via her words “I have received a letter from you from which I have received consolation, understanding that by the grace of the Lord you have finally been well at peace, and that the infirm are well” (Maggio 1670, pp. 357–60). In the letters, Marinoni also communicates the state of difficulty in which he feels he is operating, comparing himself to holy martyrs, who are strong and “humble, quiet and patient in tribulation!”, and finally recommends his own desires to the nuns:

But I cannot be, nor do I want to be, nor must I be, disobedient to Christ (who was obedient until death), to his Vicar, and to our Mother Holy Church, especially in these times of heretics, who do not want the obedience of the Church. And I desire to live and die under holy obedience in the bosom of my Mother Holy Church. And for this reason, as I have said, I find myself in great affliction and I commend my poor soul strictly to your prayers; that you pray and make the Lord pray for me, a miserable sinner, and the vilest worm of the earth, that the Lord will not abandon me.

From these brief letters, a comparison can be drawn between Gaetano Thiene and Giovanni Marinoni, both pivotal figures in the Theatine Order, regarding their approach and role regarding Maria Carafa and the nuns. Thiene was renowned for his overarching vision of reform, often employing lofty metaphors such as spiritual motherhood in his guidance. In contrast, Marinoni adopted a more practical approach, reflected in his direct communicative style that emphasised the practical aspects of obedience. This difference can be attributed in part to Marinoni’s more long-term role in Naples, which allowed for a closer relationship with the nuns.

The two figures complemented each other in their approaches, mirroring their distinct personalities and roles within the order. Thiene provided the vision and charisma necessary for inspiring reform, while Marinoni acted as the practical executor, implementing those reforms on the ground. Their divergent styles of spiritual guidance ultimately worked in tandem to shape the direction of the Theatine Order and its influence on the sisters under Maria Carafa’s leadership.

4. Conclusions

In this preliminary analysis of Maria Carafa’s figure, as portrayed in Maggio’s hagiographical work, we see that she is depicted as a mirror of virtue for her brother, a reflection through which Maggio presents both to the reader. The female presence is in any case not ancillary but should be read in a much broader context that can no longer consider reform movements without their implementers, starting from the fact that, in this historical period, men and women stood side by side, were inspired by (more or less) orthodox doctrines and expressed themselves through the medium of the letter. Her “spiritual sons”, though they call themselves such, do not entrust their spiritual evolution into the hands of their spiritual mother. The language that permeates the maternal metaphor is markedly different from, for example, the construction of the letters to Laura Mignani, a mother who nurses a child in need of, and longing for, spiritual nourishment with knowledge. In a young Gaetano Thiene’s desires, spiritual motherhood represented the demand for an unconditional and all-encompassing relationship: “If ever there is any good fruit in me, I want you to share in it as much as I do, and moreover, you will have a great reward from the most abundant Lord” (Cistellini 1948, p. 232). Certainly, Mignani could also avail herself of a different, broad cultural circle that pushed for communication and discernment of the Biblical word and that was based on an interactive relationship between her and her followers.

In the history of these movements intellectual and historical importance has been, and continues to be, given to several somewhat subversive and eccentric figures—Domenica Narducci (who died a year before Maria Carafa), Vittoria Colonna and Paola Antonia Negri—because of their familiarity with writing, the Biblical text and the prophetic voice. The same critical work has only just started for the actresses and performers of Catholic orthodoxy.

Consider specifically the case of Maria Carafa, whose role has been reconsidered by historians and art historians, starting from the critical reconstruction of her voice inside and outside the hagiographic context, in search of the gaps that exist between being a papal project and having her own character. The biography sheds light on the natural passage of transmigration from the Catherinian biographical exemplum to an imposed Theatine spirit of obedience, according to a path that leads from a divine call in childhood to the desire to follow Christ in a humble but composed imitatio, which substitutes the call and interlocution with a mystical vision and the exemplification of an external obedience that is also exemplary for her fellow nuns.