Maria Maddalena de’ Pazzi Canonized, Rome, 1669
The papal canonization of saints has always been a momentous event in the life of the Roman Catholic Church. Despite the great number of canonical saints, those formally canonized in the early modern period were hardly a regular affair. With the electrifying, fast-tracked celebrity canonization of Teresa of Avila in 1622—and the legion book publications that appeared in the decades leading up to that event designed to expand her cultus—the literature surrounding nuns was fundamentally transformed by her model. Recent reforms in the Congregation of Rites that was responsible for an increasingly rigorous canonization process, along with efforts afoot in the church to honor both holy women and men from a variety of different orders of the regular clergy, combined to encourage all manner of the Catholic faithful to celebrate their sacred memories and declare their spiritual legacies and miraculous achievements in print.
Maria Maddalena de’ Pazzi (d. 1607, canonized 1669), was just such a celebrity, a Carmelite nun and scion of the rich and powerful Pazzi family of Florence whose broad portfolio of spiritual exploits grew to be the stuff of legend. Maddalena’s frequent ecstasies awed her fellow sisters, and news of them quickly spread beyond the cloister. Her mystical raptures were dynamic spectacles of both word and body. She produced visual art in darkness, gestured like the Virgin Mary, healed the sick, and ventriloquized her visions aloud. She was one of five women canonized during the seventeenth century along with the aforementioned Teresa of Avila (d. 1582, can. 1622), Francesca Romana (d. 1440, can. 1608), Elizabeth of Portugal (d. 1336, can. 1625), and Rose of Lima (d. 1617, can. 1671). For her part, Maria Maddalena entered the Carmelite convent at S. Maria degli Angeli in Florence at sixteen, living the life of a fully cloistered and extremely devout nun for the next quarter century. Throughout the early and middle decades of the seventeenth century, a host of publications appeared advocating her sanctification, including several dramatically engraved plate books, several of which are present in the Women of the Book Collection.
Despite the isolation of her cloistered convent, news of Maria Maddalena’s death moved rapidly through the city of Florence, as did popular calls for her beatification, inspired by a rumor mill surrounding her mystical powers and posthumous miracle working that spread like wildfire—doubtless expedited by members of her rich family, eager for the prestige that might come from having a saint in the family. Although a dizzying array of more than seventy miracles was presented during her canonization proceedings, only twelve came from firsthand accounts, though this was hardly an impediment (multiple miracles were not a strict requirement for sanctification). She was beatified in 1626, just nineteen years after her death, and finally canonized by Pope Clement IX on April 28, 1669, along with the Extremaduran Franciscan Pedro de Alcántara, in something of a spiritual “double wedding ceremony.”
To mark and commemorate the sacred mass and events conducted by the pope in St. Peter’s basilica in Rome and in Maria Maddalena’s native Florence, the present pamphlet bearing both locations in its colophon was duly published, of which only one other copy is known (Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze). So, too, was a handsome commemorative medal struck on June 29 of the same year honoring the feast day of Saints Peter and Paul. Its reverse, which depicts the two newly minted saints kneeling on a celestial cloud as the dove of the Holy Spirit radiates this divine pronouncement upon them, was designed by the legendary Baroque sculptor of Rome Gianlorenzo Bernini. A fine bronze example of the medal (34 mm in diameter) is preserved with the celebration pamphlet in the Women of the Book Collection, its obverse nominating the presiding pope Clement IX, and the reverse inscribed ADDITVM ECCLESIAE MVNIMEN ET DECVS (Protection and Honor Added to the Church).
This text of the pamphlet describes in lavish detail the rites performed at St. Peter’s Basilica on the day of Maria Maddalena de’ Pazzi and Pedro de Alcántara’s joint canonization, from the joyous procession and various ceremonies performed in the Vatican to the décor and impressive list of VIP attendees, which included the Catholic convert Queen Christiana of Sweden. Traditionally, the religious houses of the canonized saints contributed funds for these celebrations—a daunting prospect that prevented many from even nominating their late members for such high forms of recognition. Conducting this joint canonization would have helped to defray some of those costs.
As the Carmelite sisters were hard-pressed, Pope Clement IX helped to underwrite the festivities. Himself a native of Pistoia in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany ruled from Florence, Clement was deeply committed to the validity of Maria Maddalena de’ Pazzi’s sainthood. With the financial burden distributed among various institutions, the ceremony and celebrations were indeed lavish, even though they also made use of some recycled decorations. Damask cloth and inscribed banners honoring each saint were hung from the great piers of the basilica. Trumpets blared as every church bell in both cities rang to celebrate the momentous day. These were followed by festivities at the nearby Carmelite church, whose facade featured a vine bearing fruit symbolizing the generous gifts that the Virgin Mary had bestowed upon members of that order.
As an entirely cloistered female community it was left to Franciscan and Carmelite monks to attend and process in places of honor as representatives of both orders. Absent from the canonization ceremony were the nuns of Maria Maddalena’s former religious house in Florence, who instead held a vigil before her miraculously preserved body—another conventional symbol of sanctity—in their convent church, mirroring her piety, honoring her holiness, and awaiting news of her summary ceremonial elevation as a saint by the pope. Theirs was an intimate and solemn celebration devoid of pomp and circumstance. Months later, their daughter house, Le Barberine, hosted a feast to commemorate the opening of a new church, which Pope Clement himself attended in honor of the canonization of Maria Maddalena that he had so strongly supported. After many decades of trial and the Carmelite order’s lobbying the papal see and curia on behalf of one of their own, the pope had now finally come to them.
—Kelsey Champagne, Earle Havens
Full Citation
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Bibliography
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