Benedetta Carlini (20 January 1590 – 7 August 1661) was an Italian Catholic nun who claimed to experience mystic visions. As abbess of the Convent of the Mother of God, at Pescia, she had a sexual relationship with one of her nuns, Sister Bartolomea. These came to the attention of the Counter-Reformation papacy, determined to subordinate potentially troublesome mystics if they showed any signs of heretical spirituality. Although they paid three to four visits to the nunnery, it was not until they interrogated Sister Bartolomea that they found that Benedetta and Bartolemea had engaged in sexual relations. Bartolomea gave testimony that Benedetta engaged in frottage with her while possessed by the spirit of a male demon known as Splenditello. Benedetta was stripped of her rank and imprisoned.
Early life
Benedetta Carlini was born on 20 January 1590 (St. Sebastian night), in the remote mountain village of , located in the Apennines, northwest of Florence. Her father was Giuliano, a rich and devout man who owned his house and several other properties in Vellano and a small farm nearby. Her mother was Midea Carlini (born Midea d'Antonio Pieri), a sister of the parish priest. Benedetta was an only child in her middle-class Italian family; Giuliano provided in his will that after his own and his wife's death, his house should be turned into an oratory dedicated to the Mother of God.
Midea's labour was very difficult, painful and dangerous both for her and her daughter, both of whom survived. Giuliano had decided to name the girl Benedetta—meaning "blessed"—and dedicate her to God's service. Soon after her birth, her family retired to her father's farm in the mountains, where she was nursed by her mother and not a wet nurse.
Benedetta's father educated her himself, an unusual choice in Renaissance Italian society, in which most girls took lessons from their mothers and were not very literate. Her education and upbringing were religious. At the age of five, she knew the litany of the saints and other prayers by heart. Under her father's tutelage, Benedetta would take the rosary and recite the litany several times a day. At the age of six, Benedetta learned to read and knew some Latin.
Her mother instructed Benedetta to recite five Pater Nosters and eight Ave Marias every day, seemingly directing Benedetta toward female guides—the Virgin Mary, a statue of whom had been acquired especially for Benedetta, and St. Catherine of Siena, whose mystical marriage with Christ was celebrated as a feast day at their home.
One day a black dog tried to drag Benedetta away, but her screams frightened it; by the time her mother came, the dog had disappeared. Benedetta and her parents interpreted this incident as the work of a devil disguised as an animal.
In spring 1599, Giuliano decided to fulfill the vow made at the birth of his daughter and bring Benedetta to a group of religious women in Pescia.
Convent
In 1599, Benedetta joined a group of unmarried women who wanted to lead an ascetic life; the group did not live in a regularly enclosed convent, and were not recognised religious sisters. The group lived in a retreat in a private house, where women led a communal life engaged in prayer, spiritual exercises and the production of raw silk. This community had been formed nine years earlier (in 1590) by Piera Pagni, the widow of a prominent Pesciatine. One of her kinsmen, Antonio Pagni, founded an independent religious congregation for men in 1588. He had obtained a degree in canon law at the University of Pisa; he was joined by Father Paolo Ricordati and several other priests and laymen. Because of their reputation for saintliness, local people soon began to call them Theatine fathers. However, they called themselves Fathers of the Holy Annunciation, and they were not members of the Theatine Order of Clerics Regular founded in 1524 by St. Cajetan Thiene. Fathers of the Holy Annunciation agreed to back a female community founded by Piera Pagni and provide spiritual direction to the women in it. Paolo Ricordati was their father confessor. Thus, local people began to call Piera Pagni, and her subordinates "Theatines", although the Theatine Order of Clerics Regular was a male religious order.