The Nuns of Sant'Ambrogio: The True Story of a Convent Scandal

Front Cover
Oxford University Press, 2015 - History - 476 pages
"The story of a scandal of epic proportions at the heart of the Catholic church - told by one of the world's leading papal historians; A true, never-before-told tale, of poison, murder, and lesbian initiation rites in a nineteenth-century convent - recently discovered in a Vatican archive; Starring a German princess, the Pope, the Inquisition - and the real-life fantasies of the convent's beautiful young mistress. Discovered in a secret Vatican archive, this is the true, never-before-told story of poison, murder, and lesbian initiation rites in a nineteenth century convent. In 1858, Katherina von Hohenzollern, a German princess recently inducted into the convent of Sant'Ambrogio in Rome, wrote a frantic letter to her cousin, a confidant of the Pope, claiming that she was being abused and feared for her life. The subsequent investigation by the Church's Inquisition uncovered the extraordinary secrets of Sant'Ambrogio and the illicit behavior of the convent's beautiful young mistress, Maria Luissa."--Publisher's description.
 

Contents

Save Save Me
3
Such Turpitudes Katharina von Hohenzollern Complains to the Inquisition
7
The Delicatezza of the Matter as Such Extrajudicial Preliminary Investigations
46
I Am the Little Lion of My Reformed Sisters The Informative Process and the Devotees of the Mother Founder
82
Wash Me Well for the Padre Is Coming The Madre Vicarias Pretense of Holiness
121
An Act of Divine Splendor Murder on the Orders of the Virgin
166
It Is a Heavenly Liquor The Offensive Process and the Interrogation of the Madre Vicaria
210
That Good Padre Has Spoiled the Work of God The Interrogations of the Father Confessor and the Abbess
250
Sorrowful and Contrite The Verdict and Its Consequences
320
The Secret of SantAmbrogio as Judged by History
363
Acknowledgments
373
Notes
377
Sources and Literature
449
Illustration Credits
467
Index
469
A NOTE ON THE TYPE
479

During These Acts I Never Ceased My Inner Prayer The Interrogation of Giuseppe Peters
271

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About the author (2015)

Hubert Wolf is Professor of Ecclesiastical History at the University of Muenster in Germany, and has been awarded a number or prizes, including the Leibniz Prize of the German Research Foundation (DFG), the Communicator Prize, and the Gutenberg Prize. An internationally renowned scholar of the history of the papacy, his other books include Pope and Devil: The Vatican's Archives and the Third Reich.

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