Maria Domitilla Galluzzi (1595–1671) was a Catholic mystic

Mysticism

Mysticism is the knowledge of, and especially the personal experience of, states of consciousness, i.e. levels of being, beyond normal human perception, including experience and even communion with a supreme being.-Classical origins:...

, never canonized. According to E. Ann Matter

E. Ann Matter

E. Ann Matter, Ph.D is Associate Dean for Arts & Letters and Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. She specializes in Medieval Christianity, including mysticism, women and religion, sexuality and religion, manuscript and textual studies and sacred music...

, her foremost chronicler, Galluzzi entered her convent

Convent

A convent is either a community of priests, religious brothers, religious sisters, or nuns, or the building used by the community, particularly in the Roman Catholic Church and in the Anglican Communion...

 at Pavia, and after some time, began to experience ecstatic visions of Christ's Passion

Passion (Christianity)

The Passion is the Christian theological term used for the events and suffering – physical, spiritual, and mental – of Jesus in the hours before and including his trial and execution by crucifixion...

. Amongst other miraculous events, levitation is alleged to have occurred when Galluzzi rose to view a crucifix

Crucifix

A crucifix is an independent image of Jesus on the cross with a representation of Jesus' body, referred to in English as the corpus , as distinct from a cross with no body....

 of Christ's Passion agonies through supernatural

Supernatural

The supernatural or is that which is not subject to the laws of nature, or more figuratively, that which is said to exist above and beyond nature...

 means.

Matter notes that Galluzzi's work is based on the spiritual disciplines of Ignatius Loyola, although the seventeenth century church investigated her for orthodoxy

Orthodoxy

The word orthodox, from Greek orthos + doxa , is generally used to mean the adherence to accepted norms, more specifically to creeds, especially in religion...

. However, while Galluzzi survived this scrutiny, her mysticism and piety

Piety

In spiritual terminology, piety is a virtue that can mean religious devotion, spirituality, or a combination of both. A common element in most conceptions of piety is humility.- Etymology :...

 was never recognized through beatification

Beatification

Beatification is a recognition accorded by the Catholic Church of a dead person's entrance into Heaven and capacity to intercede on behalf of individuals who pray in his or her name . Beatification is the third of the four steps in the canonization process...

 as a Catholic saint

Saint

A saint is a holy person. In various religions, saints are people who are believed to have exceptional holiness.In Christian usage, "saint" refers to any believer who is "in Christ", and in whom Christ dwells, whether in heaven or in earth...

, due to Counter-Reformation

Counter-Reformation

The Counter-Reformation was the period of Catholic revival beginning with the Council of Trent and ending at the close of the Thirty Years' War, 1648 as a response to the Protestant Reformation.The Counter-Reformation was a comprehensive effort, composed of four major elements:#Ecclesiastical or...

 Catholic rationalist tendencies and sceptical reception of alleged ecstatic visions. It may be instructive to compare her life to her contemporary, Cecilia Ferrazzi

Cecilia Ferrazzi

Cecilia Ferrazzi was a Counter-Reformation Catholic prototype social worker, whose life was extensively involved with establishment and maintenance of women's houses of refuge in seventeenth century Italy....

 (1609–1684), to whom she bears many similarities and differences.

See also

• Cecilia Ferrazzi
  Cecilia Ferrazzi
  Cecilia Ferrazzi was a Counter-Reformation Catholic prototype social worker, whose life was extensively involved with establishment and maintenance of women's houses of refuge in seventeenth century Italy....