The Nuns of Sant'Ambrogio: The True Story of a Convent in Scandal (34 page)

The symptoms Giuseppa Maria describes here, in particular the colored vision, confusion, and affected speech, suggest she was poisoned
by the santonin contained in the wormseed. Giuseppa Maria went on:

But it didn’t end with the murder of Maria Agostina. Maria Felice’s death in the fall of 1859 can also be chalked up to Maria Luisa’s account. She had been one of the vicaress’s two main accomplices in the poisoning of the princess.
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Once again, Maria Luisa prophesied the death through the usual letters from the Virgin to Padre Peters. She was clearly frightened the young nun would crack under pressure from the Inquisition, and reveal the whole poisoning plot. Once Maria Felice had been laid low by a mysterious illness, the novice mistress even forced her to pray for her own death. She was ordered to simulate pains she didn’t have, so the doctors would keep letting her blood and gradually making her weaker. Maria Felice died from the results of this treatment, at barely twenty-two years old.

Maria Felice went far beyond the obedience that canon law dictates a novice must show to her mistress. Hers was a case of religiously motivated dependency, bordering on enslavement. She prayed for her own death and simulated symptoms she didn’t have, in order to receive a treatment that would fatally weaken her. These are clear indications of a pathological religious mania. The basic tenet of the Roman Inquisition, as voiced by Sallua several times in the Sant’Ambrogio case files, obviously applied to the facts of Maria Felice’s death: false religiousness leads to false morality. And in the worst-case scenario, feigned holiness leads to murder or manslaughter.

According to the testimonies of various nuns, Maria Luisa was
also to blame for the death of Sister Maria Costanza in January 1858. Costanza had opposed the election of the young nun as novice mistress in 1854, and had also spoken out against Agnese Eletta’s expulsion from Sant’Ambrogio. Maria Costanza suffered from a severe inflammation of the lungs. As her condition deteriorated, the nurse asked Maria Luisa to call a doctor immediately. But Maria Luisa refused several times. When Doctor Marchi finally arrived, the following day, it was too late. The doctor said: “If we had been called in time, we could have saved her. Now there is nothing more we can do.” Maria Costanza died of pneumonia on January 23, 1858.

Maria Luisa was now responsible for the deaths of at least three nuns.

PENNIES FROM HEAVEN

Murder and manslaughter weren’t the novice mistress’s only crimes. There were also counts of embezzlement and other financial misdemeanors to add to the charges—and here, too, divine forces were supposedly at work. Sums of money were always turning up in Sant’Ambrogio in a miraculous manner.
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In her hearing, Sister Maria Colomba reported Maria Luisa giving her money to take to Padre Peters, who was waiting in the parlor. It was for the payment of doctors’ fees for Maria Giacinta. When Colomba went back to say she had completed her task, the novice mistress claimed she knew nothing about the money or the errand. Eventually Maria Luisa said it had probably been the mother founder herself, who had assumed Maria Luisa’s form and given Maria Colomba the money. The abbess added that this had been a freshly minted gold coin worth 12 scudi. She preserved this coin as a gift from heaven, and settled the doctors’ bill with used, earthly currency.

The mother founder took care of the convent’s finances from heaven on several occasions. Once, the abbess received a letter from Maria Agnese Firrao sent “from paradise,” the wax seal of which carried the “fingerprint of the Immaculate Virgin.” The founder announced that Padre Peters would find money in the little casket
that usually contained letters from heaven. The money had been sent from heaven by the late Maria Felice, to repay Sant’Ambrogio for the cost of her illness. And, in the presence of the novice mistress, the Jesuit did indeed open the box to find a roll of coins totalling 100 gold scudi, 50 scudini,
⁵⁹
and 25 25-paoli pieces. There was also a note, on which was written:
“Alms sent by Maria Felice, in fulfillment of her promise to the Holy Daughter Maria Luisa.”

Twice during the renovation of the convent church, envelopes containing 50 scudi were discovered in the rota (the rotating hatch between the enclosure and the outer area). Following a long investigation by Sallua, the lawyer Franceschetti finally admitted obtaining rolls of 100 new gold scudi in exchange for used money, at Maria Luisa’s behest.

Maria Luisa was fairly generous with the convent’s money elsewhere, too—money for which she was responsible as the abbess’s vicaress. The “heavenly rings,” the rose oil, the handmade paper for the heavenly letters, and the valuable casket all had to be paid for. Padre Peters also received large sums on several occasions for penitents of his who found themselves in financial difficulties. Heavenly powers sent the Jesuit 570 scudi for one Vittoria Marchesi; another time it was as much as 700 gold scudi.

Maria Luisa was probably just misappropriating money from the nuns’ dowries, which were laid down when they entered the convent, and formed the basis of the institution’s wealth.

While Maria Luisa was in charge, the convent’s accounts had fallen into chaos, as the lawyer Franceschetti (who was actually supposed to keep an eye on what she was doing), admitted in his hearing on September 12, 1860.
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In an attempt to exonerate himself, the lawyer came to the conclusion:

Sallua could have contented himself with proof of the murders and financial irregularities but, in conclusion to his
Relazione
for the cardinals of the Holy Office, he added a final
Titolo
on a matter that lay particularly close to his heart: the role of the two confessors.

THE CONFESSORS AS CONFIDANTS AND ACCOMPLICES

Casting a critical eye over the witness statements, the Dominican came to the conclusion that “sometimes one, sometimes the other, but often both father confessors were aware of all the criminal acts addressed in this trial.”
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They had been revealed as either “supporters” and confidants or, in some cases, “accomplices.” The starting point for the countless crimes committed in Sant’Ambrogio was the false cult propagated with such enthusiasm by Leziroli and Peters. For Sallua, the fact that the two confessors were the “principal supporters of the holiness and the supposed gifts” of Maria Luisa could “clearly be seen from every hearing—one might almost say, from every page of the thirteen volumes of records in this trial.”

Leziroli had even gone so far as to tell the abbess that he could “never call into question Maria Luisa’s holiness, even if an angel were to tell him the opposite.” And Peters said on several occasions that he had “the proof of Maria Luisa’s extraordinary gifts and holiness in [his] possession.” Collective coercion, for which the confessors were ultimately responsible, was part of the Sant’Ambrogio system. It was the huge pressure applied by Leziroli that got Maria Luisa elected as novice mistress and vicaress. And Padre Peters, in particular, encouraged the cult of contact relics. Such was his blind admiration for the beautiful young nun that, several times, he kissed her feet in public.

Both confessors were aware of the “intimacies and kisses” that Maria Luisa exchanged with various other sisters. They were also extremely careless with information the nuns gave them in confession, telling Maria Luisa afterward about “the penitents’ confessions and states of mind.” Many of the sisters were “always deeply troubled by this”: the mistress frequently “spoke to them about what they had just told the priest in confession.” Maria Fortunata made a point of this in her hearing: “The mistress would often mention to me a confession I had just made to Padre Peters. I said to her: ‘Either you are eavesdropping on us, Reverend Mother, or Padre Peters has told you.’ ” Sallua argued that this proved the seal of the confessional had been habitually broken.

Both confessors were also mixed up in the poisoning affair. Maria Luisa had told them “verbally and in writing about the supposed divine revelations and commands regarding the princess’s impending sickness and death.” “The nuns also informed them of facts connected to the poisoning,” as Sallua noted. As evidence for this, he cited the fact that the confessors asked “the doctors treating the princess whether a dose of opium, or some kind of mistake with the medicines, could have led to her illness.” The Dominican referred once more to the testimony of the lawyer, Franceschetti, who said that Padre Peters knew the princess was being poisoned and told him “of this matter” from the beginning. Peters had also warned the lawyer about the upcoming hearings before the Inquisition, self-confidently claiming that “I will not be called before the Holy Office, since I am a confessor. But if I am questioned about the poisoning business, I will leave out many facts, citing reasons of conscience and the seal of the confessional.”
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Leziroli, meanwhile, had forced the abbess to beg Maria Luisa’s forgiveness for suspecting her of poisoning the princess. He also forced the two nurses who had observed the mixing of the poisons to give up their positions. In their hearings, the nuns also blamed the confessors for helping to conceive and implement Maria Luisa’s defense strategy. They, too, had started claiming the devil had assumed her form to carry out the poisoning attacks. The confessors were also the first to proclaim that Maria Luisa had received “monies from heaven in a miraculous manner.” And they openly incited the nuns to perjure themselves during the vicegerent’s Visitation and the hearings before the Inquisition.

“As a result of the facts presented thus far,” Sallua summarized,
“it appears obvious that the above-named father confessors acted as confidants and accomplices in the majority of charges to be brought in the present trial.”

THE RESULTS OF THE INFORMATIVE PROCESS

At the end of January 1861, after more than a year of intensive witness examinations, Sallua was finally in a position to summarize the results of the informative process. His
Relazione informativa
presented some clear suggestions on how to proceed in the case of Sant’Ambrogio.
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But these decisions didn’t fall to the lower, investigative section of the Inquisition: they would be made by the upper section of the Holy Office’s tribunal, the congregation of cardinals, and, ultimately, the pope. They based their judgments on the extremely detailed
Relazione
, which included an appendix of extracts from the transcripts of the most important witness examinations.

The document in which the Dominican presented the case sticks very closely to the witness statements. His summaries follow the text of each testimony, even reproducing individual phrases. The material is arranged according to the three main charges (the cult of Firrao; the false holiness of Maria Luisa; poisonings and other crimes), and is further divided into a total of fourteen individual charges. On all points, Sallua emphasizes that the facts he is presenting are corroborated down to the smallest detail by the witness statements. The investigating judge’s own opinion can only be read between the lines: the cardinals were to make their own judgment on the basis of the materials he had prepared.

It is only on the very last page of his
Relazione
that Sallua makes specific judgment suggestions to the congregation of cardinals—and not without once more emphasizing that “base” motives had played no part in the princess’s complaint to the authorities. There had been no mutual enmity between the plaintiff and the defendant, Maria Luisa. Nor had there been any scores to settle between the nuns, Katharina von Hohenzollern, Maria Luisa, and the two confessors. The only motive for planning Katharina’s murder was to keep the Sant’Ambrogio system a secret. In this case, there was no suggestion that the Inquisition was being abused in order to exact revenge. At
the end of his report, the investigating judge suggested a series of measures to Their Eminences.

First: charges should be brought against the confessors Leziroli and Peters. They had promoted the false cult of Firrao and Maria Luisa; acted as confidants and accomplices in the poisonings and in other “false precepts”; they had carried out “blasphemous practices
sub specie boni et privilegii
” and “continually broken the
clausura.”
In the case of Padre Peters, there was also a charge of sexual relations
“ad malum finem”
with his penitent Maria Luisa, and of
Sollicitatio
. Interestingly, there was no specific mention of breaking the seal of the confessional, although several witnesses had raised this more or less directly.