Angela da Foligno: The Path to Spiritual Authority and the Severing of Family Bonds

مرکز و کتابخانه مطالعات اسلامی به زبان های اروپایی

منو

" Angela da Foligno: The Path to Spiritual Authority and the Severing of Family Bonds "
Politano, Cristina

Document Type	:	AL
Record Number	:	942790
Doc. No	:	LA6gh929kv
Language of Document	:	English
Main Entry	:	Politano, Cristina
Title & Author	:	Angela da Foligno: The Path to Spiritual Authority and the Severing of Family Bonds [Article]\ Politano, Cristina
Title of Periodical	:	Carte Italiane
Volume/ Issue Number	:	12/1
Date	:	2019
Abstract	:	This study examines language related to family and familicide within The Book of Divine Consolation of the Blessed Angela of Foligno, a text attributed to a thirteenth-century Italian mystic who claimed intimate and direct knowledge of the divine, Angela da Foligno (1248-1309). Foligno's repudiation of her earthly family allowed her to assert her kinship among Christ, God, and the Eternal Word, positioning herself as a spiritual authority and aspiring to sainthood. Modern critics diverge in their assessment of Angela's visions; some read her mystic speech as empowering, while others call attention to the contradictions and inconsistencies that undermine her position as a spiritual authority. Simone de Beauvoir is the most prominent modern intellectual who critiques the life of Angela da Foligno, arguing that she engaged in mysticism in bad faith and that her writings amount to no more than a narcissistic exaltation of her own person. An examination of Angela's rhetorical strategies and her language related to family throughout The Book of Divine Consolation reveals that her mysticism, whether divinely inspired or the false product of her own ambition, was always engaged with the radical upending of traditional familial hierarchies that limit the status of women in the public sphere.