Thank you to Louise Marshall and Esther Cohen for replying so
interestingly to my throw-away remark about S.Francesca Romana.
I am most interested to hear of the Ph.D. in progress on her.
While there is a considerable literature (eg. in the various
ecclesiastical dictionaries such as the Dictionnaire de Spiritualite),
editions of the canonisation process and contemporary biographies of the saint
much of the existing material is uncritical and hagiographical in the
perjorative sense. The life is told in a remarkable series of contemporary
paintings (presumably still in situ). I know them only from the
reproductions in Carlotta ALBERGOTTI, Santa Francesca Romana. La Vita e
l'Opera (144o-194O)(Rome,194O), acquired in a Roman second-hand bookshop
molti anni fa. If it's ever needed..
I was not entirely serious about the need for a "feminist" study (is
the word still in use ?). Yes, one must look out for those interfering
male confessors and spiritual supervisors, mais ca c'est evident.
It simply needs someone to bring out the human
interest and ask interesting modern questions of the abundant material.
It sounds like the Ph.D. student is well qualified. Best wishes.
Tony Antonovics
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