The first of Italian novelist/historian Tomizza's 22 works to be
translated into English, this is the creepy tale of a 17th-century
religious ascetic caught on the borderline between intense devotion
and self-deception. In 1662 Venice, a peasant peers through a crack
in a boardinghouse door to witness a priest and a woman performing
Mass. Such private services are forbidden; the couple is denounced
to the Inquisition. The woman, it transpires, is Maria Janis of
Bergamo, who challenges her accusers with the extraordinary
assertion that she has eaten nothing for the past five years but
the bread and wine of daily communion. Her priest, Pietro Morali,
hacks her claim. Through months of interrogation, the authorities
grind down woman and priest until they confess: Janis has indeed
fasted more "than the greatest of the desert saints" in a pathetic
effort to become a living saint - but she has also swallowed
salami, headcheese, and pasta when her suffering became too great.
Tomazza offers scant sympathy for his protagonist, and none of the
"suspense and coup de theatre" he promises. Nor does he seize the
opportunity to probe with any depth issues of sanctity, authority,
or eating-as-sacrament. He concludes that his interest in Janis is
"due not to her holiness but rather to her humanity" - but this
quality resides in everyone: small justification for a turgid read.
Unnourishing. (Kirkus Reviews)
It is a winter morning in Venice, in 1622. Muted voices drift
through a thin wall next door. Her curiosity aroused, a young woman
peers through a crack in the door, only to witness a strange and
disturbing sight: a woman and a priest secretly celebrating
communion. Troubled by what she sees, she reports the incident at
confession. Her revelation leads to the arrest, jailing, and
arraignment of the two for heresy before the Venetian Holy Office
of the Inquisition.
So begins Fulvio Tomizza's absorbing account of the true story of
Maria Janis, a devout peasant woman from the mountains north of
Bergamo. Too poor to enter a convent, Maria had set out to serve
God by relinquishing the little she had, through renunciation of
all food but the bread and wine of communion. Encouraged by the
restless village priest Pietro Morali, Maria claimed to have
existed in this sanctified state for five years. During this time,
she, Morali, and the weaver Pietro Palazzi travel from a little
village in the Alps to Rome and then to Venice, where their alleged
sacrilege is discovered and they are brought to trial. Both revered
as a saint and reviled as a fraud, Maria with her "privilege"
inspires and threatens believers within the Church. Combining the
historian's precision with the novelist's imagination, Tomizza
painstakingly reconstructs her story, crafting a fascinating
portrait of sublimated love, ambition, and jealousy.
"Heavenly Supper" alternates a chronological account of the trial
with analyses of each protagonist's life history. Along the way,
Tomizza gives voice to the minds and hearts of his characters,
allowing them to speak for themselves in their own words. The world
he recreatesresonates with the fervor of the Counter Reformation
when faith and its consequences were rigidly controlled by the
Church. As suspenseful as a detective novel, Tomizza's story goes
beyond the trial to evoke a panoramic view of seventeenth-century
Italian culture.
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