ns of hers were dignified with the name of
revelations. The lover and bosom-friend of the Holy Virgin, she had
received instructions from God Himself to write the life of His divine
mother; the necessary information was furnished her by the Holy Ghost.

This life of Mary began, not with the day of her birth, but with her
immaculate conception in the womb of Anne, her mother. This Sister Mary
of Agrada was the head of a Franciscan convent founded by herself in her
own house. After telling in detail all the deeds of her divine heroine
whilst in her mother's womb, she informs us that at the age of three she
swept and cleansed the house with the assistance of nine hundred
servants, all of whom were angels whom God had placed at her disposal,
under the command of Michael, who came and went between God and herself
to conduct their mutual correspondence.

What strikes the judicious reader of the book is the evident belief of
the more than fanatical writer that nothing is due to her invention;
everything is told in good faith and with full belief. The work contains
the dreams of a visionary, who, without vanity but inebriated with the
idea of God, thinks to reveal only the inspirations of the Divine Spirit.

The book was published with the permission of the very holy and very
horrible Inquisition. I could not recover from my astonishment! Far from
its stirring up in my breast a holy and simple zeal of religion, it
inclined me to treat all the mystical dogmas of the Faith as fabulous.

Such works may have dangerous results; for example, a more susceptible
reader than myself, or one more inclined to believe in the marvellous,
runs the risk of becoming as great a visionary as the poor nun herself.

The need of doing something made me spend a week over this masterpiece of
madness, the product of a hyper-exalted brain. I took care to say nothing
to the gaoler about this fine work, but I began to feel the effects of
reading it. As soon as I went off to sleep I experienced the disease
which Sister Mary of Agrada had communicated to my mind weakened by
melancholy, want of proper nourishment and exercise, bad air, and the
horrible uncertainty of my fate. The wildness of my dreams made me laugh
when I recalled them in my waking moments. If I had possessed the
necessary materials I would have written my visions down, and I might
possibly have produced in my cell a still madder work than the one chosen
with such insight by Cavalli.

T