The Nuns of Sant'Ambrogio: The True Story of a Convent in Scandal (15 page)

In the early Middle Ages, the little convent was renamed, and called after the Virgin Mary or the protomartyr Stephanus, the patrons of the two small adjoining chapels. It seems to have been more or less constantly inhabited by pious women, though it isn’t entirely clear which rule they followed. At first this may have been a local Roman community of canonesses. But in the middle of the tenth century, the nuns took on the Rule of Saint Benedict, which they followed until the start of the nineteenth century.
⁷
After 1606, the church and convent were redeveloped, and from then on they went by their original name of Saint Ambrose. The religious renewal that came with this was largely due to the Torres family of Spanish diplomats, in particular Cardinal Ludovico de Torres and his sister Olympia. She was installed in Sant’Ambrogio as abbess, as the inscription over the entrance still shows today. The building works begun at that time were only concluded at the end of the eighteenth century, so by the nineteenth century no more major restructuring was necessary.
⁸

In 1810, the Benedictine tradition that had shaped Sant’Ambrogio for almost a millennium came to an abrupt end. Napoleon had occupied the Papal States in 1809, and on May 7, 1810, he issued a decree dissolving all religious orders in Rome.
⁹
The Benedictine sisters of Sant’Ambrogio were given a fortnight to leave their convent. Following the fall of Napoleon and the restitution of the Papal States in 1814, Pius VII allowed them to return, but they decided to join another community of Benedictine sisters in the Campo Marzio. The pope then gave the convent over to a congregation of women known as the Virgins of the Conservatory of Saint Euphemia, who left again after only a few years.
¹⁰

FRANCISCANS OF THE THIRD ORDER

This left the way clear for a community of nuns of the Regulated Third Order of Holy Saint Francis, governed by the Rule that Maria Agnese Firrao had re-formed with the help of her confessor. The three orders of Franciscans are fundamentally different:
¹¹
the First Order comprises Franciscan monks; they are further split into moderate “conventuals” and more strict “observants.” Later, the Capuchins were also added to this order. The Second Order refers to the
Franciscan nuns called the “Poor Clares,” named after Saint Clara. They live cut off from the world, in strict enclosure. The Third Order was originally for “secular people” who tried to practice the Franciscan ideals of poverty and following Christ outside convents, “in the world,” in their own families and professions.
¹²

But the Third Order’s Rule increasingly served as the foundation for communities of cloistered Franciscan nuns. A rash of female Third Order congregations came into being following the Council of Trent at the end of the sixteenth century, with even greater numbers being founded in the nineteenth century. Their members lived together in open convents, which allowed them to pursue charitable work, such as caring for the sick or educating girls, outside the convent walls.

However, there are now contemplative as well as active Tertiaries, often called Regulated or Reformed Franciscans of the Third Order. They are distinguished by absolute enclosure, strict fasting, and communal Divine Office. Their way of life is similar to that of the Second Order, although legally they aren’t Poor Clares.
¹³
Sant’Ambrogio’s community was one of Regulated Franciscan Tertiaries.
¹⁴
The nuns weren’t allowed to leave the enclosure, which contained their cells, the cloister, the refectory, the chapter house, and the nuns’ choir. People often referred to them as “walled in” or “buried alive.” In Sant’Ambrogio there was no
dormitorium
, or communal sleeping area. Each nun had her own cell. The novices’ rooms were in their own wing, the novitiate. Nobody from outside was allowed to enter the enclosure—even the confessor and other people acting in pastoral roles. Very few exceptions were made to this strict prohibition. If a nun was in immediate danger of death, the abbess could grant permission for a doctor to come and treat her, and for a priest to administer the last rites. If urgent repairs to the buildings were necessary, craftsmen were also permitted to enter the enclosure.

The sisters mostly communicated with the outside world through a metal grille. The parlatory in Sant’Ambrogio was divided into a room accessible from outside, and an inner parlor that could be reached from the enclosure, joined by a barred opening in the dividing wall. The confessors also took confession from the nuns through this grille.

The church of Sant’Ambrogio had a dual function: it was used both for the nuns’ services, and as a “church of the people” where
townsfolk could come to hear Mass. The sisters followed the service from the nuns’ choir, which couldn’t be seen from the nave. They also took Communion through a barred window.

The daily routine in Sant’Ambrogio was, as in all contemplative convents, structured around the Liturgy of the Hours, when the nuns came together in the choir to praise God.
¹⁵
Psalms were recited in Latin. There were seven Offices in total, and in Sant’Ambrogio they began at four in the morning with Matins. Lauds followed at six, or at sunrise. Over the course of the day, work was interrupted three times by the “Little Hours”—Terce, at the third hour (around 9 a.m.), Sext at the sixth hour (around midday), and None at the ninth hour, the time of Jesus’s death on the cross (around 3 p.m.). The day ended with Vespers, the evening prayer at 6 p.m., and Compline before bed.

Holy Mass was read every morning after Lauds, which the nuns attended on an empty stomach. After this came breakfast, with lunch after Sext and supper after Vespers. Meals were taken communally in the
refectorium
, the convent’s dining room. After lunch there was an hour of leisure time, when the nuns could walk in the gardens or the cloister. Wednesdays and Fridays (the day of Jesus’s death) were fasting days. As a rule there was no talking during meals. Instead, there were refectory readings, often taken from the lives of saints. Between Offices, which always lasted from half an hour to forty-five minutes, the sisters did a variety of work. In Sant’Ambrogio, this was principally gardening or sewing vestments and other textiles for liturgical use, the sale of which helped to finance the convent. The chapter house was where the nuns gathered to read the individual chapters of the Rule and the constitutions, for communal discussion of any questions that had been raised, and for the election of sisters to the convent offices.

The community was led by the abbess. She steered the convent in all matters, though she left most of the economic and organizational issues to the vicaress, who in Sant’Ambrogio also took on the role of cellarer. She had the key to the cellar and all the other rooms of the convent. Both women were addressed as “Reverend Mother.” The nuns therefore referred to them as the mother abbess, and the madre vicaria (mother vicaress). The novice mistress was responsible for training the novices. There was an infirmary mistress, responsible for
the convent dispensary, a nurse, and a quartermistress responsible for the convent’s food. There were also the offices of gatekeeper and sacristan.

The religious director and primary confessor of Sant’Ambrogio played a central role in the spiritual leadership of the nuns, among many other things. This office was always occupied by a member of the Society of Jesus, who was supported in his duties by a second confessor, another Jesuit. The cardinal protector supervised the convent, and his office was always held in conjunction with that of cardinal vicar of the diocese of Rome. The cardinal protector had a duty to ensure a strict adherence to the rules and to correct any misbehavior, but also to protect the convent from outside hostility. As the nuns were unable to leave the convent, they employed a lawyer to help them handle legal matters. He represented Sant’Ambrogio’s interests, in consultation with the vicaress.

Anyone wishing to become a member of the Sant’Ambrogio community first spent some time in the convent as a postulant. If her mind was still set on entering, and if the convent’s superiors (the abbess, vicaress, confessor, and novice mistress) were convinced of her suitability, she would then be clothed as a novice. She had to complete a novitiate lasting at least a year, during which time the novice mistress would provide guidance that allowed her to become absolutely certain about whether she was called to convent life. The novice would have to grapple with the convent’s spirit and its customs. Every sister received a new name: her entry into the order meant the start of a new life, with a new identity. After this period of thorough testing came the profession of vows, a ceremony where the novice pledged herself to poverty, chastity, and obedience until death. Nuns were expected to remain in the convent for the rest of their lives, and leaving the order was only possible with a great deal of fuss and an act of mercy by the pope.

Another condition for entering the convent was a dowry of 500 scudi.
¹⁶
These dowries formed the basis of the convent’s funds. Even in the nineteenth century, some young women’s hopes of entering a convent were still dashed by the inability to raise a dowry, especially if they came from the lower classes. Considering that a farmhand in Rome at that time earned just 70 scudi a year, 500 was a considerable sum. Many nuns relied on the support of aristocratic patrons or respected middle-class families. As paradoxical as it may sound: in order for a nun to follow in the footsteps of the
Povorello
Saint Francis of Assisi and live in poverty, the convent that housed his followers required a secure financial base.

The ground floor of the convent of Sant’Ambrogio, with the church, inner and outer parlatory, and the rota. The nuns slept on the first floor. (
illustration credit 3.1
)

AGNESE FIRRAO IS VENERATED AS A SAINT

The community of Sant’Ambrogio owed its existence to the reform of Maria Agnese Firrao, who was known to the nuns by the honorific “mother founder.”

Lucia Firrao was born on October 6, 1774, in Rome.
¹⁷
Her father, Giuseppe Firrao, came from a family that had originally been Jewish—his father had been baptized at the age of three. Her mother was Teresa Vitelli. The Firraos were a respected middle-class family in Rome, and knew people in the Church establishment. Giuseppe Firrao’s brother Natale became a priest, and was a close friend of Carlo Odescalchi, who was later made a cardinal. In 1838, Cardinal Odescalchi fulfilled a long-cherished desire that had been frustrated by successive popes, and joined the Jesuit order.
¹⁸
Lucia’s parents had already found a suitable match for their daughter, who was to marry when she reached sixteen. But Lucia fought their decision, finally getting her own way and entering the convent of Santa Apollonia in Rome as a novice in the early 1790s. This was a Regulated Third Order convent, with a strict enclosure and a ceremonial profession of vows.
¹⁹
But a year later, Lucia transferred to Santa Chiara, which was also inhabited by sisters of the Third Order of Holy Saint Francis.
²⁰
There she was given her habit on January 24, 1796, and took the name Maria Agnese.
²¹

Incredible stories about the twenty-year-old nun began to appear not long after she had entered the order. On April 30, 1796, the Roman newspaper
Diario ordinario
reported that Maria Agnese had fallen ill and was on her deathbed, the doctors having declared there was nothing more they could do, when she had a vision of Saint Francis and Saint Clara. She begged them to let her die and “rejoice in her bridegroom [Jesus Christ] in paradise,” but they denied her request, saying that the Lord still had important work for her in this world.
²²
Against all expectations, the young nun made a full recovery. News of her miraculous healing quickly spread through Rome: it was said that the order’s saints, Francis and Clara, had saved their faithful servant from certain death.

Catholics began to make pilgrimages to the convent of Santa Chiara, to see the new “saint.” This prompted a trial in 1796 before the Tribunal of the Vicariate, to determine whether the miraculous healing was genuine.
²³
All this was done “to the greater glory of God,” said the
Diario ordinario
, and quoted from the printed court files to prove to the world “how great God’s protection of His faithful creations is, as we experience the miraculous effect of His divine assistance.”
²⁴
The young nun was portrayed here as an exemplary recipient of God’s mercy, and the Vicariate recognized the miracle as genuine.

Now that the Church and the public had legitimated her miraculous healing, Sister Maria Agnese’s spiritual guide, Domenico Salvadori,
²⁵
decided to reveal several supernatural phenomena that she had experienced in the period following her recovery. He spoke of the five bleeding stigmata that Sister Maria Agnese had received on her hands, feet, and breast, and painted a picture of her as a radical ascetic and ideal follower of Christ. Her life, he said, was shaped by the most severe mortification of the flesh: “She trapped her tongue under a heavy stone for five to six minutes” so that no blasphemy might issue from her mouth. Still, demons plagued her day and night, trying to tempt her away from the path she walked with Christ. Maria Agnese often wore an “iron mask containing 54 pointed nails.” Playing to a Catholic audience that was seemingly obsessed with miracles, Maria Agnese’s confessor claimed she had been sent countless ecstasies and visions. She had even been granted the blessing of a heavenly marriage with Jesus Christ. Supernatural messages had told her that God was threatening “to take the Catholic Faith away from Rome” if the city didn’t reform. In subsequent visions, God was severely critical of “the disorder that reigns throughout the clergy, in particular the higher echelons, and above all the pope himself.”
²⁶