Of queens, saints, and heretics. About Guglielma and recent scholarship
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.6092/1593-2214/5535Keywords:
Guglielma, Heresy, Inquisition, HagiographyAbstract
In the second half of the thirteenth century a woman named Guglielma who lived in Milan was considered a saint in vita. For this reason, she was buried in the churchyard of the Cistercian abbey of Chiaravalle, only to be condemned post mortem as heretic following an inquisitorial trial that took place in 1300. The shift from sainthood, publicly recognized at a local level, to heresy, is just one of the many metamorphoses of a woman that embodies an irresistible connection to our contemporary present. Against the backdrop of international scholarship, the article considers Guglielma not merely as a historical figure, by analysing the inquisitorial trials in which sanctity and heresy tend to coexist, but also the many hagiographies and sacre rappresentazioni which induced many scholars to overlap and blend different sources in order to produce one Guglielma (according to the so-called philological combinatorial method), here accurately deconstructed.
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