Tempting the Tempter

Amy R. Huesman, Ph.D. (2021), is an independent scholar living in Hanover, Virginia. Her research focuses on religious culture in late medieval Europe, Italian society in the fifteenth century, and Church history from the Fourth Lateran Council to the Reformation.

• AcknowledgmentsList of Maps and FiguresIntroduction1 The Emergence of the Quattrocento Santa viva1 The Influence of the Observants2 The Influence of a Thriving Print Culture3 Attributes of the Living Saint4 The Prototype: St. Catherine of Siena5 The Hagiographic Tradition6 Conditions on the Italian Peninsula2 Beata Elena Valentini da Udine, Augustinian Tertiary1 From Widow to Bride of Christ2 “Of the Temptations and Beatings Given to Her by the Devil”3 Santa Caterina Vigri da Bologna, Franciscan Nun1 From Afflicted Novice to Beloved Abbess2 Spiritual Weapons against the Devil’s Tricks4 Beata Colomba Guadagnoli da Rieti, Dominican Penitent1 From Spiritual Prodigy to Miracle-Working Prophet2 The Holy Virgin vs. the Enemy of Virtue5 Imitatio Christi in Its Feminine Form1 The Tradition of Imitatio Christi2 A Culture of Imitation3 Woman’s Body and Christ’s Suffering4 Woman and Redemptive Suffering5 Temptation as Imitation6 Temptation in the Hagiographic Tradition6 The Provocative Holy Woman1 Divine Deception in the Desert2 Solitude and the Creation of the Desert3 Fasting and Eucharistic Piety4 Praying without Ceasing5 Punishment of the Flesh6 Heroic Asceticism and Diabolical Attraction7 The Holy Woman as Discerner of Spirits1 The Power of Discretio Spirituum2 Of Heretics and Demons3 Jean Gerson and the Need for Discernment4 Johannes Nider and the Makings of a Witch Stereotype5 Heinrich Kramer and the Witch Defined6 Of Discerners and their Detractors8 The Santa viva in Society1 Service to the Roman Church at Large2 Service to the Observant Reform Movement3 Service to the Local Community9 Postmortem Veneration and the Making of a Saint1 Virtus and the Vox Populi2 The Living Saint: Transgressor or Talisman?3 Holy Conjuring or Righteous Provocation?4 Who Made the Saint?5 Self-Fashioning through ImitationConclusionBibliographyIndex