“Almost asleep I saw a beautiful woman”: A Nun’s Letter to Pope Innocent XI to Realise the Victory Against the Turk in 1683

Abstract

The essay examines and publishes for the first time two letters written in 1683 by a Benedictine nun, Sister Maria Candida Colomba, to Pope Innocent XI, in which, following a vision of the Virgin Mary, she urges the pope to have the Carmelites say a thousand rosaries in order to win the war against the Turk, and ask to be transferred into a monastery of Discalced Carmelite nuns. The letters will be analysed in the light of Innocent XI's politics at the Battle of Vienna and in relation to the legitimisation of prophetesses and visionaries received in the name of the Virgin Mary and to their relationship with power.