Journal in France in 1845 and 1848 with Letters from Italy in 1847

We took our letter to Manzoni last night, and found him sitting, after dinner, with Madame. Considering that he lives very retired, we may think ourselves three fortunate birds of passage to have had an hour's conversation with the author of the Promessi Sposi. He is from 60 to 65 years of age, with greyish hair and a pleasing kind look. He spoke of James Hope and Gladstone; with great warmth of the latter, saying it was a satisfaction to speak with such a man. Newman he regretted not having seen as he passed through, being then in the country. I mentioned his great reputation with us. "He has the same here," he said. I inquired if he could tell us anything about the Estatica and Addolorata, who are not far from Trent, and whom we wish to see. He replied that one person of his acquaintance who had seen the Addolorata was profoundly struck, and quite convinced of the reality of her state. On further conversation, it turned out that this person was no other than his wife's son by a former marriage, who was at this moment gone on a second visit to the Addolorata with a physician, for the purpose of taking an accurate account of her state. He is to return on Monday, and then we hope to hear his report. I asked if the clergy here were learned; he said there were learned men among them, but the Church was held in a state of most oppressive thraldom by the government; the bishops cannot hold a visitation, nor communicate with Rome, without permission, nor punish a parish priest without the sentence of a tribunal directed by laymen. This thraldom dates from the emperor Joseph II. What seemed most to interest Manzoni, and on which he spoke at length, was the philosophical system of his friend Rosmini; a complete system, according to his account, of great originality, thoroughly opposed to the sensuous philosophy of modern times, and preparing the mind for the faith. He made all error to consist in the will, not in the mind; and was a most inexorable logician, carrying out every principle, and never leaving a fact in abeyance. Manzoni seemed thoroughly interested in Rosmini, and expects great results from his works, of which there are already fifteen vols. published, which have begun to make an impression. He got more and more animated as our visit went on. I found his Italian clear and easy to understand; nor did he address us at all in French, which his lady (a second wife) seemed to prefer. He spoke with compassion of the miserably infidel state of France, and quite admitted my remark that a great change seemed to be passing over the mind of men everywhere, and that they were in the process of being won back to the faith, as in the last century they were falling from it. The Church was the best friend of all governments, for they must be bad indeed for the clergy not to support them; and yet their position was one of jealousy towards the Church. As we bowed ourselves out of the room, he came forward cordially and said "Shake hands," the only words not Italian which he had spoken; and so we left him much gratified, and with the prospect of another visit on Monday. We were several hours in the cathedral yesterday; and at five this morning mounted to see the early morning view outside. The view, when clear, is most wondrous, embracing the range of Alps for a couple of hundred miles. This morning it was only partially open, just to the north, but still very fine. Shelley's lines on the Euganean Hills are most thoroughly Italian, and render the scene, so far as words can: —

"Beneath is spread, like a green sea,
The waveless plain of Lombardy,
Bounded by the vaporous air,
Islanded by cities fair;
Underneath day's azure eyes,
Ocean's nursling, Venice, lies," &c.

As for describing the building inside or out, it is utterly vain to attempt it. Suffice it to say, that the greatest of all Gothic cathedrals must be allowed to be a beautiful bastard, full of inconsistencies and irregularities, and even serious faults, yet so grand and profoundly religious, that one gives up all criticism in disgust. As we walked on the marble roof this morning, and watched that multitude of aerial pinnacles so clearly defined against the cool blue sky, I thought it would be as utterly beyond Walter Scott or Victor Hugo, or any other master of human language, as it was beyond me, to convey to one who never saw it any idea of this building. Human language, then, being an instrument confessedly so poor and weak, what extreme folly it is to rest upon it in religious mysteries; to think that we can penetrate into realities by its aid, when we cannot even describe the objects of sense. If Milan cathedral be indescribable, it would be strange indeed if words could exhibit the mystery of the Trinity. We must wait for intuition before we approach eternal things; that is, we must be beyond the bounds of time ere we can comprehend what does not exist in time. Prayers may be said to be always going on, at least during the day, here; as we entered, a Mass was already proceeding: there is a succession of them from dawn till noon. I confess I prefer one daily celebration, at which all who are disposed, especially clergy, should assist, not merely as reverencing the mystery, (which, however, is far and far beyond our manner of neglecting it,) but as partaking of it. On the other hand, this mode sets forth a continual worship; the building itself seems a perpetual offering made to God; by day and night it pleads the Passion of His Son and the graces of His saints. I do not know whether this mute intercession is most striking when it is crowded with worshippers, or when, as we saw it at eight last night, two single lamps twinkled in its immense obscurity, and the last light of day was feebly visible through the coloured windows. As we were standing thus under the lantern, we heard a voice at the other end of the church, "si chiude, si chiude." One could hardly help wishing to stay there the night. It would certainly require a bold heart, but I think I could do it, if I thought I could get an answer to one or two questions. The shrine of St. Charles Borromeo, a pope's nephew – nobleman, archbishop, and cardinal – who was worn out with austerities at forty-six, seems a fit approach to the invisible world: where Ambrose taught, and Augustine was converted, and over all the Blessed Virgin's hands are stretched – a fit place for reaching the truth. We intend to go on towards Venice on Tuesday; we think of stopping at Verona, and going north into the Tyrol, to see the Addolorata. I do no not know if you have heard of her. She has now been many years subsisting almost without nourishment, having on her hands, feet, and side the marks of our Saviour's wounds, and on her head a series of punctures representing the Crown of Thorns. Blood drops from all of these on Friday. I spoke with an eye-witness of this at Paris. The thing seems marvellous enough to go a hundred miles out of one's way to see it.

    Yours very sincerely,
    T. W. Allies.

Account of a Visit to the Addolorata and Estatica, in the Tyrol.

    Trent, August 1, 1847.

My dear – .

Since I last wrote to you, I have seen two sights more remarkable than any that ever fell under my own observation before, and than any that are likely to fall again. I mean to give you as short an account of them as will convey a real notion of them.

Maria Domenica Lazzari, daughter of a poor miller now dead, lives in the wild Alpine village of Capriana, in the Italian Tyrol, which we had a walk of four hours through the mountains to reach. She was born March 16. 1815, and up to the year 1833 lived the ordinary life of a peasant, blameless and religious, but in no respect otherwise remarkable. In August, 1833, she had an illness, not in the first instance of an extraordinary nature; but it took the form of an intermittent fever, confining her completely to her bed, and finally contracting the nerves of her hands and feet, so as to cripple them. On the 10th of January, 1834, she received on her hands, feet, and left side, the marks of our Lord's five wounds; the first appearance of these was a gradual reddening of the various points beneath the skin; this was strongly marked on a Thursday, and on the following day the wounds were open, blood flowed, and since that time they have never undergone any material change. Three weeks afterwards her family found her in the morning with a handkerchief covering her face, in a state of great delight, a sort of trance; on removing the handkerchief, letters were found on it marked in blood, and Domenica's brow had a complete impression of the Crown of Thorns, in a line of small punctures, about a quarter of an inch apart, from which the blood was flowing freshly. They asked her who had torn her so (chi l'aveva così pettinata?) she replied, "A very fair lady had come in the night and adorned her." On the 10th of April, 1834, she took a little water with a morsel of bread steeped in it; from that day to this she has taken no nourishment whatever, save the Holy Sacrament, which she receives weekly once or twice, in the smallest possible quantity. Some years ago, when the priest had given her the Host, sudden convulsions came on, and she was unable to swallow It; the priest tried repeatedly to withdraw It, but in vain, the convulsions returning as often as he attempted it, and so It remained forty days, when It was at last removed untouched. We were assured of this by the Prince-Bishop of Trent. From the time that she first received the stigmata in January, 1834, to the present time, the wounds have bled every Friday with a loss of from one to two ounces of blood, beginning early in the morning, and on Friday only: the quantity of blood which now flows is less than it used to be. The above information we received chiefly from Signor Yoris, a surgeon of Cavalese, the chief village of the district in which Capriana lies. We carried him a letter from Signor S. Stampa, son-in-law of Manzoni, whom we met at Milan last Sunday, and who had just returned from a visit to Domenica, exactly a week before our own. He appeared quite overwhelmed at what he had seen, and gave us an exact account, which our own eyes subsequently verified. We reached Cavalese from Neumarkt on Thursday, having taken especial care so to time our visit that we might see Domenica first on Thursday evening and then on Friday morning, so as to be able to observe that marvellous flow of blood which is said to take place on Friday. Signor Yoris most obligingly offered to accompany us; accordingly we left Cavalese shortly after one o'clock on Thursday, and reached Capriana by a wild road through a mountainous valley, in four hours. As we got near the place Signor Yoris said, "I will tell you a curious instance of Domenica's acuteness of hearing. My wife and I were going once to visit her; when we were eighty or a hundred yards from her house, I whispered to my wife to go quietly, that we might take her by surprise. We did so accordingly, but much to our astonishment she received us with a smile, saying that she had not been taken by surprise, and alluding to the very words I had used." He showed us the spot where this had occurred, and it was certainly an acuteness of sense far beyond anything I can conceive possible. We went straight to Domenica's cottage, and knocked at the door. Her sister was out, but in a few minutes she came from a cottage a little below, and let us in. At the inner end of a low room near the wall, in a bed hardly larger than a crib, Domenica lay crouched up, the hands closely clasped over the breast, the head a little raised, the legs gathered up nearly under her, in a way the bed clothes did not allow us to see. About three quarters of an inch under the roots of the hair a straight line is drawn all round the forehead, dotted with small punctures a quarter of an inch apart; above this the flesh is of the natural colour, perfectly clear and free from blood; below the face is covered down to the bottom of the nose, and the cheeks to the same extent, with a dry crust or mask of blood. Her breast heaved with a sort of convulsion, and her teeth chattered. On the outside of both hands, as they lie clasped together, in a line with the second finger, about an inch from the knuckle, is a hard scar, of dark-colour, rising above the flesh, half an inch in length, by about three-eighths of an inch in width; round these the skin slightly reddened, but quite free from blood. From the position of the hands it is not possible to see well inside, but stooping down on the right of her bed I could almost see an incision answering to the outward one, and apparently deeper. I leant over her head, within a foot of the Corona on the forehead, and closely observed the wounds. She looked at us very fixedly, but hardly spoke. We heard her only cry 'Dio mio' several times when her pains were bad. She seemed to enter into Signor Yoris's conversation, smiled repeatedly, and bent her head. But it was an effort to her to attend, and at times the eyes closed and she became insensible. By far the most striking point in her appearance this evening was that dry mask of blood descending so regularly from the punctured line round the forehead; for it must be remarked that the blood has flowed in a straight line all down the face, as if she were erect, not as it would naturally flow from the position in which she was lying, that is, off the middle to the sides of the face. And what is strangest of all, there is a space all round the face, from the forehead down to the jaw, by the ears, quite free from blood, and of the natural colour: which is just that part to which the blood, as she lies, ought most to run. After about three-quarters of an hour we took leave, intending to return the first thing in the morning. Don Michele Santuari, the parish priest, on whom we called, was out; he returned our visit for a minute or two, very early the next morning, but was going to his brother's again.

Friday evening, July 30th. – When we visited Domenica at half-past five this morning, the change was very remarkable. The hard scars on the outside of her hands had sunk to the level of the flesh, and become raw and fresh running wounds, but without indentation, from which there was a streak of blood running a finger's length, not perpendicularly, but down the middle of the wrist. The wound inside the left hand seemed on the contrary deep and furrowed, much blood had flowed, and the hand seemed mangled; the wound of the right hand inside could not be seen. The punctures round the forehead had been bleeding, and were open, so that the mask of blood was thicker, and very terrible to look at. The darkest place of all was the tip of the nose, a spot, which, as she was lying, the blood in its natural course could not reach at all. It must be observed again, that the blood flows as it would flow if she were suspended, and not recumbent. The sight is so fearful that a person of weak nerves would very probably be overcome by it; indeed, Signor Stampa and his servant were both obliged to leave the room. While we were there Domenica's sister, who lives alone with her, stood at the head of her crib with her hands under her head, occasionally raising her. We fanned her alternately with a large feathered fan, which alone seemed to relieve her; for she is in a continual fever, and her window remains open day and night, summer and winter, in the severest cold. She seemed better this morning, and more able to speak, and at intervals did speak several times. I asked her to pray for us, she replied, "Questo farò ben volentieri." "Prega che l'Inghilterra sia tutta Cattolica, che non ci sia che una religione, perchè adesso ci sono molte." She replied, I believe in the very words of the Catechism, "Si; non vi é che una sola religione Cattolica Romana; fuori di questa non si deve aver speranza." She observed, that other English had asked the same thing of her. She has light and sparkling grey eyes, which she fixed repeatedly on us, looking at us severally with great interest. We told her that the Bishop of Trent had requested us to call on him, and give him a report of her; and asked her if she had anything to say. She replied, "Tell him that I desire his benediction, and that I resign myself in every thing to the will of God and that of the bishop. Ask him to intercede for me with the Bishop of all." I said, "Piu si patisce qui, piu si gode dopo." She replied, "Si: si deve sperarlo." Before we left, W – repeated, "You will pray for us," she bowed her head; "and for all England: " she replied, "Quanto io posso." After nearly an hour's stay we took leave, hoping that we might all meet in Paradise. There is an altar in her room, at which Mass is celebrated once a week, and many small pictures of saints. Every thing betokens the greatest poverty.

It is most hard to realise such a life as Domenica's continued during thirteen years. The impression left on my mind as to her state is that of one who suffers with the utmost resignation a wonderful and inexplicable disease, on which the tokens of our Saviour's Passion are miraculously and most awfully impressed.

The points in her case which are beyond and contrary to nature are these:

1st. For thirteen years she has neither eaten nor drunken, except that very small portion of the Host which she receives once or twice weekly.

2d. On the hands and feet, inside and outside, she bears the wounds of our Lord; both sides run with blood; whether the wounds go through is not known; and on the left side is a wound which runs also.

3d. She has on the brow, as I saw and have described, and I believe all round the head, the mark of the crown of thorns, a series of punctures, and a red line as if of something pressing on the head.

4th. All these wounds run with blood at present, and during thirteen years have done the like, regularly, and at an early hour on Friday, and on that day alone.

Combining the first and fourth fact, we get a phenomenon which sets at utter defiance all physical science, and which seems to me a direct exertion of Almighty power, and of that alone. "Medical men," said Signor Yoris, "have been in abundance to see her, and have studied her case; but no one has furnished the least solution of it." He assured me he had seen the wounds on her feet a hundred times, and that the blood flowed upwards towards the toes, as we saw it did on the nose. Since for the last two years she has been contracted and drawn up by her disease the feet cannot be seen. She has refused to allow any man to see the wound on the side, as it did not require to be medically treated; but offered that any number of women, of her own village, or the wives of medical men, might see it. She is a good deal emaciated, but not so much as I have seen in other cases. Nothing can be more simple and natural than her manner and that of her sister. Their cottage is open at all times. Domenica may be closely seen, all but touched and handled. Indeed around that couch one treads instinctively with reverence; the image of the Woe surpassing all woes is too plainly marked, for the truth of what one sees not to sink indelibly on the mind. No eye witness, I will venture to say, will ever receive the notion of anything like deceit.

We returned to Neumarkt on Friday, and on Saturday morning, July 31st, walked nine miles to Caldaro, to see the other great wonder of the Tyrol, Maria Mörl, called the Estatica. On arriving, we presented the Bishop of Trent's letter to the dean, and in about an hour, were conducted to the Franciscan convent; from this one of the friars conducted us to the monastery, within the enclosure of which, but only as a lodger, Maria Mörl has withdrawn. The main points in her history are these. She was born in October, 1812; she lived from her earliest years a life of great piety; about the age of eighteen, in the year 1830, she suffered violent attacks of sickness, in which medical aid seemed to be of no service. At this time she began, after receiving the Holy Communion, to fall into trances, which were at first of short duration, and scarcely remarked by her family. On the Feast of the Purification, 1832, however, she fell after communicating into an ecstacy lasting twenty-six hours, and was only recalled by the order of her confessor. In June, 1832, the state of ecstacy returned every day: in August of the year 1833 it became habitual. Her ordinary and habitual position is kneeling on her bed, with her hands joined under the chin, her eyes wide open, and intently fixed on some object; in which state she takes no notice of any one present, and can only be recalled by her confessor charging her on her vow of obedience.

But I may now as well describe what we saw. In a few minutes the friar had taken us to the garden door of the monastery; we entered a passage where he left us for a short time, and returning, told us to open a door which led into a bedroom; I opened another door, and found myself, before I expected, in the presence of the most unearthly vision I ever beheld. In a corner of a sufficiently large room, in which the full light of day was tempered down by the blinds being closed, Maria Mörl was on her knees on her bed. Dressed entirely in white, her dark hair came down on both sides to her waist; her eyes were fixed intently upwards, her hands joined in adoration and pressing her chin. She took not the slightest notice of our entrance, nor seemed to be aware of our presence at all; her position was considerably thrown forward, and leaning on one side; one in which, on a soft bed especially, it must have been very difficult, if possible, to remain a minute. We gazed at her intently the whole time we were allowed to remain, – about six minutes. I could see a slight trembling of the eye, and heaving of the frame, and heard one or two throbs, but otherwise it would have seemed a statue, rather than anything living. Her expression was extremely beautiful and full of devotion. Long before we were content to go, the friar intimated his impatience. I asked him to cause her to pass out of her ecstacy, and recline on the bed. He went near to her and spoke a few words in a very low tone; upon which after a slight pause, she slid, in an indescribable manner, down from her kneeling position, her hands remaining closed together, and her eyes wide open, and her knees bent under her, how I cannot imagine.

She is said to spring up again into her former position, as often as her state of ecstacy comes upon her, without disjoining her hands; and this we should have liked to see, but the friar was urgent that we should leave, and we accordingly obeyed. The sleeves she wore round her wrists prevented our being able to see whether the stigmata were visible, which she bears on her hands and on her feet. The Bishop of Trent afterwards told me we should have asked the confessor to order her to show us the former. These were first observed in 1834. Now, though what we saw bears out the accounts given of the Estatica so far as it went, yet I must admit that we did not leave her with that full satisfaction we had felt in the case of the Addolorata. Maria Mörl's state in its very nature does not admit the bystander to such perfect proof as that of Domenica Lazzari. Had we remained half an hour or an hour instead of six minutes, it must still have been a matter of faith to us how long these ecstacies continue, and how often they recur. None but those who live daily with her can be aware of all her case. I can only say that what we saw was very strange and very striking, and when the Bishop of Trent informs us, as he did, a few hours ago, that these trances continue four or five hours together, I must entirely believe it. He had seen the stigmata on her hands, and she had rendered him, as her superior, the same obedience which she gives to her confessor. If I may venture to draw any conclusion from what I have seen, it is, that it appears to be a design of God, by means of these two young persons, to impress on an age of especial scepticism and unbelief in spiritual agency such tokens of our Lord's Passion, as no candid observer can fail to recognise. Neither of these cases can be brought under the ordinary laws of nature; both seem to bear witness in a different, but perhaps equally wonderful manner, to the glory of God as reflected from the Passion of His Son on the members of His Body.

    Ever yours,
    T. W. Allies.

P.S. Maria Domenica Lazzari died about Easter, 1848, aged thirty-three years.

    Albergo dell' Europa, Trent,
    Aug. 1. 1847.

My dear – .

I do not know whether I said anything about writing to you before I left England, but I feel persuaded that you must be sufficiently interested in our peregrinations to justify me in inflicting a letter upon you. P. tells me he wrote from Paris, up to which time he has doubtless given you full particulars, and from which point I shall take up the chronicle of our movements. We left Paris on the 9th of July, after having been much pleased and interested by what we had seen there, and came by a forced march (and in hot weather a severe one) in the malle poste to Lyons on S. Irenæus' Day, but, by an unfortunate delay, too late to see the archbishop officiate in the church, and according to the rite of his patron and predecessor. At Lyons we took the Rhone, and steamed to Avignon (the scenery quite equal in my opinion to that of the Rhine), where we stayed for four hours, endeavouring, in spite of heat and some fatigue, to call up visions of French popes, disconsolate Petrarch, or the devout Laura with her green gown and well bound missal gliding towards the church of St. Clair. At last we were hurried off to Aix, and finally to Marseilles, where we just hit upon the moment of departure of the Neapolitan packet, which after coasting along the beauties of the Cornice road landed us at Genoa, where we pitched our tent to rest for a few days. We had a letter to Padre Giordano at the Jesuits' College. He began by a most polemical conversation with Allies on the "Tu es Petrus," &c., but afterwards dropped the subject altogether; he was exceedingly civil, offered us every information we needed, and gave us access to every thing we wanted to see. In this manner I found Genoa far more interesting than I had expected. It is a most beautiful and most Italian city, and has, as to outward appearance, lost nothing of its character in the days of the republic; and its institutions for the support and relief of the poor, the sick, and the religious, gave an additional source of interest beyond that for which I was prepared. From Genoa we came by Pavia to Milan, where we staid five days: for a city so celebrated and so important in ancient times it is remarkable and much to be regretted that its ancient character is so completely lost. Milan is now quite a modern city, with the exception of a very few solitary buildings; the cathedral itself, wonderful as a structure, and beautiful to the end of the chapter, is quite indefensible in the eyes of a thorough-going Goth, and is after all only a very successful vagary of a bastard style. The beauty of the material, the exquisite finish of the sculpture, and fine proportions of individual parts, with the costly and vast effect of the whole, do however quite disarm one's critical inclinations, and the interior is (as we saw it on Sunday last with the choir filled by the scarlet robes of the chapter of the cardinal see, and the nave almost filled by people of every sex and station,) one of the grandest I know, and loses nothing by its intimate connection with S. Charles Borromeo, who, by the way, appears to me to have been among the best of the reformers of the 16th century. St. Ambrose's Church still remains, though I should think little, with the exception of a few minor ornaments, belonged to his time, beyond the atrium, the pulpit, and bishop's chair. The valves of the door from which he repelled the emperor are also here, though at the time they belonged to another church. They show a spring in which S. Augustine's baptism is said to have been performed, and also the garden mentioned in the "Confessions" as having been the scene of his conversion; but for these two I do not think they claim more than a great probability, and entire accordance with all that is known on the subject, the tradition of the actual spots having been lost, and only recovered two or three centuries ago. From Milan we made an expedition to this place in order to see the two wonderful phenomena of which Lord Shrewsbury wrote an account some years ago, – the Estatica and Addolorata. We left Milan on Monday, and had a fine sub-alpine drive to Desenzano on the Lake Garda, with which we were very much pleased, and up which we steamed to Riva; from thence to Trent, where we introduced ourselves to the bishop as three Oxonian priests and professors, begging his highness (he is prince-bishop) to give us letters to Caldaro, as the Estatica is only visible on this being granted. He received us with all possible courtesy, and instantly gave us the necessary introduction, begging us to lay before him our impressions of the matter on our return here: he talked much of Wiseman, Newman, and Pusey, making the admission with regard to the latter that "scrive come Cattolico." He told us he was himself by birth a German, and that Englishmen were especially welcome to him as countrymen of St. Boniface, the apostle of his native country. We left Trent for Neumarkt, twenty miles distant, on Wednesday, and on Thursday passed over some very fine Tyrolese mountain scenery to Cavalese, where we had an introduction to the physician of the place, who has always attended the Addolorata since the commencement of her malady, (and this we had through the kindness of Manzoni's step-son, whom we had met at his house in Milan, – it was no small satisfaction to me to meet the author of "Promessi Sposi," &c.) and with whom we walked over to Capriana, about twelve miles distant, where Domenica Lazzari abides. I think her case such a supernatural portent, and, it may be, one of such deep interest to members of the Church, that I shall fill the other side of the sheet with such an account of her as I have room for. Maria Domenica Lazzari is thirty-two years of age, the daughter of a poor miller in Capriana, one of five children, a sister unmarried with whom she lives, both parents being dead, a sister married in the village, and two brothers, who do not bear a very high character. She herself from childhood was very virtuous and pious, extremely attentive to all active duties, and worked like other girls, though always remarkable both for natural cleverness and her attention to religion. In 1833 she was attacked by an intermittent fever, which left her extremely weak, and after which pains were felt by her in her hands, feet, and head; in April, 1834, she for the last time drank some water and ate a piece of bread, since which time she has never eaten nor drunk except in partaking of the Blessed Sacrament. In the same year she received the stigmata, which are most evident and apparent, and from which a large quantity of blood flows every Friday without exception, and on no other day. It was in order to test this that we contrived that our arrival should take place on a Thursday, repeating our visit on the following day. We arrived at Capriana about five in the evening, and went at once to her house, which is a little peasant's cabin chiefly built of wood, in the outskirts of the village, her only attendant being her elder sister, a simple unsophisticated peasant girl. We found her lying in great suffering in a bed about the length of a child's crib, a contraction of the muscles having followed upon her illness, and reduced a formerly tall person to the length of about three feet. At first she was unable to speak to us, but our companion (her physician) fanned her for some time with a large fan, which seemed to relieve her, and in a little time she revived. While she lay in this state I examined her very closely. The stigmata are most evident on both sides of the hands, and in a very regular circle round the forehead; these were perfectly dry, the hands being white and clean with the exception of the actual punctures of the stigmata, which are about the size of a silver fourpence, the wounds of the forehead being such as a penknife might have made; and the blood which had flowed on the previous Friday was dry, and covered her face as low as the upper part of the nostril, giving all the appearance of a blood-stained mask, the blood in this case not following the inclination of her present recumbent position, but, (as is the case also in the wounds on the feet,) following the lines it would take in a pendent posture. The costal wound is on her left side. We staid in the room about three-quarters of an hour, and then retired; we returned at five o'clock the next morning, and found her much better, the wounds on the forehead and hands were all open, and blood exuding from all: she talked with greater ease than she had done before. She begged us to take her salutations to the Bishop of Trent, to beg for his blessing upon her, and his intercession for her with the "Bishop of all;" "and I," she said, "in my turn will pray for his highness as much as I am able." We commended ourselves and all England to her prayers, telling her that now there were many religions in England, but that we should pray that all might be one: her answer was, "E una religione sola, Cattolica, Romana, fuori di questa non si deve aver speranza" (this I should think came from her catechism). She said all the English she had seen had given her the same account of their country, and promised to pray both for us and for England "quanto io posso." We saw her confessor for a few minutes, and I wish we could have had some conversation with him, but he was just starting to pay his brother a visit at the bottom of the valley, and we would not detain him. In the course of conversation with Mr. Yoris, and the natives of Capriana and the neighbourhood, we gained many other facts connected with her which I have not room for here; this will convey to you some notion of this most extraordinary portent, of the supernatural character of which any eye witness would, I am sure, do violence to his reason and judgment by doubting, and which physicians, philosophers and bishops have all agreed in asserting as being without explanation according to physical laws, and which I can look at in no other light than as a representation, vouchsafed for the edification of the Church and warning of sinners, of the Passion of the Son of God. The supernatural points in her case I take to be: 1. her existing for more than thirteen years without food, during which time the nails, hair, &c., have continued to grow; 2. the reception of the five wounds; 3. the periodical effusion of a quantity of blood on every return of the day of our Lord's Passion: 4. the course taken by the blood flowing from the wounds, quite at variance with the natural law of fluids. We have, I assure you, been very much impressed by this case, and what to me makes it the more peculiar is, that, in former cases in which the stigmata have been granted, they have appeared (as in the cases of S. Francis of Assisi, S. Theresa, or S. Catherine) as the seal of consummate sanctity, or the reward of intense meditation on the subject of the Passion, whereas in the present instance there is nothing to lead one to suppose either one or the other, in any extraordinary degree. The impression conveyed to me by my visit was, I confess, very considerable, though it was more one of great suffering and resignation, than of any extraordinary tokens of grace, in the object of our visit. There is, I take it, no necessary connection between the extraordinary phenomena which her body bears and extreme sanctity, though one might expect it. Her life has always been extremely virtuous and pious, (the country people spoke of her as "bonissima ragazza"), and her long and intense suffering appears to have chastened and subdued her spirit to a state one would consider well disciplined to meet death, but nothing that I saw led me to suppose the lofty religious abstraction, the spiritual fervour, or super-human yearning of the soul for God, which one looks for in the female saint. Far be it from me to pry into the Divine intentions in this extraordinary appearance which we have witnessed, but if He who does all things to bring back our erring race to Himself destines her merely to be a living representation of the sufferings of the Son of God (and to serve no higher purpose than that for which we should erect a crucifix), men of faith will not fail to derive benefit to their souls, amidst their thanks for a token of the divine goodness, in contemplating this memento of our Lord's Passion, while it may serve in some cases, we may hope, to warn the scornful that a day will come when they will in like manner have to "look on Him whom they pierced."

I have not yet spoken to you of the Estatica, whom we saw yesterday; and though I cannot say that her case may not be equally interesting, yet as its details are taken more from credit, I have the less to say from personal investigation.

Maria Mörl is the daughter of a nobleman of Caldaro, whose fervour in devotion has gradually grown to ecstasis, and an entire abstraction from the world, and constant continuance in what the spiritual writers call the "unitive" life: the ecstasis continues from four to five hours at a time, and only ceases from bodily weakness, or at the command of her confessor. She converses with her spiritual directors and superiors alone, rarely eats, her only sustenance being occasionally a morsel of bread and a few grapes. She has been in this state for years, and lives in and upon incessant acts of devotion. She is kept very close and retired in a Franciscan convent, and none are allowed to see her without a letter from the bishop. We found her as she had been described to us, wrapt in the most complete ecstasis, and certainly, as a representation of a devotional figure, nothing could be more striking or more beautiful; but as, from the very nature of the case, her ecstasis must cease by communication with the visible world, it was to us nothing more than a spectacle. I have room, however, for no more, and must have already wearied you with this epistola Tridentina, at the length of which I am ashamed. We have just been to the bishop, who has been most courteous and obliging, and given us several facts connected with the above mentioned. This place is a most comely city; the hills of Tyrol stand about it, ὥσει θέατρον, with snowy peaks beyond them, and the Adige comes rolling from the mountains an "exulting and abounding river." I cannot help thinking what delightful "constitutionals" the dons of 1545 must have had after their hot work in the council. Excuse prolixity, and

    Believe me ever yours,
    John H. Wynne.

    Hotel Europa, Trent, August 1. 1847.

My dear – .

*** From Milan we went to Desenzano, to begin an expedition to see a very great wonder in the Tyrol, of which I must give you an account. We went by the Poste to Desenzano, the southern point of the lake of Garda, and from thence steamed all up that most beautiful sheet of water to Riva. From Riva we took a ricketty machine, called by courtesy the Post, to Roveredo, and on hither to Trent. First I must tell you, we had an introduction to Manzoni at Milan from a friend in Paris; and his son-in-law had just returned from seeing one of the two persons who were the object of our present pilgrimage – the Addolorata and the Estatica, whose case was set forth, some few years ago (about three or four), by Lord Shrewsbury. The first of these has received the stigmata of the Passion, from which blood issues every Friday – the crown of thorns, the nail-holes in the hands and feet, and the wound in the left side; and the second lives in a continual trance. We met a lady in Paris, a Roman Catholic, who had seen them, and spoke much about both, but not very satisfactorily to our minds. We determined accordingly, if possible, to visit them ourselves, and received full instruction from Signor Stephano Stampa at Milan as to the route and all other needful circumstances. Well, at Trent we went to the bishop; for one of these persons, Maria Mörl, the Estatica, lives in a convent, and may not be seen without a letter from the bishop, which we hardly expected would be granted to any persons not Romans. However, we wrote Artium Magister, Oxford, upon our cards, and sent them in. He received us very politely, granted at once the petition for a letter, begged us, if possible, to call on him and give him our opinion on the cases in returning; "for," said he, "we cannot pronounce about either case, especially the Estatica, while they live, and the end is uncertain;" and he further thought every one who had the opportunity should make an unfettered judgment for themselves. At the conclusion of the interview he gave us his blessing, and by noon we were on our way in an omnibus to Neumarkt, up the valley of the Adige; grand castellated rocks overgrown with brushwood, some 12 or 1700 feet, on either side of this rapid river. Neumarkt is a stupid little place; and we were considerably imposed upon by the worthies there, who might have put us at once in the way to our point. Next morning, Thursday, 29., we took a carriage to Cavalese, a small town in the mountains, a post and a half distant; and after breakfast there, we found out Signor Yoris, a medico, to whom Signor S. Stampa had given us a letter of introduction. He was very civil, and offered to accompany us to the village of the Addolorata, whose name is Domenica Lazzari. This place is called Capriana, and we walked thither in something less than four hours, a distance (I supposed) of about nine or ten miles. This was across a range of hills, and up the valley of a tributary to the Adige: the hills covered with forests of spruce and pine, and very beautiful. We got to Capriana about 5 P.M.; and I will give you an abridgment of notes I wrote that evening for the rest of the account. Reached Capriana at five, turned to the right to the house – almost the outside of all, the meanest we saw – and after some minutes the sister arrived and let us in. The room at first dark, too dark to see more than the figure contracted in the bed, and the face dark with blood as low as the bottom of the nose, and a little lower on each side. The medico drew aside the curtain, and we saw plainly the stigmata on the back of the hand, and the marks round the forehead in a straight line, about an inch below the hair in the middle. The marks are about a quarter of an inch apart in an even row as far as the hair, and for three or four marks under it. The medico told me they go all round. There were other marks below the first down to the eyebrows, but whether so regular as the first I could not tell for the quantity of blood clotted and dried on the face. The blood has flowed straight towards the bottom of the face, and not trickled sideways to the bed. There has been a good deal this week. The hands, which are much wasted, are clasped continually on the top of the bed clothes, and are marked a little above the centre with the stigmata (the nail holes); the scar extends half or three quarters of an inch all round, slightly red. The wound is cicatrised with a dark spot of dried blood in the centre. Inside (as well as I could see, the hands being clasped,) the left palm seems to have a long white wound right into the flesh, which is covered all round with dried blood. That on the face is so dark and continual, that, from the holes of the spicæ (thorn marks) to the nose, it is just like a dark mask. Her breast is curved up to a close convex, and the legs drawn up till almost doubled from convulsions. The medico says she was once as tall as I am. Twelve or thirteen years since she has eaten anything but the Blessed Sacrament, and that in the most minute portions possible.

The following are the correct dates: —

10th April, 1834. Nothing eaten since.

10th January, 1834. Stigmata, hands, feet and side.

31st January, 1834. Crown of thorns.

An altar is in the room, at which the bishop allows mass to be celebrated once or twice every week, according to the convenience of the priest, and on saints' days.

We spoke of the bishop. She was much interested also in all that the doctor said. He kept fanning her with a large feather fan: her only relief. She suffers most on Thursdays. The issue of blood Fridays unaccompanied with pain: rather a relief. A woman and boy came to see her. Cheerful when freer from pain (she always suffers). Was told we were English. Looks very intently at one. Light blue or blue gray eyes; hair fine, – a cold brown. Face awfully wasted. Her smile sweet. Says, when most in pain, "Dio mio, mio Dio!" Friday morning, at five, we were again with her. She was in an insensible state: waking up at intervals. The hands still clasped, but the head shaking, and her teeth chattering. The blood was bright red and fresh (flowing) from all the upper row of holes and the rest, though clotted below generally, for she suffers great heat of fever. The wounds of the hands were open and ran, but outside (on the surface) the blood had run down the back of the hand in a broad stream to a little below the wrist, and there stopped; one small current had trickled across to the bottom of the hand. It was clotted. I looked as close as I could by stooping to the inside of the left hand. My impression was of an open wound, much deeper; long, with lips standing out upon the upper side; much blood had run over the inside of her hand: it ran to the wrist and all over the palms. Her teeth whole, though the two centre much apart. Her face, above and below the blood, was not livid, but of a good complexion. Her voice when she spoke was much stronger than yesterday. She saw me trying to draw the outline of her face, and said, she supposed a portrait would appear of her. We commended ourselves and England to her prayers. All English (she said) who had seen her had done the same. She commended herself by us to the Bishop's blessing and intercession with "Il vescovo di tutti," (something she said quite indistinct). This is the substance of my notes written on the spot. I must add to it, that every Friday since the date above, and only on Friday, the wounds have bled; that the doctor told us he had seen her feet a hundred times, which are marked like the hands, but the blood runs up towards the toes; as it does up the nose, which we saw. Her side wound has been seen by several women, her sister among others, whom we talked much to. She was perfectly simple, wanted no money, and treated her sister more as an invalid than anything else. The Dr. Yoris's presence was, I think, a very great advantage to us. It put all reserve out of the question, if any would otherwise have been observable, and enabled us to see her more as she always is, and no doubt to stay longer, to draw the curtain aside, &c. My impression was of great awe at the sight: the day Friday, and the supernatural facts of the flow of blood from a person taking no nourishment or food of any kind, the course taken by the blood, – but the sight of the dark mask of blood was what first and most painfully struck me. The simplicity, and apparent domesticity, of her way of speaking – her smiling and answering the doctor's questions – struck me next. As he said, a secular question is answered in the tone of this world, a religious one in that of the other. She seems conscious herself of nothing beyond God's chastisement for her sins; therefore she is shy of showing or speaking of herself beyond what is necessary as information to serious inquirers. The wound in her side she refused to show any man, though she said any number of women, physician's wives, if they would, might see it, for it needed no medical treatment. She does not seem conscious of being in any extraordinary or miraculous way the vehicle, as such, of Divine Grace; but she is patient, exceedingly, and strives, as she says, to do all God's will. Nothing remarkable in a religious way is recorded of her early character. "Una buona ragazza," the doctor called her, but no more; he said especially not "bigotta." Is it not a palpable evidence of our Lord's presence to us in His sufferers, to bring home the actuality of what is taught us of the spiritual things we have been born into, yet to confound spiritual pride? "Thy ways are in the sea, and Thy paths are in the great waters, and Thy footsteps are not known."

Next morning we went to Caldaro, a beautiful village about nine miles or eight from Neumarkt, and, by aid of the Bishop of Trent's letter, saw Maria Mörl, the Estatica, but were only allowed to see her for five minutes. She knelt on her bed, with her hands together under the chin: her attitude was leaning forward, and inclined to the right in such a position as I cannot keep myself in without support; nor do I think, from the overbalance of the body, it could be done naturally. Her face has much beauty, her eyes are dark and full, hair long and black, and her skin as pale as that of a dead body or a wax figure; not a muscle moved; and except a very slight oscillating motion of the body occasionally, and the breathing, there were no signs of life in her, though I saw once the eyelid quiver slightly. The friar who took us in, a Franciscan, told her to lie down; which, after a moment or two, she did; only falling back in the bed, with her legs from the knee unmoved. She gave two slight sort of groans or sighs. Her hands remained just as they were, and the eyes were fixed on the same spot. After a short visit, the friar took us out, – talking a German which we could none of us understand. When we got to the door of the house, we asked him, in Latin, if we could see her again: he answered, "Eam vidistis, eam vidistis," and left us.

We walked back to Neumarkt, and yesterday evening started in the Bolzano omnibus back to this place. Fare you well. *** I have given you as short as I could this marvellous account.

*****

    J. H. Pollen.

    Venice, August 5. 1847.

My dear – .

*** We staid at Verona one clear day: it has very interesting churches, and a noble river, the Adige, "exulting and abounding," as Byron says; and many Shakspearian associations, besides very quaint and mediæval bits of architecture. But my time is waxing short, and a greater attraction was near. So yesterday we squudged ourselves into a merciless omnibus, which carried twelve insiders thirty miles in the space of six hours to the railway at Vicenza; and the said railway brought us on just in time to reach Venice by the last light of day. Very striking indeed is the approach to Venice, on a bridge two miles long over the Lagune, very striking because so appropriate to a city which is like no other. The evening was unfavourable, for it rained, which has scarcely happened to us before; notwithstanding, our excitement was great; I do not think I have felt so much curiosity about a place since I entered Rome nearly thirteen years ago, and could scarcely believe I was there. Though a great part of to-day has been rainy Venice does not disappoint me. The Doge's palace, the piazza, and piazzetta of St. Mark, and his church, are quite unique; so is the great canal, with its host of middle age palaces. We have been to-day both in the pozzi and the piombi, the ancient prisons of the republic, the former terrible for their darkness, the latter for their heat; both seldom disgorging the prisoner save to death; and what a death, at least in its circumstances, and in the case of political offenders. The cells were all cased in wood, with hardly any light; but when the criminal in politics had confessed his fault, and was condemned, he was transferred to another cell in the middle of the night, a foreign priest was admitted, received his confession, and absolved him. The priest issued from the cell, and turned to the left, the criminal to the right, and rounding a corner not a yard off, was placed on a seat, a cord passed round the neck, and strangled. Behind the seat a door opened, a gondola received his corpse (for it is just at the level of the water), carried it to the cemetery, and no one, wife or child, knew more of his destiny than this: that the invisible inquisition of state had laid its hand upon him, and that he was not. I said to the old guide, who had a fine Venetian head, "I suppose you do not regret not living in those times?" "But I do regret it," he replied; "Venice was then a republic; there was more commerce, and life was easier; and it was just owing to her wise treatment of criminals that she maintained herself so long; and had she kept that treatment to the end, she would not have fallen: mine was a very ancient Venetian family. It is to foreigners," he added, "that I say all this; writers have greatly exaggerated about these prisons." As I stood on a spot at which hundreds of human beings, during the long course of that terrible rule, had yielded up their lives in the darkness of a gloomy passage, more fearful at least to the thought than the gaze of a furious multitude, or the rack itself, I could not agree with the old man, though I was surprised at such a flash of old Venetian spirit. That same ducal palace, which is among palaces what the great mediæval cathedrals dedicated to Notre Dame are among churches, has these dungeons below; the state reception apartments of the Doge above; and over them again those other prisons of the piombi, or leads – a somewhat strange position for the drawing-rooms of the head of a state. Italian churches are as unlike ours as two things called by the same name can well be. They are full of marbles on floor and walls, paintings, gildings, shrines, images, tapers, perpetual services, and seldom wanting at least in some worshippers. St. Mark much exceeds my expectation. It has five domes covered with mosaic and figures in rich gilding, columns of finest marble, bronzes, multitudes of precious objects, but with a solemnity far beyond all these, which makes one feel that one is in a temple, a place of worship, of bowing down to the Infinite, not of addressing man himself through a part of him which has shared in his general fall – the understanding. This, I think, is the main difference between Catholic and Uncatholic churches. Then, again, that vision of the Blessed Virgin and Child, so often repeated, and under so many different phases, is inexpressibly consoling. It really seems to me that the more men dwell upon the Incarnation, the more they will associate the Blessed Virgin with our Lord, and the saints with Him and with her; they will not analyse and divide, but rather always seem to be touching the skirts of His robe of glory, in every one of those who have suffered and conquered in His name; and most of all in the Mother, who was and is so unspeakably near to Him. Thus the Protestant sees in her "a dead woman worshipped;" the Catholic, the mother of all Christians; the Protestant sees in the saints "deified sinners;" the Catholic, living members of His body, in whom His virtue now dwells without let of human corruption. In short, I think Keble is no less true than beautiful when he says,

"What is this silent might, making our darkness light,
New wine our waters, heavenly Blood our wine?
Christ, with His Mother dear, and all His saints, is here,