Visiting the stigmatics of the South Tyrol - II. Maria Domenica Lazzari and Maria von Moehrl

Maria Domenica Lazzari. Coloured engraving, ca 1840.
Wellcome Library no. 260i

The previous posting introduced the two stigmatics of the South Tyrol and described the visit of T.W. Allies and his two companions to one of them, Maria Domenica Lazzari, in July 1847. Allies's letter concludes with these observations. [1]

"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."

Allies then proceeds (pp. 136-140) with an account of his party's visit to Maria von Moehrl.

Maria von Moehrl. Watercolour by L. Giuditti after L.G. de Ségur, 1846.

Wellcome Library no. 708243i

"VISIT TO L'ESTATICA
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."

There is no conclusion about Maria von Moehrl comparable to Allies's methodological remarks about Maria Domenica Lazzari. She appeared less spectacular than Lazzari, her feature being her ability, when in a trance, to kneel at an angle without keeling over – well captured in the watercolour.

What are we to make of these two cases?

The sceptic will see them as, at best, self-harming anorexic young women, and at worst cases of physical and psychological abuse exploited by fraud. At the other extreme is the Earl of Shrewsbury who wrote "A pious fraud so ably conducted would be a greater miracle than those which we see before us". [2]

One point that the visitors made unwittingly is that the stigmatics, whatever may the cause of their condition, had significant economic importance for their communities. The Earl of Shrewsbury for example made his visit in May 1841 with the Countess and six other people in his party, all of whom needed food and lodging. In his letter dated Munich 27 May 1841 he mentions that a Reverend Mr Swarbrick from England had visited them the previous summer; Prince Lichnowsy had visited in 1839; Lord and Lady Dormer (Joseph Thaddeus Dormer, 11th Baron Dormer of Wyng, was or had been an officer in the Austrian Army) had visited; Monsieur de la Bouillerie had visited; a German physician had visited; and Johann Joseph von Görres (1776-1848), the prominent author then writing his book Die christliche Mystik (1836-1842), had visited Moehrl in 1834 but had not been able to get to Lazzari. The visiting group described in Allies's book consisted of at least five people: the three Englishmen, Manzoni's step-son Stefano Stampa, and the latter's servant; Stampa was on his second or third visit. There seems to have been a constant flow of visitors, many of them affluent.

Shrewsbury illustrated his letter with two etchings of the stigmatics by the painter and Catholic convert John Rogers Herbert (1810–1890), calling it "the accompanying print which is copied from one sold at Capriana." So prints of Lazzari were also on sale for visitors to buy, and from its similarity to Herbert's copy it is clear that a print in the Wellcome Library (image at top) is one of them. The brand-names which were used to refer to the stigmatics – L'Addolorata and L'Estatica – also follows best practice in marketing. Therefore, whatever else it might be, stigmatisation can also be the cause of a flourishing tourist business.

However, given that the two watercolours of Maria Domenica Lazzari and Maria von Moehrl which are published here came from Monseigneur de Ségur, it is likely that they came into being not for commercial reasons but for propagation of the faith. Thereafter they descended in the Polish noble family, settled in Belarus, of Dr Andrew Ciechanowiecki F.S.A. They passed from him to the collection of Tim Knox and Todd Longstaffe-Gowan at Malplaquet House, and in 2010 to the Wellcome Library. They are published here for the first time in this Easter week of 2011.

[1] T.W. Allies, Journal in France in 1845 and 1848 with letters from Italy in 1847, of things and persons concerning the church and education, London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1849, pp. 134-140. A letter follows covering the same ground from John H. Wynne, 1 August 1847, pp. 140-150, of which 143-150 concern the stigmatics, followed by a third letter from J.H. Pollen, 1 August 1847, pp. 150-158. Also on Lazzari: Guido Sommavilla, Maria Domenica Lazzeri: una mistica in Val di Fiemme, Cinisello Balsamo (Milano): San Paolo, 1996 (Protagonisti (Edizioni paoline), 26) (not seen).
[2] Letter from the Earl of Shrewsbury to Ambrose Lisle Phillipps Esq. descriptive of the Estatica of Caldaro and the Addolorata of Capriana, London: Charles Dolman, 1841, p. 36

Visiting the stigmatics of the South Tyrol - I. Maria Domenica Lazzari

Maria Domenica Lazzari. Detail of Wellcome Library no. 708242i

Two watercolours and an engraving in the Wellcome Library show two remarkable people in what is now the the northernmost province of Italy, the South Tyrol (Bolzano-Alto Adige). In the 1840s there was a steady flow of foreign tourists and pilgrims to the idyllic valleys of that region solely to visit two women who were said to have received spontaneously bleeding wounds (stigmata) on their hands, feet, or head like those caused to Jesus Christ when he was nailed to the cross and forced to wear the crown of thorns. One of the two women (shown above) was Maria Domenica Lazzari (sometimes spelled Lazzeri), and the other was Maria von Moehrl (also called Mörl). The former was known as L'Addolorata (the woman of pain), the latter as L'Estatica (the woman of ecstasy), for reasons which will become clear.

A few words on the topic of stigmatism. From the thirteenth century to the twentieth century there are records of more than 300 cases. [1] Some are relatively recent: they include the English stigmatics Ethel Chapman (1921-1980) and Jane Hunt (b. 1957); the American Cloretta Robinson of West Oakland, California (b. 1962); and the Italian Padre Pio da Pietrelcina (1887-1968). They are overwhelmingly female: among the cases studied by Imbert-Goubeyre were 280 women and 41 men.

No authoritative explanation of the phenomenon has been proposed. A rigorous and sophisticated study by René Biot [2] concluded that in many cases fraud had not been detected, that stigmatism was a "neuropathic phenomenon", that each case was different and that it was ultimately an enigma. A later study by Ian Wilson [3] re-examined the cases and proposed that the stigmata may be generated in a rare confluence of four personal traits: in "hysterical" people (1), under stress (2), with strong and overt religious passions (3) and with multiple personality disorder (4), the conditions were present for stigmata to be self-induced by hypnotic suggestion. Various further approaches are found in a volume of essays that appeared in 2001. [4] There is a vast earlier literature, much of it occasioned by Therese Neumann (1898-1962), the controversial (that is, even more controversial than most stigmatics) Bavarian. Many of them combined stigmata with seeingly impossible acts of fasting, such as eating nothing for years.

The two with whom we are concerned here are portrayed in two watercolours made in Rome by Luigi Gonzaga Giuditti. He was copying watercolours made in the Alto Adige on 29 and 30 August 1846, by or for Louis Gaston de Ségur (1820-1881). De Ségur was a Catholic apologist and prolific writer against Protestantism and Freemasonry. Let us look first at Maria Domenica Lazzari, and compare Monseigneur De Ségur's portrayal with the accounts of some of her other distinguished visitors.

Maria Domenica Lazzari, L'Addolorata, lived in the village of Capriana (left).
There her visitors included, in addition to Louis Gaston de Ségur, John Talbot, sixteenth earl of Shrewsbury (1791–1852), one of the leading Roman Catholic apologists in England, patron of the Gothic revival and builder of the mansion in Staffordshire now known as Alton Towers. He described her (and Maria von Moehrl) in a letter which he published as a pamphlet in 1841. [5] Then, during the summer of 1847, three Oxford-educated young men, Thomas William Allies, the rector of Launton, Oxfordshire, and his friends J.H. Pollen and J.H. Wynne, visited Maria Domenica Lazzari and Maria von Moehrl as part of their grand tour of France and Italy. In 1849 they published a volume of letters from each of the three travellers describing some of the things they had seen. As Wilson says (p. 33), "The Englishmen's observations are particularly valuable for their cautious, objective and scientific approach." Let us therefore look at them.

The letter from T.W. Allies is typical of the three letters describing the visit of the three Englishmen. [6] It starts in Milan with their visit to the novelist and poet Alessandro Manzoni (1785–1873), author of I Promessi Sposi, to whom they had brought a letter of introduction.

"Milan, July 23. 1847.

MY DEAR —.
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. […] 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. […]

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.

Maria Domenica Lazzari. Watercolour by L. Giuditti after L.G. de Ségur, 1846. Wellcome Library no. 708242i

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 [1847].
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." [7] 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." [8] 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 any thing 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." [9] Before we left, W— repeated, "You will pray for us," she bowed her head; "and for all England:" she replied, "Quanto io posso.[As much as I can]" 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 letter ends (p. 140) with this postscript:
"P.S. Maria Domenica Lazzari died about Easter, 1848, aged thirty-three years."

The description of Maria von Moehrl follows in the next instalment.

[1] Christoph Daxelmüller, "Süsse Nägel der Passion": Die Geschichte der Selbstkreuzigung von Franz von Assisi bis heute, Düsseldorf: Patmos, 2001, p. 97
[2] René Biot, L'énigme des stigmatisés, Paris: Librairie Arthème Fayard, 1955
[3] Ian Wilson, The bleeding mind: an investigation into the mysterious phenomenon of stigmata, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1988
[4] Dominique de Courcelles (ed.), Stigmates, Paris: Editions de l'Herne, 2001 (Les cahiers de l'Herne)
[5] Letter from the Earl of Shrewsbury to Ambrose Lisle Phillipps Esq. descriptive of the Estatica of Caldaro and the Addolorata of Capriana, London: Charles Dolman, 1841
[6] T.W. Allies, Journal in France in 1845 and 1848 with letters from Italy in 1847, of things and persons concerning the church and education, London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1849, pp. 122-136. Available in PDF at http://www.archive.org/details/ra545025900alliuoft , but the OCR "Full text" offered there is corrupt.
[7] "That I shall do gladly. Pray that England should be completely Catholic, that there should be one religion only there, because now there are many."
[8] "Yes, there is one sole Roman Catholic religion, outside this one can have no hope."
[9] "The more one suffers here, the more one has joy thereafter". "Yes, one must hope."

Credit: view of Capriana by Marco Vanzo from www.mvanzo.it