In August 1859 a corpulent middle-aged German nun, the Princess Katharina von Hohenzollern–Sigmaringen, appeared before the officials of the Inquisition to denounce the Roman convent of Sant'Ambrogio della Massima as a hotbed of false religion, sexual perversion and murder.
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She had fled the convent in fear of her life a month earlier, and taken refuge with a cousin at the Villa d'Este in Tivoli. The ensuing five-year investigation by Vincenzo Sallua, a doggedly thorough inquisitor, uncovered bogus revelations, systematic sexual abuse and serial poisoning.
The small but fashionable Franciscan community of Sant’Ambrogio had been founded in 1806 by a 32-year-old nun with a reputation as a visionary. The “miracles” and mystical revelations of Sister Maria Agnese Firrao, who sported a penitential iron face mask with 52 sharp nails turned inwards, were trumpeted by her confessors, and she was reputed to have been granted the wounds of Christ, the Stigmata, in her feet, hands and sides. Bishops, cardinals and the Roman beau-monde flocked to the convent to see its living “saint”. But not everyone was impressed. The Inquisition was innately suspicious of high-profile claims to sanctity, especially among the female religious, and in 1816 Firrao was convicted of “feigned holiness” and “lewd behavior” with her confessor, and banished for life to a remote convent; the community itself was threatened with closure. Vigorous lobbying by high-ranking friends prevailed, however, and by the time Von Hohenzollern joined it, the convent enjoyed the protection of key figures at the papal court.
Katharina, the romantically pious widow of two German princelings, was herself a product of a fervent Catholic devotional revival centered on papal Rome. Ardently longing for religious life, she had joined Sant'Ambrogio on the recommendation of her confessor, Cardinal August Reisach, one of Pope Pius IX's most trusted advisers of her. But her initial happiness rapidly evaporated. The mother abbess, she discovered, was a mere figurehead, the convent controlled, instead, by the 26-year-old novice mistress and mother vicaria, Sister Maria Luisa – beautiful, eloquent and domineering – who herself enjoyed a reputation as a saint, supported by the convent's Jesuit confessors. Maria Luisa claimed visions of Christ and the saints, during which she received heavenly gifts, including relics of Our Lady's hair and the true cross. Signed letters from the Virgin Mary (written in bad French) denounced her enemies. Her body was said to exude a heavenly odour, and jeweled rings, symbolizing her mystical marriage to Christ, seemed to appear and disappear miraculously on her fingers.