IL CANZONIERE SPIRITUALE DELLA VENERABILE MARIA ALBERGHETTI

Thursday 26 March 2020 Andrea Maurutto holds a PhD in Linguistic and Literary Studies (curriculum of Italian Studies) at the University of Udine, electronically discussing a thesis on our founder, the Venerable Maria Alberghetti (Venezia, 1578 – Padova, 1664). In particular the doctoral work, which was supervised by prof. Renzo Rabboni, professor of Italian literature at the University of Udine, provided the critical and commented edition of Alberghetti's spiritual rhymes, based on an autographed manuscript, preserved in our historical archive, which conveys the author's last will. More exactly, the witness, signed M7, contains 274 poems and was probably prepared in anticipation of a print, never happened while the author was alive. The vast production in verse of the Alberghetti, in which the themes dealt with are mainly the humanity of Christ, his imitation, mystical union and annihilation, it is uniquely known (apart from a few scattered rhymes published in eighteenth-century and contemporary collections) based on the posthumous edition, edited by the Sisters, Garden of spiritual poems (Padova, Raspberry, 1674): a powerful volume, containing well 729 poems, however, many of which are spurious, as the examination of the manuscript tradition has shown. Thanks to the conspicuous autograph material, left by the Alberghetti, and with the help offered by apograph manuscripts and prints in life, Maurutto was able to reconstruct the editorial story of the macro-text, in addition to the genesis and development of most of the micro-texts. The Alberghetti, indeed, he intervened at various times to change consistency, order and dictation of his rhymes, through an uninterrupted process of reworking, testified by at least thirteen autographed codes, dislocated in a period that occupies a large part of the life of the devout Venetian. The writing of the Venerable, which also left a conspicuous production in prose (autobiography, sermons, spiritual treatises, obituaries of the sisters), it is generally crossed by a genuine religious inspiration, sensitive to the themes of the Catholic Reformation and influenced, in particular, from the themes offered by Saint Teresa of Avila and Saint John of the Cross. Although sometimes little attentive to metric and strophic structures - as Mazzucchelli already observed (perhaps a little too severely) - Alberghetti favors an absolute concentration on the density of meaning and less on the stylistic aspect, be in tune with, moreover, with the mystical writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, that they could not and did not want to limit themselves to strictly literary data. Alberghetti can, therefore, to be defined as a poet of everyday life, far from "pain" and darkly ascetic tones, typical, eg, of the contemporary and much better known Sister Francesca Farnese (1593-1651): the Venerable chose rather to touch on issues that were concretely useful for the moral edification of the sisters, referring to the happy religiosity of St. Philip Neri and resorting to simple metaphors, but effective, and to a discursive language, rich in dialectal and popular nuances. We hope that the restored lesson can restore visibility to a woman who stands out for merit and quality in the panorama of female religious literature between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and deny the still persistent prejudice against nuns who are writers. .

- Dimesse Sisters -