Maria Valtorta | |
|---|---|
 Maria Valtorta at age 15, 1912 | |
| Born | (1897-03-14)14 March 1897 |
| Died | 12 October 1961(1961-10-12) (aged 64) |
| Resting place | Basilica of Santissima Annunziata, Florence |
| Nationality | Italian |
| Genre | Christian mysticism,visions |
| Notable works | The Poem of the Man-God The Book of Azariah |
Maria Valtorta (14 March 1897 – 12 October 1961) was aCatholic Italian writer. She was aFranciscan tertiary and a lay member of theServants of Mary who reported personalconversations with, and dictations from,Jesus Christ. She lived much of her life bedridden inViareggio inTuscany.
She is best known for her 5,000 page bookThe Poem of the Man-God, first published in 1956 and later titledThe Gospel as Revealed to Me. The book was mostly written from 1944-1947 and was later translated into many languages. The book was placed on theIndex Librorum Prohibitorum in 1959. In 2025, theDicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith stated that her writings do not have a supernatural origin.
Various Biblical experts, historians, and scientists continue to support and criticize the book to this day.
Valtorta was born in 1897 inCaserta, just north ofNaples, in theCampania region of Italy, where her father's military regiment was stationed.[1][2] She was the only child of parents who had both been born in theLombardy region. Her father, Giuseppe, was in the Italian cavalry; her mother, Iside, was a teacher of French.[2][3] In 1898 the family moved with his father's regiment toFaenza inEmilia-Romagna.[1][4]
In 1900 her father's regiment moved to Milan and the Valtorta family lived in Lombardy until his retirement about 12 years later.[1][3][5] In 1907 the regiment moved toVoghera where Maria attended school and where the park "Gardens of Maria Valtorta" was inaugurated in her name in 2013.[6][2]
In March 1909, just before her 12th birthday, Maria was sent to the Collegio Bianconi boarding school inMonza, just north of Milan.[4][3][7] She studied there until March 1913 when just before her 16th birthday she had to leave Lombardy with her family forFlorence, inTuscany, due to her father's retirement from the military.[4][7]
TheFirst World War (1914–1918) started about a year after the Valtorta family had settled inFlorence, and Italyentered the war in April 1915 on the side of the allies.[8][4] In 1917 Valtorta volunteered as a Samaritan nurse, and for 18 months worked at amilitary hospital set up in Florence to care for the wounded soldiers who had returned from the war.[8][4][9]
In March 1920, when she was 23 years old, Maria was walking on a street in Florence with her mother, when the young and delinquent son of her mother's dress maker (who was afascist) struck her in the back with an iron bar and shouted a slogan against the wealthy and thebourgeoisie.[8][3][4]
As a result of that injury, she was confined to bed for a few months and although she seemed to have recovered, the complications from that incident eventually confined her to bed for 28 years, from April 1934 to the end of her life.[3][5]
In October 1924, when Maria was 27 years old, the Valtorta family moved from Florence toViareggio, on the coast of the Mediterranean, as part of her father's final retirement.[10][5][3] Over time, Maria's back injury affected her health in a progressive manner, and the last day she was able to leave her house on her own, given her high level of fatigue, was 4 January 1933. From 1 April 1934 she was no longer able to leave her bed at all.[3][4]
In 1935, a year after she was bed-ridden, Martha Diciotti began to care for her.[11] Valtorta's father died in 1935 and her mother in 1943, after which she was mostly alone in the house, with Martha Diciotti taking care of her to the end of her life.[10][11] After 1941, except for a brief wartime evacuation toSant’ Andrea di Compito inLucca, from April to December 1944, during theSecond World War, Valtorta's life was spent in her bed at her house in Via Antonio Fratti in Viareggio.[11][10][3]
In 1942, Valtorta was visited byRomualdo Migliorini, then a priest of theServants of Mary and later a bishop. He became her spiritual director and suggested she write her autobiography, which she completed in 1943.[3][12][4]
In her autobiography Valtorta wrote that both in Florence and Viareggio, she had deep religious experiences which transformed her life.[10][3] In 1925, soon after moving to Viareggio, she was influenced by the autobiography ofThérèse de Lisieux, and made a vow to offer herself to God as avictim soul and to renew that offer each day.[10][13][9]
After completing her autobiography, in 1943 Valtorta began handwriting a series of what she claimed were messages from Jesus.[3][14] From 1943 to 1947 Valtorta hand wrote about 15,000 pages in her notebooks, 10,000 of which were later selected as the basis of her main bookThe Poem of the Man-God, and the rest were gradually organized and published after her death.[11][3]
Valtorta wrote her text in a series of 122 school notebooks purchased for her by her priest.[11] She used afountain pen to write in her numbered notebooks, but did not write the episodes for herPoem in chronological order, and instead included markings as to how they should be ordered after the book had been completed.[11][9]
Valtorta was initially reluctant to have any of her handwritten notes published but in 1947 her priest convinced her to agree to their publication.[3][15] But the initial four volume edition of the book was published without an author name.[16]
In February 1948, Fr. Miglorini, Fr. Corrado Berti, and their prior Fr. Chechin had a private audience withPope Pius XII about her work, which was reported in theL'Osservatore Romano.[17] Although Pius XII was positive about the book, in 1949 the Holy Office summoned Fr Berti and ordered him not to publish the book.[18]
In 1952 Michele Pisani agreed to publish Valtorta's work and a contract was signed by Valtorta in October 1952.[11] The first edition of herPoem was published in 1956 and the Pisani form has since continued to publish the rest of her writings,[11]
Joachim Bouflet [fr] states that most of Maria Valtorta's life is known "only by theautobiography she wrote when she was 46 years old".[19][unreliable source?] However, at least two biographies of Valtorta based on taped interviews with people who personally knew her have been published, one titledRicordi di Donne Che Conobbero Maria Valtorta, (Memories of Women Who Knew Maria Valtorta)[20] and another titledUna Vita con Maria Valtorta: Testimonianze di Marta Diciotti (A Life with Maria Valtorta: Testimony of Marta Diciotti).[21]
Maria Valtorta died in 1961, at age 64, and was buried in the town cemetery in Viareggio.[3][11] Later, in 1973, her remains were moved to thechapel of the greatcloister of theBasilica della Santissima Annunziata inFlorence.[11][22] Presiding over the services at Valtorta's "privileged burial" and the relocation of her remains from Viareggio to theSantissima Annunziata Basilica, the mother church of theServants of Mary, wasGabriel M. Roschini,O.S.M who had written a book about her.[23]
Valtorta's best known book isThe Poem of the Man God. Valtorta signed a contract with Michele Pisani in 1952 to publish the book, and the first of the four volumes was published without an author name under the Italian titleIl Poema di Gesu (i.e. "The Poem of Jesus").[24] The other three volumes were also published without an author name, but had a different Italian title:Il Poema dell'Uomo-Dio (i.e. "The Poem of the Man-God").
After Valtorta's death in 1961 several books based on material contained in her handwritten notebooks were gradually published.[11] Her autobiography, which she had completed in 1943 was published in 1969.[1] In 1972 the Book of Azariah was published, based on material she had written every Sunday from the end of February 1946 to the beginning of February 1947. The book contains spiritual lessons about theCatholic masses said on those Sundays. Valtorta wrote that the lessons were given to her by Azariah, herguardian angel.[25][26]
In 1976 the first of the four volumes of her "Notebooks" were published, based on material interspersed with the text for herPoem within the 122 school notebooks which she had used to write her text was published in Italian.[11] In 1977 the book "Lessons on the Epistle of Paul to the Romans" was published in Italian, containing comments on Paul'sLetter to the Romans.[27] In 2006 additional unpublished pages from her handwritten notebooks were gathered and published in Italian as the "Small Notebooks".[28] Valtorta's books were translated into other languages beside Italian.[9][11]
Before her death in 1961, Valtorta assigned her assistant Marta Diciotti as the heir to her writings, and in 2001 Marta Diciotti in turn assigned Emilio and Claudia Pisani as her heirs.[11] The Pisanis then formed a foundation dedicated to the works of Maria Valtorta.[11] Since Valtorta's death the Pisani organization has been publishing books based on Valtorta's handwritten notebooks and herPoem has been translated into over 20 languages.[11] Yearly conferences on the scientific and theological aspects of her writings are held in Italy.[3][18][29][30]
Separately, the Maria Valtorta Foundation was formed in 2009 in Viareggio by Fr. Ernesto Zucchini, a professor of theology, and has been holding yearly conferences on the writings of Valtorta in Viareggio, and presentations about her at various locations in Italy.[31][29][32][33] The conference on 12 October 2021 (the 60th anniversary of Valtorta's death) was attended by Msgr.Paolo Giulietti, theArchbishop of Lucca, who has jurisdiction over the city ofViareggio, and he gave a talk about the life and writings of Valtorta.[30]
Valtorta's work became controversial, soon after its publication, given that a January 1960 article inL'Osservatore Romano called the book a badly fictionalized life of Jesus.[34] The same issue of L'Osservatore announced the placement of the book on theIndex of Forbidden Books. A notice in the December 1, 1961 issue of L'Osservatore stated that the placement on the Index was due to the lack of animprimatur.[35]On 15 June 1966, theSacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith abolished theIndex, and all formal sanctions against reading books placed on theIndex ended.[36][37][18] In 2025, the same office declared Valtorta's writings as non-supernatural in origin.[38]
Valtorta's work has continued to remain controversial and various Biblical experts, historians and scientists support and criticize it to this day, and yearly conferences on the scientific and theological aspects of her writings are held in Italy.[3][18][29][30] Scientists Emilio Matricciani and Liberato De Caro support her work based on astronomical and mathematical analysis.[39][40][41] Gianfranco Battisti, a professor of geography, supports the book based on its about 500 geographic and topographic descriptions.[42] Biblical scholara such asGabriele Allegra,Gabriel Roschini andRené Laurentin support the book based on its theological contents and scriptural analysis.[43][44][45]
CardinalJoseph Ratzinger andArchbishopDionigi Tettamanzi have written letters stating that the material in the book is just literary and has no supernatural origin.[18][46] Historian Joachim Bouflet has criticized the book based on his historical analysis.[19] Author Sandra Miesel criticized the book on general grounds.[47]
