Passion & Piety

THE NUN OF MONZA by Mario Mazzucchelli. 253 pages. Simon & Schuster, $4.95.

Most nuns choose a religious life because they have a vocation. Not Sister Virginia. Instead of a vocation, she had a widowed father who wanted to get rid of her. At 14, she entered the Convent of Santa Margherita in the north Italian town of Monza, took the veil two years later. Her father, the Lord of Monza, not only managed to save the expense of a dowry but also pocketed the bulk of his daughter's personal fortune and was left free to range the world, fighting the Moors, the English and the Turks. Based on trial records opened only six years ago in the archives of Milan, this new book takes a fresh look at a drama that was lurid and violent enough to shock even 17th century Europe, which wallowed in turbulence, superstition and sacrilege.

Satan's Payroll. Until she was 22, Sister Virginia's life passed uneventfully in the nunnery. Then she looked out a window and saw Gian Paolo Osio, a handsome young man who lived on a fine estate next to the convent. "After I had seen Osio twice," Sister Virginia said, "it seemed as though I were forced by the Devil to go to that window." She meant it literally. Like everyone else in those days, Sister Virginia believed that Satan and all his devils roamed the world to snare men's souls.

Sister Virginia fought the Devil. She locked herself in her cell, flogged her naked back until the blood came, sent precious gifts to Our Lady of Loreto, prayed endlessly that "the Lord would free me from that passion." But several nuns who were Sister Virginia's close friends acted as if they were on Satan's payroll: when the time came, it was one of them who tossed the convent key over the wall to Osio.

Though not as wellborn as Sister Virginia, Osio belonged to a gang of reckless noblemen who "did nothing night and day but roam the streets armed with forbidden weapons, breaking into houses, assaulting now this one, now that, giving them wounds." To accomplish the seduction of the nun, Osio frequently attended Mass at the convent, sent intermediaries with gifts of silver crucifixes and other valuables, and even employed a licentious priest to help him achieve a persuasive elegance in his love letters.

Into the Well. Once started, it seemed the affair would never stop. Sister Virginia had two children; the first died at birth, the second was smuggled out of the convent and raised in Osio's home. For seven years everyone in town knew what was going on but did nothing about it. In the convent itself, the nuns divided into accomplices, neutrals and enemies. But the enemies, inside and out, were immobilized by a major deterrent: since her father's death in 1599, Sister Virginia had been virtually governor of Monza.

Those few not afraid of Sister Virginia were soon afraid of hotheaded Osio. A blacksmith who talked openly about the affair was stabbed to death. An apothecary gossiped indiscreetly and was shot dead. When a lay sister threatened to tell all, Osio killed her, cut off her head, dropped it into an abandoned well, and buried her torso in his garden. To get rid of two other nuns who were incriminating witnesses to his deeds, Osio lured them from the convent, threw one into a river, and then pitched the other into a well 60 ft. deep --the very same well containing the head of the lay sister.

Reformed Whores. Both nuns were rescued (one died later of her injuries) and the affair at Monza broke wide open. Osio fled to Venetian territory where he was eventually murdered by persons unknown. By order of Milan's Cardinal Federigo Borromeo, Sister Virginia was tried by church authorities and sentenced to perpetual imprisonment in a dungeon deep in a hostel for reformed whores.

Author Mazzucchelli, ably served by Translator Evelyn Gendel, brings intelligence and understanding to the nun's tale. The true story even has an astonishingly upbeat ending. After 14 years of solitary confinement during which she never saw or spoke to another person, Sister Virginia was freed. She emerged white-haired and aged far beyond her 46 years and announced that in "punishments and shame I found Christ again!" Devout, pious, ascetic, Sister Virginia lived on for 27 years more, and the impressed Cardinal Borromeo gave her suitable employment: she wrote moral and religious precepts to certain nuns of the diocese who seemed in need of them.

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