Maria Valtorta

{{Infobox writer

| name = Maria Valtorta

| image = Maria Valtorta2.jpg

| image_size = 150px

| alt = A black and white profile picture of Valtorta

| caption = Maria Valtorta at age 15, 1912

| birth_name =

| birth_date = {{Birth date|1897|3|14|df=y}}

| birth_place = Caserta, Kingdom of Italy

| death_date = {{Death date and age|1961|10|12|1897|3|14|df=y}}

| death_place = Viareggio, Italy

| resting_place = Basilica of Santissima Annunziata, Florence

| nationality = Italian

| genre = Christian mysticism, visions

| other_names =

| notableworks = The Poem of the Man-God
The Book of Azariah

| occupation =

}}

Maria Valtorta (14 March 1897 – 12 October 1961) was a Catholic Italian writer. She was a Franciscan tertiary and a lay member of the Servants of Mary who reported personal conversations with, and dictations from, Jesus Christ. She lived much of her life bedridden in Viareggio in Tuscany where she died in 1961. She is buried at the Basilica of Santissima Annunziata in Florence.

She is best known for her 5,000 page book The Poem of the Man-God, first published in 1956 and later titled The Gospel as Revealed to Me. It was mostly written from 1944 to 1947 and details the life of Jesus and edited by her spiritual advisor, Father Romualdo Migliorini.{{Cite book |last=Lindsey |first=David Michael |title=The Woman and the Dragon: Apparitions of Mary |publisher=Pelican Publishing Company |year=2001 |isbn=978-1565547315 |location= |pages=324-326}} Many further books were published; the first was placed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum in 1959, and has remained controversial since its publication. In 2025, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith declared her writings as non-supernatural in origin.{{Cite web |title=Press Release regarding the Writings of Maria Valtorta (22 February 2025) |url=https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_ddf_doc_20250222_comunicato-scritti-valtorta_en.html |access-date=2025-03-05 |website=Vatican}}

Life

= Early life and education =

Valtorta was born in 1897 in Caserta, just north of Naples, in the Campania region of Italy, where her father's

military regiment was stationed.Maria Valtorta, Autobiography, Editions Paulines, 1991, Chapter 1{{Cite web |title=Intitolati alla casertana Maria Valtorta i giardini di Voghera |url=https://www.casertanews.it/eventi/cultura/053929_celebrazioni-caserta-intitolati-casertana-maria-valtorta-giardini-voghera.html |access-date=2025-03-05 |website=CasertaNews |language=it}} She was the only child of parents who had both been born in the Lombardy region. Her father, Giuseppe, was in the Italian cavalry; her mother, Iside, was a teacher of French. In 1898 the family moved with his father's regiment to Faenza in Emilia-Romagna.

In 1900 her father's regiment moved to Milan and the Valtorta family lived in Lombardy until his retirement about 12 years later.Pasquale Amato, Il Tempo Di Primavera, Pellegrini Editore, pp 206 In 1907 the regiment moved to Voghera where Maria attended school and where the park "Gardens of Maria Valtorta" was inaugurated in her name in 2013.{{Cite web |date=2013-05-12 |title=Il parco per Maria Valtorta |url=https://laprovinciapavese.gelocal.it/pavia/cronaca/2013/05/12/news/il-parco-per-maria-valtorta-1.7051861 |access-date=2025-03-05 |website=La Provincia Pavese |language=it}}

In March 1909, just before her 12th birthday, Maria was sent to the Collegio Bianconi boarding school in Monza, just north of Milan.Massimo Olmi, Indagine sulla croce di Cristo, La Fontana di Siloe, 2015, Section "Visioni della Croce"Maria Valtorta, Autobiography, Editions Paulines, 1991, Chapter 2 She studied there until March 1913 when just before her 16th birthday she had to leave Lombardy with her family for Florence, in Tuscany, due to her father's retirement from the military.

=A decade in Florence=

File:Maria Valtorta3.jpg, soon before she moved to Florence]]

The First World War (1914–1918) started about a year after the Valtorta family had settled in Florence, and Italy entered the war

in April 1915 on the side of the allies.Maria Valtorta, Autobiography, Editions Paulines, 1991, Chapter 3 In 1917 Valtorta volunteered as a Samaritan nurse, and for 18 months worked at a military hospital set up in Florence to care for the wounded soldiers who had returned from the war.{{Cite book |last=Laurentin |first=René |title=Indagine su Maria: Le Rivelazioni dei Mistici sulla Vita della Madonna |last2=Debroise |first2=François-Michel |publisher=Mondadori |year=2012 |isbn=978-8804615880 |at=Chap. 12 |language=it}}

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 a fascist) struck her in the back with an iron bar and shouted a slogan against the wealthy and the bourgeoisie.

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.

= Settling in Viareggio=

In October 1924, when Maria was 27 years old, the Valtorta family moved from Florence to Viareggio, on the coast of the Mediterranean, as part of her father's final retirement.Maria Valtorta, Autobiography, Editions Paulines, 1991, Chapter 4 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.

In 1935, a year after she was bed-ridden, Martha Diciotti began to care for her.Stefano Lorenzetti "Tipi Italiani" Il Giornale 24 August 2014 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. After 1941, except for a brief wartime evacuation to Sant’ Andrea di Compito in Lucca, from April to December 1944, during the Second World War, Valtorta's life was spent in her bed at her house in Via Antonio Fratti in Viareggio.

In 1942, Valtorta was visited by Fr. Migliorini of the Servants of Mary, who became her spiritual director and suggested to her to write her autobiography, which she completed before starting her other writings in 1943.{{Cite book |last=Laurentin |first=René |title=Dictionnaire des Personnages de l'Evangile Selon Maria Valtorta |last2=Debroise |first2=François-Michel |last3=Lavère |first3=Jean-François |publisher=Salvator |year=2012 |isbn=978-2706709616 |pages=9-19 |language=fr}}Maria Valtorta, Autobiography, Editions Paulines, 1991, Chapter 7

In her autobiography Valtorta wrote that both in Florance and Viareggio, she had deep religious experiences which transformed her life. In 1925, soon after moving to Viareggio, she was influenced by the autobiography of Thérèse de Lisieux, and made a vow to offer herself to God as a victim soul and to renew that offer each day.{{Cite book |last=Freze |first=Michael |title=Voices, Visions, and Apparitions |publisher=OSV Publishing |year=1993 |isbn=087973454X |pages=251}}

=From handwriting to publication=

File:Maria Valtorta4.jpg

After completing her autobiography, in 1943 Valtorta began handwriting a series of what she claimed were messages from Jesus.

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 book The Poem of the Man-God, and the rest were gradually organized and published after her death.

Valtorta wrote her text in a series of 122 school notebooks purchased for her by her priest. She used a fountain pen to write in her numbered notebooks, but did not write the episodes for her Poem in chronological order, and instead included markings as to how they should be ordered after the book had been completed.

Valtorta was initially reluctant to have any of her handwritten notes published but in 1947 her priest convinced her to agree to their publication.Rookey O.S.M., Peter M., Shepherd of Souls: The Virtuous Life of Saint Anthony Pucci, (Jun 2003) {{ISBN|1891280449}} CMJ Marian Press pp. 1-3 But the initial four volume edition of the book was published without an author name.{{Cite news |date=6 January 1960 |title=Una vita de Jesù malamente romanzata |url=http://maria-valtorta.net/images/losservatore_1960.pdf |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230511035400/http://maria-valtorta.net/images/losservatore_1960.pdf |archive-date=11 May 2023 |access-date=14 June 2023 |work=L'Osservatore Romano |pages=1 |language=Italian |issue=4}}

In February 1948, Fr. Miglorini, Fr. Corrado Berti, and their prior Fr. Chechin had a private audience

with Pope Pius XII about her work, which was reported in the L'Osservatore Romano.L'Osservatore Romano 27 February 1948 Although Pius XII was positive about the book, in 1949 the Holy Office summoned Fr Berti and ordered him not to publish the book.{{Cite web |last=Pillari |first=Anthony |date=2017 |title=The Current Juridic and Moral Value of the Index of Forbidden Books |url=https://ruor.uottawa.ca/bitstream/10393/37164/4/Anthony%20PILLARI.pdf |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230702183046/https://ruor.uottawa.ca/bitstream/10393/37164/4/Anthony%20PILLARI.pdf |archive-date=2 July 2023 |access-date=2 July 2023 |website=Saint Paul University, Faculty of Canon Law |pages=26,36}}

In 1952 Michele Pisani agreed to publish Valtorta's work and a contract was signed by Valtorta in October 1952. The first edition of her Poem was published in 1956 and the Pisani form has since continued to publish the rest of her writings,

{{Interlanguage link|Joachim Bouflet|lt=Joachim Bouflet|fr}} states that most of Maria Valtorta's life is known "only by the autobiography she wrote when she was 46 years old".{{Cite book |last=Bouflet |first=Joachim |title=Impostures mystiques |publisher=Éditions du Cerf |year=2023 |isbn=978-2-204-15520-5 |language=fr |trans-title=Mystical Frauds |chapter=Fraudes Mystiques Récentes – Maria Valtorta (1897-1961) – Anachronismes et incongruités}}{{unreliable source?|date=May 2023}} However, at least two biographies of Valtorta based on taped interviews with people who personally knew her have been published, one titled Ricordi di Donne Che Conobbero Maria Valtorta, (Memories of Women Who Knew Maria Valtorta){{Cite book |last=Centoni |first=Albo |title=Ricordi di Donne Che Conobbero Maria Valtorta |publisher=Centro Editoriale Valtortiano |year=1998 |isbn=978-8879870405 |language=it |trans-title=Memories of Women Who Knew Maria Valtorta}} and another titled Una Vita con Maria Valtorta: Testimonianze di Marta Diciotti (A Life with Maria Valtorta: Testimony of Marta Diciotti).{{Cite book |last=Centoni |first=Albo |title=Una Vita con Maria Valtorta: Testimonianze di Marta Diciotti |publisher=Centro Editoriale Valtortiano |year=1987 |isbn=978-8879870443 |language=it |trans-title=A life with Maria Valtorta: Testimony of Marta Diciotti}}

= Death =

File:Santissima Annunziata1.JPG, the mother church of the Servite Order, where Maria Valtorta is buried.{{Cite book |last=Fortune |first=Jane |title=To Florence con Amore: 90 Ways to Love the City |publisher=Florentine Press |year=2011 |isbn=978-8890243486 |edition=2nd |pages=50}}]]

Maria Valtorta died in 1961, at age 64, and was buried in the town cemetery in Viareggio. Later, in 1973, her remains were moved to the chapel of the great cloister of the Basilica della Santissima Annunziata in Florence. Presiding over the services at Valtorta's "privileged burial" and the relocation of her remains from Viareggio to the Santissima Annunziata Basilica, the mother church of the Servants of Mary, was Msgr. Gabriel M. Roschini, O.S.M.Publisher's Notice in the Second Italian Edition (1986), reprinted in English Edition, Gabriel Roschini, O.S.M. (1989). The Virgin Mary in the Writings of Maria Valtorta (English Edition). Kolbe's Publication Inc.{{ISBN|2-920285-08-4}}

Books by Maria Valtorta

= ''The Poem of the Man-God'' =

Valtorta's best known book is The 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 title Il Poema di Gesu (i.e. "The Poem of Jesus").{{Cite news |date=6 January 1960 |title=Suprema Sacra Congregatio Sanctii Officii: Decretum Proscriptio Librorum |url=http://maria-valtorta.net/images/losservatore_1960.pdf |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230511035400/http://maria-valtorta.net/images/losservatore_1960.pdf |archive-date=11 May 2023 |access-date=14 June 2023 |work=L'Osservatore Romano |pages=1 |language=Latin |issue=4}} 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").

= Other books by Valtorta =

File:Capitolo della ss. annunziata, 13 tomba maria valtorta.JPG in Florence]]

After Valtorta's death in 1961 several books based on material contained in her handwritten notebooks were gradually published. Her autobiography, which she had completed in 1943 was published in 1969. 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 the Catholic masses said on those Sundays. Valtorta wrote that the lessons were given to her by Azariah, her guardian angel.Maria Valtorta, The Book of Azaria, 1976, 978-8879871433{{Cite book |last=Laurentin |first=René |title=Indagine su Maria: Le Rivelazioni dei Mistici sulla Vita della Madonna |last2=Debroise |first2=François-Michel |publisher=Mondadori |year=2012 |isbn=978-8804615880 |at=Bibliografia section |language=it}}

In 1976 the first of the four volumes of her "Notebooks" were published, based on material interspersed with the text for her Poem within the 122 school notebooks which she had used to write her text was published in Italian. In 1977 the book "Lessons on the Epistle of Paul to the Romans" was published in Italian, containing comments on Paul's Letter to the Romans.Maria Valtorta "Lezioni sull'Epistola di Paolo ai Romani" 1977 ISBN 8879871501 In 2006 additional unpublished pages from her handwritten notebooks were gathered and published in Italian as the "Small Notebooks".Maria Valtorta "Quadernetti " 2006 ISBN 8879871390 Valtorta's books were translated into other languages beside Italian.

Legacy

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. The Pisanis then formed a foundation dedicated to the works of Maria Valtorta. Since Valtorta's death the Pisani organization has been publishing books based on Valtorta's handwritten notebooks and her Poem has been translated into over 20 languages. Yearly conferences on the scientific and theological aspects of her writings are held in Italy.{{Cite web |date=2017-10-18 |title=Viareggio, convegno su Maria Valtorta: «I suoi scritti sono un mistero» - ToscanaOggi |url=https://www.toscanaoggi.it/viareggio-convegno-su-maria-valtorta-i-suoi-scritti-sono-un-mistero/ |access-date=2025-03-05 |language=it-IT}}La Nazione, "Nuovi studi e scoperte sulla tomba di S.Pietro", 23 October 2021.

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.Rita Ricci, "Alla scoperta dell’vangelo di Maria Valtorta" Zenit 16 October 2016 [https://it.zenit.org/2016/10/16/alla-scoperta-dellevangelo-di-maria-valtorta/]"Indagine sugli scritti di Maria Valtorta" La Nazione 14 November 2020"Don Zucchini ricorda la figura di Maria Valtorta" Il Resto del Carlino, 23 May 2023 The conference on 12 October 2021 (the 60th anniversary of Valtorta's death) was attended by Msgr. Paolo Giulietti, the Archbishop of Lucca, who has jurisdiction over the city of Viareggio, and he gave a talk about the life and writings of Valtorta.

Support and criticism

Valtorta's work became controversial, soon after its publication, given that a January 1960 article in L'Osservatore Romano called the book a badly fictionalized life of Jesus."Una vita di Gesu malamente romanzata" L'Osservatore Romano, January 6, 1960 The same issue of L'Osservatore announced the placement of the book on the Index of Forbidden Books. A notice in the December 1, 1961 issue of L'Osservatore stated that the placement on on the Index was due to the lack of an imprimatur.L'Osservatore Romano, December 1, 1961

On 15 June 1966, the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith abolished the Index, and all formal sanctions against reading books placed on the Index ended.{{Cite news |last=Ottaviani |first=Alfredo |date=15 June 1966 |title=Notificatio |url=http://maria-valtorta.net/images/losservetore_1966.pdf |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230511035530/http://maria-valtorta.net/images/losservetore_1966.pdf |archive-date=11 May 2023 |access-date=14 June 2023 |work=L'Osservatore Romano |page=1 |language=Latin |issue=136}}{{Cite book |last=Collins |first=Paul |title=From Inquisition to Freedom |publisher=Continuum International Publishing |year=2001 |isbn=978-0826454157 |page=18}} In 2025, the same office declared Valtorta's writings as non-supernatural in origin.{{Cite web |title=Press Release regarding the Writings of Maria Valtorta (22 February 2025) |url=https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_ddf_doc_20250222_comunicato-scritti-valtorta_en.html |access-date=2025-03-05 |website=Vatican}}

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.

Scientists Emilio Matricciani and Liberato De Caro support her work based on astronomical and mathematical analysis.

{{Cite journal |last1=Matricciano |first1=Emilio |last2=De Caro |first2=Liberato |date=2017 |title=Literary Fiction or Ancient Astronomical and Meteorological Observations in the Work of Maria Valtorta? |url= |journal=Religions |volume=8 |issue=6 |page=110 |doi=10.3390/rel8060110 |doi-access=free |hdl=11311/1060871 |hdl-access=free }}{{Cite journal |last1=Matricciano |first1=Emilio |last2=La Greca |first2=Fernando |last3=De Caro |first3=Liberato |date=2021 |title=Hidden and Coherent Chronology of Jesus' Life in the Literary Work of Maria Valtorta |url= |journal=Journal of Sociology |volume=5 |issue=6 |doi=10.54647/sociology84718|doi-access=free }}{{Cite journal |last1=Matricciani |first1=Emilio |last2=De Caro |first2=Liberato |date=2018 |title=A Mathematical Analysis of Maria Valtorta's Mystical Writings |journal=Religions |volume=9 |issue=11 |pages=373 |doi=10.3390/rel9110373|hdl=11311/1125389 |hdl-access=free |doi-access=free }}

Gianfranco Battisti, a professor of geography, supports the book based on its about 500 geographic and topographic descriptions.Gianfranco Battisti "Geographie del Sacro" Documenti Geografici,

Associazione dei Geogfi Italiani, July-December 2019. An English version

of the article appears in the book "Hidden Geographies" edited by Marko Krevs,

Springer Publishing 2021, pp 71-85.

Biblical scholara such as Gabriele Allegra, Gabriel Roschini and René Laurentin support the book based on its theological contents and scriptural analysis.Vittorio De Marco "Il Beato P. Gabriele M. Allegra" Libreria Editrice Vaticana 2014 pp 286-287.{{Cite book |last=Roschini |first=Gabriel M. |url=http://archive.org/details/virginmaryinwrit0000rosc |title=The Virgin Mary in the Writings of Maria Valtorta |date=1993 |publisher=Kolbe's Publications. |isbn=978-2-920285-11-8 |edition=3rd |location=Sherbrooke |pages=3, 21 |translator-last=Atworth |translator-first=Paul T. Y.}}{{Cite book |last1=Laurentin |first1=René |title=Dictionnaire des Personnages de l'Evangile Selon Maria Valtorta |last2=Debroise |first2=François-Michel |last3=Lavère |first3=Jean-François |publisher=Salvator |year=2012 |isbn=978-2706709616 |pages=9–19 |language=fr}}

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and Archbishop Dionigi Tettamanzi have written letters stating that the material in the book is just literary and has no supernatural origin.{{Cite book |last1=Laurentin |first1=René |title=Indagine su Maria: Le Rivelazioni dei Mistici sulla Vita della Madonna |last2=Debroise |first2=François-Michel |publisher=Mondadori |year=2012 |isbn=978-8804615880 |at=Chap. 12, p. 624 |language=it}}

Historian Joachim Bouflet has criticized the book based on his historical analysis.{{Cite book |last=Bouflet |first=Joachim |title=Impostures mystiques |publisher=Éditions du Cerf |year=2023 |isbn=978-2-204-15520-5 |language=fr |trans-title=Mystical Frauds |chapter=Fraudes Mystiques Récentes – Maria Valtorta (1897-1961) – Anachronismes et incongruités}}

Author Sandra Miesel criticized the book on general grounds.https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2021/09/14/a-monument-to-pseudo-religiosity-a-case-against-the-poem-of-the-man-god/