The Criminal and the Saintly Body: Autopsy and Dissection in Renaissance Italy *

Abstract

On the 17th of August 1308 Chiara of Montefalco died in the small Umbrian monastery of which she had been the abbess. Her fellow nuns did not take any steps to preserve her body. Nonetheless, for five days it remained uncorrupted and redolent of the odor of sanctity, despite the blazing summer heat. At that point— not wanting to tempt fate further—the community decided to embalm the precious relic. In the words of Sister Francesca of Montefalco, testifying some years later at Chiara's unsuccessful canonization procedure, “They agreed that [her] body should be preserved on account of her holiness and because God took such pleasure in her body and her heart.” They sent to the town apothecary for “balsam and myrrh and other preservatives,” as the apothecary himself testified, and they proceeded to the next step in contemporary embalming practice, which was evisceration.