Saints and Sinners

Corinne is in Italy for the summer and has brought some of the sounds and stories of the Tuscan city of Lucca to Enchanted. In this episode, we explore the legends of saints and devils, the portal to Hell in one of Lucca's churches, and Lucida Mansi, Lucca's most famous ghost. In a city that's existed since the third century BCE, aren't there bound to be a few mysteries?

Researched, written, and produced by Corinne Wieben, with original music by Purple Planet.

Episode sources

Give to the Italian Red Cross to help victims of the Emilia-Romagna floods: 
English: https://dona.cri.it/sostienici/~my-donation 
Italiano: https://dona.cri.it/alluvione-emiliaromagna/~mia-donazione 

Listen to Enchanted's season two episode, "A Desirable Disaster, " for more stories from medieval Lucca. 

Chapters

• 0:00 Pre-roll
• 0:59 Intro
• 2:03 The Miracles of Santa Zita
• 5:27 A Portal to Hell
• 8:52 The Devil Leaves His Mark
• 12:32 Lucida Mansi
• 16:55 Conclusion
• 19:26 Outro

Transcript

Pre-roll
You’re listening to Enchanted, a podcast on the history of magic, sorcery, and witchcraft. I’m Corinne Wieben. Before we get started, I have a quick favor to ask. As you’re about to hear, I’m living in Italy for the summer. I arrived here in May just days after the region of Emilia-Romagna experienced devastating floods. Fourteen people lost their lives, and over twenty thousand had to be evacuated from their homes. Emilia-Romagna is not only home to a rich collection of artistic and historical treasures, it’s also one of the major centers of food production in Italy. The water has mostly receded, and while restoration efforts have begun, the need for aid is enormous. If you’d like to help, I’m including a link in the show notes where you can donate to the Italian Red Cross, whose volunteers have been working tirelessly to support the region throughout this emergency. Together, we can help Emilia-Romagna heal. And with that, let’s get on with the show.

Intro
What you’re hearing around me is the sound of life in the streets around the church of San Michele in Foro in the Tuscan city of Lucca. It’s June, and droves of tourists have been flocking to the city, so on any given day you can hear half a dozen languages as you walk through Lucca’s historic city center. I’m here for the summer researching in the archives for my job as a medieval historian, and I couldn’t resist taking this opportunity to take you on an audio tour of one of my favorite cities and share some of Lucca’s legendary history. In this episode, I bring you the stories of saints and devils, the portal to Hell in the floor of one of Lucca’s churches, and the beautiful but deadly Lucida Mansi, Lucca’s most famous ghost.

The Miracles of Santa Zita
If you’re ever in a hurry but just can’t find your keys, you may want to try asking for the help of Santa Zita, one of Lucca’s patron saints. She also happens to be the patron saint of domestic servants and lost house keys. Before she was a saint, Zita was a peasant girl, born in the Lucchese countryside in 1218. At the age of twelve, she moved to the city to work as a household servant for the wealthy Fatinelli family, where she gained a reputation for kindness, piety, and charity.

Zita attended the Basilica of San Frediano, which still stands in Lucca and features artwork commemorating several of Zita’s miracles. One such story is depicted in paintings in the chapel of Santa Zita and tells of her remarkable charity for the poor. One day, witnessing the hunger of some of her neighbors, Zita began smuggling leftover bread out of Palazzo Fatinelli by hiding it in her cloak and sneaking out at night to give it to the hungry. One of the household’s other servants, jealous of the family’s affection for Zita, revealed the theft, but as the story goes, when the head of the family stopped her one night and pulled open her cloak, the bread had disappeared. Instead, a cascade of flowers fell to the ground.

Another miracle is commemorated in the Porta dell’Angelo or “Angel’s Door,” located in the right side of San Frediano. This door recalls the story of Zita encountering a beggar freezing on the street. To help him survive the cold, she ran to Palazzo Fatinelli and seized the first cloak she could find, handing it to the beggar. Afterwards, she began to worry that her employers would be angry that she had given away one of their expensive cloaks. She set out for San Frediano before dawn to pray for aid, but at the door where she usually entered the church, an angel awaited her with a brand new cloak, allowing her to replace the old one before anyone knew it was missing.

Zita served the Fatinelli family faithfully for nearly fifty years until her death on April 27, 1272. Legend holds that at the moment of her death, a star appeared above her room and the church bells of Lucca rang spontaneously, a sure sign of sanctity. After investigating her miracles, the Catholic church canonized Zita as a saint in 1696.

You can still visit and pay your respects to Santa Zita. Some seven centuries after her death in 1272, her remarkably preserved remains lie in a chapel dedicated to her in the Basilica of San Frediano, where each year on April 27, the people of Lucca bring offerings of fresh bread and flowers to celebrate her feast day.

A Portal to Hell
Near the Basilica of San Frediano lies the church of Sant’Agostino. Rebuilt in the fourteenth century on the site of the former church of San Salvatore in Muro, this gothic-style church still contains the ruins of an ancient Roman theater at the base of its bell tower. The most interesting attraction in this church, however, is inside. In front of a small chapel containing a fresco of the Virgin Mary and infant Jesus, called the “Madonna del Sasso,” lies what looks like a manhole cover, but that legend holds that is a seal covering a portal to Hell.

According to the story, the infant Jesus, now depicted on Mary’s left side, was at first painted on her right, but one day a group of soldiers were gambling in the street. One of the soldiers placed a massive bet and invoked the help of the Virgin Mary to win. He lost. In his anger and frustration, he picked up a stone, ran into the church, cursed the image of the Madonna and Child, and threw the stone at it as hard as he could. At that moment, miraculously, the image of the infant Jesus, which would have been struck by the stone, shifted to Mary’s other side. The stone hit her right shoulder instead, which began to bleed. Under the soldier’s feet, the floor of the church opened like a trapdoor. However, the soldier didn’t fall immediately. Instead, he floated in mid-air over the opening, while his neighbors gathered to wonder at him. The crowd begged the soldier to repent his blasphemy and pray for forgiveness. At last, he refused, and fell into the darkness below.

Other stories have emerged around this one, including that curious monks lowered ropes to the bottom to judge the depth of the hole, only to have the ropes come back up singed at the bottom. That, coupled with rumors of the smell of sulfur coming up from the chasm, led the monks to have a botola, a cover, constructed from iron embossed with the image of a cross and bolted into the floor. Later, when the nearby Serchio river threatened to flood Lucca after heavy rains, one member of the Grand Council proposed that the city should open the cover and divert the floodwaters into Hell. The Council voted against it. You can still see the botola today, along with a seventeenth-century fresco depicting the soldier’s fate and a marble plaque that reminds the reader of the Virgin’s willingness to help those who repent, and the fate of those who do not.

The Devil Leaves His Mark
In addition to saints and their miracles, the devil, too, is said to have left his mark on the city. Across town from San Frediano and Sant’Agostino, the entrance to Lucca’s cathedral of San Martino features a labyrinth carved into the stone of one column. While labyrinths feature prominently in many Christian churches as a symbol of the soul’s contemplative journey toward God, the inscription accompanying San Martino’s refers to the ancient Greek story of Theseus and Ariadne, Ariadne being the princess of Crete who helped the Athenian hero Theseus defeat the half-bull, half-human Minotaur in her father’s deadly labyrinth. Theseus then took Ariadne away with him on his ship, promising to marry her, only to abandon her on a nearby island on his way back home. The allegorical meaning of San Martino’s labyrinth and its connection to the ancient Greek myth remains a mystery, but it’s hardly an isolated case. Strange markings appear on a number of churches in the city, and local legend has attributed many of them to supernatural, even diabolical forces.

The church of San Pietro Somaldi, established in Lucca in 763 and rebuilt in the late twelfth century, features one of the strangest marks. In the right light, a pillar on the church’s main doorway features three linear marks that locals call the “devil’s scratches.” The story goes that the future Saint Gemma Galgani of Lucca was praying in the church when the devil sought to seduce her. Despite her youth, she resisted his efforts valiantly, ultimately defeating him. In frustration at his failure, the devil left three scratches on the facade of the church.

Of the diabolical marks on the city, one of the most recognizable is the devil’s stone in Palazzo Bernardini. In 1512, the wealthy Bernardini family hired the architect Nicolao Civitali to build them a palazzo. In order to do this, Civitali had to destroy the older buildings that stood on the spot, including one featuring an image of the Virgin Mary. Bernardini and Civitali had to decide: destroy the image or incorporate it into the new structure. Both architect and client had qualms about destroying a holy image, but eventually—and according to some at the suggestion of the devil—they decided to go forward with the building as designed and destroy the image. The legend tells us that the devil wanted to find some way to commemorate his victory. As the stonemasons working on the project built the frame of a large window to the right of the main entrance, the spot where the holy image had stood, they watched in horror as the long stone of the frame bent. The spooked workers decided to remove this stone and replace it with another, which also bent. In fact, each time, they tried to replace the stone, the new one would mysteriously pull away from the wall. They decided on a different plan, clamping a new stone down with iron bars to secure it. The stone bent again, even tearing its way through the iron. Deciding it may not be worth it to fight with supernatural forces (or keep paying for new stones), Bernardini and Civitali decided to leave it. The workers secured it with a metal bracket, and the bent stone remains to this day.

Lucida Mansi
Among other impressive structures in Lucca’s city center, by far the most prominent are the city’s Renaissance walls. Pieces of Lucca’s ancient Roman and medieval walls remain in the city here and there, but the massive earthworks and brick of the seventeenth-century walls still stand, surrounding Lucca’s historic city center and stretching over four kilometers (for the Americans that’s over 2.5 miles). In the modern era, the walls, wide enough for a paved road, have been converted into a park and planted with grass and trees. They’re now home to runners, joggers, bicyclists, dog walkers, families, and tourists who want to enjoy the beauty of Lucca from this unique vantage point.

From the right places on the walls, you can spot some of the grand estates of Lucca’s aristocracy, including Villa Mansi, with its gorgeous, lush gardens. A few legends surround the wealthy and noble Mansi family, but by far the most notorious is the legend of Lucida Mansi. Born in 1606, Lucida is rumored to have been extraordinarily beautiful. As a young woman, she married a man named Vicenzo Diversi, but he died suddenly less than a year into their marriage, leaving her a young and wealthy widow. So sudden and suspicious was the death of her young husband that her neighbors began to gossip that she had killed him. A few years later, at the age of 21, Lucida married the much older—and extremely wealthy—Gaspare di Nicolao Mansi. The age difference, coupled with Lucida’s remarkable beauty gained her a reputation for infidelity and vanity. She was said to have used her husband’s wealth to throw sumptuous parties and surround herself with young and handsome admirers. Some of which, she’s rumored to have killed by throwing them into a ditch filled with sharp blades before they could be tempted to brag about their exploits with her. According to most sources, Lucida died, most likely of plague, in February of 1649, but her legend tells another story.

After she married into the wealthy Mansi family, rumors circulated that Lucida had ordered an entire room of their villa to be adorned with mirrors so she could admire herself no matter which way she turned. She was also said to have multiple lovers, many of whom disappeared mysteriously. Years passed, until one day, Lucida woke to discover a wrinkle on her face and recoiled in horror. The devil appeared to her just then to make her an offer. Lucida would remain young and beautiful for the next three decades, but at the end of that time, she would surrender her soul to him. Lucida, whose vanity eclipsed all other concerns, agreed.

After the thirty years had passed, the devil appeared to collect his due. Lucida suddenly realized the price she would have to pay for her beauty and fled. She climbed to the top of a nearby clock tower, but the devil was waiting for her. He threw her into a flaming carriage and began to race around the walls. It was pouring rain and the road was slick. Lightning flashed nearby, and by the time the thunder boomed overhead, the horses had driven off the walls, dragging the carriage with them into a nearby lake, where Lucida drowned. It’s said that her image can sometimes be seen reflected in this lake, now located amid Lucca’s botanical gardens, and that on nights with a full moon, it’s possible to see her ghostly carriage racing around the walls.

Conclusion
Since I first started studying Lucca’s medieval history almost twenty years ago, this city’s had a special place in my heart. There are also deep ties between Lucca and my country, the United States, which go all the way back to the founding of the U.S. in 1776. If you enter the Basilica of San Frediano, the same church where Santa Zita lies, and immediately turn right, you’ll find the Soccorso chapel, affectionately nicknamed the “American chapel.” Built in the late eighteenth century, the chapel happened to be consecrated on July 4, 1776, the official date the American colonies declared their independence from British rule. Making the connection, the Lucchesi began to associate the chapel with the United States. On September 11, 2001, when news of the terrorist attacks in the U.S. reached Italy, the people of Lucca gathered at the chapel to hold a vigil. By that evening, the crowds were too large to fit in the church and spilled out into the piazza and the surrounding streets. When the Bishop of Lucca offered to say Mass for the victims, he left his seat at the cathedral and came here, to the American chapel.

Travel is a privilege, and one that I never take for granted. I’m always grateful to experience a different culture, think in a different language, and steep myself in the history of a city where daily life takes place in buildings and structures that have stood for centuries, even millennia. After all, a city that’s existed since the third century BCE is bound to have gathered some interesting stories along the way. If you travel, even if that means just walking out your front door, I can’t recommend enough learning about the history and local lore of the places you visit and live. You’ll never see the world quite the same way again.

As for the legends of Lucca, well… Let’s just say I stay off the walls during the full moon.

Outro
If you enjoyed this episode, you can subscribe to Enchanted wherever you listen. This episode was produced by me, with original music by Purple Planet. You can find them at purple dash planet dot com. If you want to learn more about Lucca’s legendary history, be sure to check out the sources link in the show notes. Special thanks to Enchanted’s Patreon patrons for supporting the production of this and every episode. If you want to support Enchanted, please visit patreon dot com slash enchantedpodcast. If you’re looking for a way to support the show that won’t cost you anything, you can always give Enchanted: The History of Magic & Witchcraft a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts, Podchaser, Audible, or wherever you listen and recommend it to your friends. You can get in touch with me via email at enchantedpodcast at gmail dot com or follow on Facebook, Instagram, or Tumblr at enchantedpodcast and on Twitter at enchantedpod. As always, for more information and special features, visit enchantedpodcast dot net. I’m Corinne Wieben. Thank you for listening and stay enchanted.