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The Nuns of Sant'Ambrogio by Hubert Wolf
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The Nuns of Sant'Ambrogio

The True Story of a Convent in Scandal

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Narrator Paul Boehmer

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Length 15 hours 38 minutes
Language English
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In 1858, a German princess who had been recently inducted into the convent of Sant'Ambrogio in Rome wrote a frantic letter to her cousin, a confidant of the Pope, claiming that she was being abused and that she feared for her life. What the subsequent investigation by the Church's Inquisition uncovered were the extraordinary secrets of Sant'Ambrogio and the illicit behavior of the convent's beautiful young mistress, Maria Luisa. Having convinced those under her charge that she was having regular visions and heavenly visitations, Maria Luisa began to lead and coerce her novices into lesbian initiation rites and heresies. She entered into a highly eroticized relationship with a young theologian known as Padre Peters—urging him to dispense upon her, in the privacy and sanctity of the confessional box, what the two of them referred to as the "special blessing."



What emerges through the fog of centuries is a sex scandal of ecclesiastical significance, skillfully brought to light and vividly reconstructed in scholarly detail. Offering a broad historical background on female mystics and the cult of the Virgin Mary, and drawing on written testimony and original documents, Hubert Wolf tells the incredible story of how one woman was able to perpetrate deception, heresy, seduction, and murder in the heart of the Church itself.

Hubert Wolf is the author of Pope and Devil: The Vatican's Archives and the Third Reich and a professor of ecclesiastical history at the University of Munster. He was awarded the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize in 2003. He was also honored with the Communicator Prize and the Gutenberg Prize, and he was a fellow at the historical society in Munich. After his Abitur in 1978, he studied Roman Catholic theology at the University of Tubingen and the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1985. In 1992 he became a professor at the Goethe University Frankfurt, and in 1999 he moved to the University of Munster.

Paul Boehmer attended his first Shakespearean play while in high school; he knew then that he was destined to become the classically trained actor he is today. Graduating with a master's degree, Paul was cast as Hamlet by the very stage actor who inspired his career path. A nod from the Universe he'd chosen aright! Paul has worked on Broadway and extensively in regional theater. Coinciding with another of his passions, sci-fi, Paul has been cast in various roles in many episodes of Star Trek. Paul's love of literature and learning led him by nature to his work as a narrator for audiobooks, his latest endeavour. Paul is married to the love of his life, Offir, and they live in Los Angeles with their two midnight-rambling tomcats, Dread and David.

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Reviews

"This sordid tale of sexual indecency, false saints, and murder within a 19th-century convent in Rome has all the trappings of a good thriller." ---Publishers Weekly Starred Review Expand reviews