The case of Sister Virginia stands out loudly for the reputation of the person concerned, for the murky and gloomy events that characterize her evolution, for the unexpected outcomes of the last part of her life.
Marianna, this is her first name, was born at the end of 1575 or in the early months of the following year by woman Virginia Marino, married in second marriage to Martino de Leyva.
The very early death of her mother and the systematic inattention of her father, who is engaged in continuous military campaigns, condemn her to an unhappy childhood marked by deep emotional loneliness, while around her family members are contending for the fruits of a considerable inheritance.
From 1589, with the new marriage of her father, Marianna is definitely addressed to monastic life, in deference to the dynastic and patrimonial line pursued by de Leyva.
The first stages of his religious journey proceed regularly: in 1591 he lives the year of the novitiate, since 1596, assumed the name of the mother, Sister Virginia Maria is a nun of the monastery of Santa Margherita in Monza.
The meeting with the young aristocrat Giovanni Paolo Osio marks a real turning point in Sister Virginia’s life. The relationship, which began in a conflictual way, is transformed thanks to the complicity of her peers and involves her in an increasingly intimate and murky way, even through crises and second thoughts.
After some abortions and the birth of a daughter, which Osio gets to legitimize in 1606, the affair is approaching its crisis point. The murder of a young conversation, determined to denounce the affair, which involves the same Osio, Sister Virginia and the group of conniving nuns, precipitates the situation.
Sister Virginia is translated in Milan under surveillance, in the Benedictine monastery of Sant’Ulderico; Osio, guilty of other murders, makes escape from the convent of Monza Sister Benedetta and Sister Ottavia, the main accomplices of Sister Virginia; then tries to kill them at different times and leaves them badly wounded on the way out.
They will be among the main witnesses of the trial instituted by the Milanese Curia. The Osio himself will be betrayed and killed by a friend to whom he had taken refuge, and his properties in Monza will be confiscated and destroyed.
In 1608 begins the complex celebration of the process, whose acts were published in full critical edition only a few years ago. The result is, among other things, the decree of condemnation for Sister Virginia, who lived in the shelter of the converts of Saint Valeria in Milan until 1622.
The complex and interesting procedural plot and the text of the different depositions, transcending the specific case, represent a singular historical source: they bring to light a true seventeenth-century microcosm, between denunciations of curses and pronouncements of exorcisms, exaltation of ascetic practices, examples of lustful temptations and corruption in the clergy (as shown by the case of the priest Paolo Arrigone, trustee of the relationship between the two lovers).
Deeply transformed, authentic shadow of the beauty and arrogance of the past, Sister Virginia is undermined in the physical by the years of captivity, but transformed in her own soul.
In the mid-twenties of the seventeenth century, a singular exchange of letters with Cardinal Federigo Borromeo ensues.
Sister Virginia de Leyva slowly disappears into the shadows, forgotten by her family and the fame of the century. A dry administrative record dated to the year 1650 records it as “passed to better life”.
