Heavenly Supper: The Story of Maria Janis

by Fulvio Tomizza, Anne Jacobson Schutte (Translation)

It is a winter morning in Venice, in 1622. Muted voices drift through a thin wall next door. Her curiosity aroused, a young woman peers through a crack in the door, only to witness a strange and disturbing a woman and a priest secretly celebrating communion. Troubled by what she sees, she reports the incident at confession. Her revelation leads to the arrest, jailing, and arraignment of the two for heresy before the Venetian Holy Office of the Inquisition.

So begins Fulvio Tomizza's absorbing account of the true story of Maria Janis, a devout peasant woman from the mountains north of Bergamo. Too poor to enter a convent, Maria had set out to serve God by relinquishing the little she had, through renunciation of all food but the bread and wine of communion. Encouraged by the restless village priest Pietro Morali, Maria claimed to have existed in this sanctified state for five years. During this time, she, Morali, and the weaver Pietro Palazzi travel from a little village in the Alps to Rome and then to Venice, where their alleged sacrilege is discovered and they are brought to trial. Both revered as a saint and reviled as a fraud, Maria with her "privilege" inspires and threatens believers within the Church. Combining the historian's precision with the novelist's imagination, Tomizza painstakingly reconstructs her story, crafting a fascinating portrait of sublimated love, ambition, and jealousy.

Heavenly Supper alternates a chronological account of the trial with analyses of each protagonist's life history. Along the way, Tomizza gives voice to the minds and hearts of his characters, allowing them to speak for themselves in their own words. The world he recreates resonates with the fervor of the Counter Reformation when faith and its consequences were rigidly controlled by the Church. As suspenseful as a detective novel, Tomizza's story goes beyond the trial to evoke a panoramic view of seventeenth-century Italian culture.

196 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1981

About the author

Fulvio Tomizza (Umago (then a part of Italy, now Croatia), 26 gennaio 1935 – Trieste, 21 maggio 1999) è stato uno scrittore italiano.
Nasce nel 1935 da una famiglia della piccola borghesia a Giurizzani presso a Materada (in croato Juricani), uno dei villaggi della penisola istriana, dove i suoi genitori erano proprietari di piccoli appezzamenti agricoli e si dedicavano con alterna fortuna a varie attività commerciali. In possesso di una naturale predisposizione nello scrivere e da una precoce senso dello spazio e per le arti figurative, ottenuta la maturità classica si trasferisce temporaneamente a Belgrado e a Lubiana e incomincia a lavorare occupandosi sia di teatro che di cinema.
Nel 1954, la Zona B del Territorio Libero di Trieste, con inclusa Materada, passa sotto l'amministrazione iugoslava e Tomizza, appena ventenne, benché legato alla sua terra da un sentimento d'appartenenza quasi viscerale, si trasferisce a Trieste dove risiederà per tutta la vita. La nostalgica lontananza dalla sua amata parrocchia di Materada, lo porta nel 1966 a pubblicare la raccolta Trilogia istriana che comprende i romanzi La ragazza di Petrovia (1963), Il bosco delle acacie (1966) e il suo primo romanzo Materada (1960). Gli ultimi anni della sua vita, però, li vive nella natia Materada e una volta scomparso, la locale comunità nazionale italiana gli intitolerà la propria sede sociale, con annesso teatrino.
Questi romanzi con le loro pagine di epica contadina inseriscono il giovane Tomizza nella variegata corrente europea degli scrittori di frontiera, e sono l'inizio di una estesa opera narrativa il cui tema costante è la perdita d'identità dei profughi istriani, al centro di complessi intrecci geopolitici, istituzionali e ideologici. Pubblica altri romanzi, alcuni sospesi tra la fantasia e la realtà quali L'albero dei sogni (1969), con il quale vince nello stesso anno il Premio Viareggio, altri vicini alla ricostruzione storica, si veda L'ereditiera veneziana (1989). In mezzo a questi due romanzi c'è una vasta narrativa, tra cui si ricorda La torre capovolta (1971), La città di Miriam (1972), L'amicizia (1980) e Il male viene dal Nord (1984). Con La miglior vita (1977) si aggiudica nello stesso anno il prestigioso Premio Strega.
Nel 2007 viene pubblicato Vera Verk, un dramma inedito in tre tempi (pubblicato da Ibiskos Editrice Risolo), ambientato nel 1930 in un paesino del Carso istriano. Il dramma è andato in scena per la prima volta nel 1963 a Trieste. Tra i protagonisti Paola Borboni, Fosco Giacchetti, Marisa Fabbri. Questa tragedia rusticana, che per certi versi può far pensare al Verismo di fine Ottocento o alle grandi tragedie del mondo classico - dove amore e morte, colpa ed espiazione si legano indissolubilmente una all’altra -, va in realtà inserita in un momento peculiare del teatro europeo del Secondo Novecento. È il momento in cui si incontrano le opere del Neorealismo italiana con le fortune di Brecht in tutta Europa, gli studi antropologici con la psicanalisi freudiana, il teatro del Grande Attore con la rinascita dell’Avanguardia: il tutto sullo sfondo di una sentita rivalutazione delle proprie tradizioni. Curatore dell'opera è Paolo Quazzolo (docente di drammaturgia).

Reviews

[Joselito Honestly and Brilliantly · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the first book translated into English by this Italian author Fulvio Tomizza who is quite well-known in Europe and who had won the Premio Strega, the most distinguished Italian literary award and likewise the Austrian State Prize for European Literature.

The protagonists here were real people who lived and died more than three centuries ago but who had managed to come back to us, through this book, which is based mainly on the transcripts of the trial they'd been a part of and which had fortunately been meticulously kept and preserved.

The setting was in Venice, mid 17th century. It was a time when the Devil was as real as the christian God and their battle in the spiritual plane was, by faith, reenacted here on earth. The Holy Office and its inquisitors were God's champions holding sway over the multitude of the people of the bible and Jesus Christ.

Morning of 14 January 1662, through a crack on the wall, the nosey 22-year-old Antonia, alone in their house with nothing to do, espied upon her neighbors at the next door apartment. She saw a lady (later identified as Maria Janis) taking communion from a man (later known to be a provincial priest). Thereafter, one thing led to another until the full might of the Venice Inquisition was upon them and their other companion.

But what the hell was wrong with what they were doing? Maria Janis was a girl from the mountains. Too poor to enter a convent so she could become a nun, she instead tried to become a saint. She found an ally in this restless village priest named Pietro Morali. When investigated, Maria said she had not taken any food for the past five years except the bread and wine of the holy communion. The priest Morali affirmed this.

And the Roman Catholic Church found this heretical. So hundreds of years ago they were investigated and tried, their lives and utterances were put on paper, the records survived, then Fulvio Tomizza was born, became a writer, found their story, wrote this book in Italian which Anne Jacobson Schutte thought of translating into English a copy of which was found by Joselito Honestly and Brilliantly who read it with utter enjoyment and found time to do a short review here, on this holiday of the Chinese New Year.