Heavenly beauty: the eternal reward for earthly suffering. Stories of prodigies and corporeal phenomena in nineteenth-century Italy

This article will consider the physical signs of mysticism, particularly the pattern linking the redemptive pain suffered by “victim souls” during their lifetime and the “celestial beauty” of their corpses after death. Attention is paid to the meanings attributed to these prodigies by the faithful and the clergy, the practices developed around them, and the popular cults linked to these miracles. Through selected case studies of nineteenth-century Italy, we will see how the different groups interpreted exceptional phenomena, giving them different meanings and explanations and responding to them differently, divided between acceptance and condemnation.