Bidspirit auction | [HISTORY] - A Saint in

[HISTORY] - A Saint in the Making? Life of Nun Florida Martelli - BERNARDINI Francesco XVIIIth century - BERNARDINI, FRANCESCO - Vita della serva di Dio donna Maria Florida Martelli religiosa professa dell'ordine di San Benedetto nel venerabile monastero di S. Tommaso della citta di Fabriano scritta dal sacerdote d. Francesco Bernardini ... Ancona: Nicola Bellelli, stampator Camerale, 1756. 4to (268x200 mm), contemporary ‘carta rustica’ pasteboard, worn on spine (once covered with colored paper), internally a good copy (outer margin of the portrait lightly browned, very light browning in places). At verso of title-page the engraved bookplate of a religious confraternity of Naples. Engraved frontispiece (by Antonio Baratti) depicting the portrait of the nun, nice woodcut headings, tailpieces and historiated initials at prelim. pages, pp. XII, 132, sign.: [*]6, A-Q4, R2. The dedicatory letter is to the apostolic nuncio Niccolò Oddi (1715-1767) and is signed in this first edition by a relative of the nun, Antonio Martelli, that hopes with the present work to inspire in the nuncio the idea of the possibility of beatification for Martelli, even if he doesn’t even touch this matter in all the 3 pages of the letter. First edition of this biography of a little-known Benedictine nun in Fabriano, near Ancona, who died at the tender age of 21, in an odor of sanctity. The last pages are containing the descriptions of some kind of half-miracles or sudden healings of sick people due to the devotion for her, and by the fact that due to the death of another nun, they had to open the tomb in the church (in order to put the body of the dead nun) where Florida has been buried and her body was still miraculously intact after 58 days. Italian SBN IT\ICCU\ANAE\014107, OCLC n. 886494506; according Worldcat there at Johns Hopkins there is the 2nd edition, but in 8vo, printed in Venice in 1758. (1)