From Publishers Weekly
In his first book to appear in English, Italian writer Tomizza presents a probing, engrossing, scholarly account of 17th-century spirituality, mysticism, duplicity, crime and punishment during the Venetian Inquisition. Maria Janis, a peasant from the hill country, was observed receiving communion outside of a church. This "sacrilege" was reported to the authorities, and she and the priest who administered the sacrament to her were arrested. Supposedly, the bread Janis received in communion was all that she allowed herself to eat each day, and she claimed that she had observed this fast for five years, having renounced all other food as a religious sacrifice. The church tribunal sentenced Father Morali to prison for five years for the crime of consecrating and administering the host outside the confines of a church. Janis, who admitted that her fast was a hoax, was imprisoned for her "pretense of sanctity," then transferred, at her request, to "the pious establishment of the Mendicanti." Tomizza becomes the champion that Janis, who lived in an era of "religious emulation rather than of authentic mystical fervor," lacked; he finds her not "a shabby impostor" but, instead, "a climber on the ladder to paradise."
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
At the time of her trial before the Venetian Inquisition, Maria Janis, a devout peasant, claimed that for five years she had eaten nothing but the consecrated wafer and wine of communion. Her faith in God had sustained her in this sacred fast. In the first of his novels to be translated, Tomizza, winner of Italy's coveted Premio Strega, has re-created 17th-century Italy. Drawing on the testimony of the relatives, friends, and neighbors of Maria and her codefendant, the priest Pietro Morali, Tomizza portrays the conflict between the simple faith of the devout and the controlled religiosity of the Counter-Reformation. From the nosy neighbors who betray Maria to the pious blind count, hoping for a miraculous cure, the book teems with life in its fascinating account of holy anorexia. For large fiction collections.
- Andrea Caron Kempf, Johnson Cty. Community Coll. Lib., Overland Park, Kan.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Kirkus Reviews
The first of Italian novelist/historian Tomizza's 22 works to be translated into English, this is the creepy tale of a 17th- century religious ascetic caught on the borderline between intense devotion and self-deception. In 1662 Venice, a peasant peers through a crack in a boardinghouse door to witness a priest and a woman performing Mass. Such private services are forbidden; the couple is denounced to the Inquisition. The woman, it transpires, is Maria Janis of Bergamo, who challenges her accusers with the extraordinary assertion that she has eaten nothing for the past five years but the bread and wine of daily communion. Her priest, Pietro Morali, backs her claim. Through months of interrogation, the authorities grind down woman and priest until they confess: Janis has indeed fasted more ``than the greatest of the desert saints'' in a pathetic effort to become a living saint--but she has also swallowed salami, headcheese, and pasta when her suffering became too great. Tomazza offers scant sympathy for his protagonist, and none of the ``suspense and coup de thtre'' he promises. Nor does he seize the opportunity to probe with any depth issues of sanctity, authority, or eating-as-sacrament. He concludes that his interest in Janis is ``due not to her holiness but rather to her humanity''--but this quality resides in everyone: small justification for a turgid read. Unnourishing. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
About the Author
Fulvio Tomizza is the author of twenty-two books and three plays. His honors include the Premio Strega, Italy’s most distinguished literary award, and the Austrian State Prize for European Literature. Heavenly Supper is the first of his works to appear in English.
