Unopened copy: (Failed) Attempt to promote nun’s beatification. No U.S. copies.

[Nuns] / [Domenica da Paradiso] / Giulio Cincio. Dominicae a Paradiso Florentinae fundatrici Optimae Monialium Sanctiss. Crucis. Oratio Coram Sanctissimo D. N. Papa Urbano VIII. Ad implorandam eius opem pro Beatific.ne dictae Servae Dei. Habita a Iulio Cincio Romano Sac. Concist. Aulae S. P. Q. R. Advocato Sereniss. Ferdinando Sibi soli secondo… Flor. apud Sermartellios, 1631 [colophon: Florentiae: ex Typographia Sermartelliana, 1631]. 4to [24.4 x 17.9 cm], [6] ff., the first leaf of which is full-page engraved title and the final leaf of which is its conjoined blank. Unopened and without sewing holes. Small separations at the folds.

Rare (no U.S. copies) first and only edition—here remarkably preserved in a copy that is unopened and was never sewn—of this 1631 oration addressed to Urban VIII with the intent of advancing the beatification process of the Dominican nun Domenica Narducci (1473-155), known as Domenica da Paradiso. It failed: She was never beatified or canonized.

Domenica Narducci was born on a farm in Florence, the daughter of a gardener who worked for the Convento del Paradiso al Bandino (Chiesa di Santa Brigida al Paradiso). She entered the Convento di Candeli (Chiesa di Santa Maria di Candeli). In 1511 she founded the Monastero della Crocetta. She was known to be a critic of Girolamo Savonarola (1452-98) and an advocate for the Medici.

Her beatification process began in 1611 at the instigation of the Medici family. “Around 1624-25 there was a resurgence in interest in Suor Domenica and her convent due to the presence in the convent of Princess Claudia de’ Medici and Princess Maria Maddalena de Medici. The first campaign was unsuccessful, and other attempts to have Suor Domenica canonized were made in 1630, when Urban VIII approved the formation of the beatification committee, and in 1749. Both campaigns were ultimately unsuccessful” (Meghan Callahan, p. 342).

Notable is the work’s engraved title page, which is headed by the Medici arms.

OCLC and KVK locate no U.S. examples of this work.

*IT\ICCU\CFIE\035420; Meghan Callahan, “Suor Domenica da Paradiso as alter Christus: Portraits of a Renaissance Mystic,” The Sixteenth Century Journal, vol. 43, no. 2 (2012), pp. 323-50.