Benedetta Carlini (20 January 1590 – 7 August 1661) was an Italian Catholic nun who claimed to experience mystic visions. As abbess of the Convent of the Mother of God, at Pescia, she had a relationship with one of her nuns, Sister Bartolomea. These came to the attention of the Counter-Reformation papacy, determined to subordinate potentially troublesome mystics if they showed any signs of independent or heretical spirituality. Although they paid three to four visits to the nunnery, it was not until they interrogated Sister Bartolomea that they found that Benedetta and Bartolemea had engaged in sexual relations. Bartolomea gave testimony that Benedetta engaged in frottage with her while possessed by the spirit of a male demon known as Splenditello. Benedetta was stripped of her rank and imprisoned. Early life Benedetta Carlini was born on 20 January 1590 (St. Sebastian night), in the remote mountain village of , located in the Apennines, northwest of Florence. Her father was Giuliano, a rich and devout man who owned his house and several other properties in Vellano and a small farm nearby. Her mother was Midea Carlini (born Midea d'Antonio Pieri), a sister of the parish priest. Benedetta was an only child in her middle-class Italian family; Giuliano provided in his will that after his own and his wife's death, his house should be turned into an oratory dedicated to the Mother of God. Midea's labour was very difficult, painful and dangerous both for her and her daughter, both of whom survived. Giuliano had decided to name the girl Benedetta—meaning "blessed"—and dedicate her to God's service. Soon after her birth, her family retired to her father's farm in the mountains, where she was nursed by her mother and not a wet nurse. Benedetta's father educated her himself, an unusual choice in Renaissance Italian society, in which most girls took lessons from their mothers and were not very literate. Her education and upbringing were religious. At the age of five, she knew the litany of the saints and other prayers by heart. Under her father's tutelage, Benedetta would take the rosary and recite the litany several times a day. At the age of six, Benedetta learned to read and knew some Latin. Her mother instructed Benedetta to recite five Pater Nosters and eight Ave Marias every day, seemingly directing Benedetta toward female guides—the Virgin Mary, a statue of whom had been acquired especially for