Direzione spirituale e autorità eremitica. Paolo Giustiniani e le seguaci fiorentine di Gabriele Biondo

Among Paolo Giustiniani’s papers there is a dossier which contains some annotations against contemporary “false prophets”. The draft of a letter addressed to three Florentine ladies, Gabriele Biondo’s followers, are the subject of this study, that aims to show the various outcomes of the religious tensions that led both Giustiniani and Biondo to choose a secluded life on the Tuscan Appennine. While the hermit was committed in an extended reform of the entire Christianity, Biondo was the spiritual guide of a group focused on an interior and hidden religion, waiting for the final renovatio. Along with women’s participation, the occult character of such a devotion brought Giustiniani to identify it as a particularly dangerous heresy.