Il Giardino spirituale di Arcangela Panigarola (1468-1525) e la devozione a Gesù Bambino. Note a margine, in «Analecta Augustiniana», LXXXIV 21, pp. 93-114

This work is intended to examine the "Giardino spirituale", a short treatise of devout spiritual exercises and instructions addressed to nuns, composed in the first quarter of the sixteenth century by Sister Arcangela Panigarola, a mystic and prophetess who lived in the Milanese Augustinian monastery of Santa Marta. After briefly outlining the figure and work of Sister Arcangela, the essay investigates the spiritual allegories relating to the celebration of the cult of the Child Jesus, linked to the idea that every daily gesture must be accompanied by meditation. Panigarola in fact invites her nuns to build, through prayer, the cradle of Jesus, as well as the «lenzoletto», the «fodretta», the «patolino», all devotional practices which, appear indebted to the tradition of monastic orthopraxis. Subsequently, it is demonstrated how the work fits beautifully into a precise pietistic circuitry – that of exquisitely feminine monastic ceremonials – and how everything seems to be linked to characteristic objects of devotion to the Divine Infant, particularly to portable cradles.