La mistica alle soglie del Novecento: espiazione e visione in Consiglia Rao da Miggiano (1840-1902)

This paper presents for the first time Consiglia Rao, a female mystic who lived in Miggiano between 1840 and 1902. Drawing on the book written by the woman’s brother, Giovanni Battista, the paper focuses on the supernatural phenomena chronologically recorded by the author which Consiglia experienced continually for more than thirty years. As soon as Consiglia decided to set up a local charity called the Pia Unione delle Figlie di Maria (the Pious Union of the Daughters of the Virgin Mary), the fierce opposition of the Devil and his infernal forces took on concrete form in a succession of violent beatings, floggings, demonic abductions, temptations to despair, the deprivation of Holy Communion, together with anorexia and vomiting of blood. These events, which indicate Satan’s reaction to Consiglia’s offering of herself to God as a «victim of expiation» for human guilt, are counterbalanced by celestial visions and divine communications, as well as Consiglia’s intercessory role for the souls in purgatory that often visited her.