Contained in:
  • Pain fragments
  • Edited by Tine Van Osselaer, Leonardo Rossi, Kristof Smeyers, Maria Heidegger
Book Chapter

Gemma Galgani: performing suffering and love

  • Noelia Bueno Gómez

This chapter presents a feminist hermeneutics of Gemma Galgani’s life and writings, examining her experiences and management of suffering within a cultural philosophy of pain. By expanding beyond categories of sanctity and hysteria, Galgani navigated extreme physical and mental suffering through performative and creative religious sublimation, linking pain with divine love. She uniquely constructed her holiness, seemingly born to it —a process that the Catholic Church later glorified—, revealing the flexible nature of sanctity. However, the essay highlights a tension: the living female body, the person, and the hagiographic character do not fully align. These discrepancies reveal the complexity and richness of the ascetic-mystic feminine self and its strategies for self-affirmation within a patriarchal context.

  • Keywords:
  • Gemma Galgani,
  • feminine mysticism,
  • atonement,
  • sanctity,
+ Show More

Noelia Bueno Gómez

University of Oviedo, Spain - ORCID: 0000-0001-8764-6549

  1. Avila, Teresa of. The Collected Works of Teresa of Avila, vol. II. Trans. Kieran Kavanaugh, and Otilio Rodríguez. Washington, DC: ICS Publications, 2012.
  2. Bell, Rudolph, M. and Cristina Mazzoni. The Voices of Gemma Galgani. The Life and the Afterlife of a Modern Saint. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2003.
  3. Bueno Gómez, Noelia. “Conceptualizing suffering and pain.” Philosophy, Ethics and the Humanities in Medicine 12, 7 (2017). DOI: 10.1186/s13010-017-0049-5
  4. Bueno Gómez, Noelia. “Self-management and Narrativity in Teresa of Avila’s Work.” Life Writing 15, 3 (2018): 305–20.
  5. Bueno Gómez, Noelia. “‘I Desire to Suffer, Lord, because Thou didst Suffer’: Teresa of Avila on Suffering.” Hypatia 34, 4 (2019). DOI: 10.1111/hypa.12488
  6. Bueno Gómez, Noelia. Filosofía del sufrimiento. Valencia: Tirant lo Blanch, 2022.
  7. Bueno Gómez, Noelia. Filosofía cultural del sufrimiento. Figuras de la ascético-mística cristiana femenina. Teresa de Ávila, Gema Galgani, Marta Robin y Simone Weil. Madrid: PPC, 2023.
  8. Carrera, Elena. “Pasión and afección in Teresa of Avila and Francisco de Osuna.” Bulletin of Spanish Studies 84, 2 (2007): 175–91.
  9. Cervero, Fernando. Understanding Pain. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012.
  10. Chiaia, María ed. El dulce canto del corazón. Mujeres místicas, desde Hildegarda a Simone Weil. Madrid: Narcea, 2006.
  11. Clark, Elizabeth A. Ascetism and Scripture in Early Christianity. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999.
  12. Cohen, Esther. The Modulated Scream. Pain in Late Medieval Culture. Chicago-London: University of Chicago Press, 2010.
  13. Constable, Giles. Attitudes Toward Self-Inflicted Suffering in the Middle Ages. Brookline (MA): Hellenic College Press, 1982.
  14. Dörr-Zegens, Otto. “Das physische Leiden des Genies: Der Fall Rainer Maria Rilke.” In Die Wahrheit der Begegnung: anthropologische Perspektiven der Neurologie, hrsg. von R. Jacobi, P. Classen, P. Wolff, 431–48. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2001.
  15. Freud, Sigmund. Das Unbehagen in der Kultur. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Verlag, 2007.
  16. Galgani, Gemma. La gloria de la cruz. Autobiografía. Diario espiritual. Cartas. Éxtasis. Otros escritos. Madrid: BAC, 2016.
  17. Galgani, Gemma. Diario, 1900. <https://www.stgemmagalgani.com/> (accessed on April 18, 2022).
  18. Galgani, Gemma. Autobiografia, 1901. <https://www.stgemmagalgani.com/> (accessed on April 18, 2022).
  19. Galgani, Gemma. Sola con Gesù solo. Colloqui estatici della stimmatizzata di Lucca. Milan: San Paolo, 2002.
  20. Galgani, Gemma and Pablo García Macho. Cartas de santa Gema Galgani a su director espiritual, P. Germán de San Estanislao, pasionista. Madrid: Edibesa, 2015.
  21. Goehring, James E. Ascetics, Society, and the Desert. Norcross, GA: Trinity Press International, 1999.
  22. González de Cardedal, Olegario. Cristianismo y mística. Madrid: Trotta, 2015.
  23. Guitton, Jean. Portrait de Marthe Robin. Grasset, 1985.
  24. Le Breton, David. Antropología del dolor. Barcelona: Seix Barral, 1999.
  25. Kane, Paula. “‘She Offered Herself up’: The Victim Soul and Victim Spirituality in Catholicism.” Church History 71, 1 (March 2002): 80–119.
  26. Maraini, Dacia. Clara de Asís. Elogio de la desobediencia. Madrid: Altamarea, 2013.
  27. Marcos, Juan Antonio. Mística y subversiva: Teresa de Jesús (Las estrategias retóricas del discurso místico). Madrid: Editorial de Espiritualidad, 2001.
  28. Mazzoni, Cristina. Saint Hysteria. Neurosis, Mysticism, and Gender in European Culture. New York: Cornell University Press, 1996.
  29. Mazzoni, Cristina. “Visions of the Mystic/Mystical Visions: Interpretations and Self-Interpretations of Gemma Galgani.” Annali d’Italianistica: Women Mystic Writers 13 (1995): 371–86.
  30. McGlynn, Michael. “Saints Who Make Themselves Sick: A Note on Teresa de Jesús and the So-Called Placebo Effect.” Bulletin of Spanish Studies 88, 3 (2011): 341–47.
  31. Morales, Cristina. Introducción a Teresa de Jesús. Barcelona: Anagrama, 2020.
  32. Moscoso, Javier. Historia cultural del dolor. Madrid: Taurus, 2011.
  33. Robin, Marthe. Journal. Décembre 1929-Novembre 1932. Les Cahiers de Marthe Robin. Châteauneuf-de-Galaure: Editions Foyer de Charité, 2012.
  34. San Estanislao, Germán de, and Basilio de San Pablo. Santa Gema Galgani. Madrid: Palabra, 2018.
  35. Vandermeersch, Patrik. Carne de la Pasión. Flagelantes y disciplinantes. Contexto histórico-psicológico. Madrid: Trotta, 2014.
  36. Weber, Alison. Teresa of Avila and the Rhetoric of Femininity. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990.
  37. Weil, Simone. Oeuvres. Paris: Gallimard, 1999.
PDF
  • Publication Year: 2026
  • Pages: 75-92
  • Content License: CC BY 4.0
  • © 2026 Author(s)

XML
  • Publication Year: 2026
  • Content License: CC BY 4.0
  • © 2026 Author(s)

Chapter Information

Chapter Title

Gemma Galgani: performing suffering and love

Authors

Noelia Bueno Gómez

Language

English

DOI

10.36253/979-12-215-1072-0.06

Peer Reviewed

Publication Year

2026

Copyright Information

© 2026 Author(s)

Content License

CC BY 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

Bibliographic Information

Book Title

Pain fragments

Book Subtitle

Practising Catholicism in the 19th and 20th centuries

Editors

Tine Van Osselaer, Leonardo Rossi, Kristof Smeyers, Maria Heidegger

Peer Reviewed

Number of Pages

184

Publication Year

2026

Copyright Information

© 2026 Author(s)

Content License

CC BY 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

Publisher Name

Firenze University Press

DOI

10.36253/979-12-215-1072-0

ISBN Print

979-12-215-1071-3

eISBN (pdf)

979-12-215-1072-0

eISBN (epub)

979-12-215-1073-7

Series Title

Fragmentaria. Studi di storia culturale e antropologia religiosa

Series ISSN

2975-1217

Series E-ISSN

2975-1225

0

Fulltext
downloads

0

Views

Export Citation

1,515

Open Access Books

in the Catalogue

3,534

Book Chapters

6,532,075

Fulltext
downloads

5,713

Authors

from 1200 Research Institutions

of 67 Nations

80

scientific boards

from 418 Research Institutions

of 46 Nations

1,439

Referees

from 411 Research Institutions

of 41 Nations