Italian nun Benedetta Carlini was BOTD in 1590. Born in Vellano to a prosperous farming family, she was sent to live in a monastic order in Pescia when she was nine. In 1614, she began experiencing visions of Jesus and angels, which her superiors encouraged her to ignore. Over time, her visions darkened into dreams of gang rape, accompanied by physical pain, and she was assigned a young novice, Bartolomea Crivelli, to be her cellmate and companion. A few months later, Crivelli reported that Benedetta had received the stigmata (red marks on her body echoing Jesus’ crucifixion wounds). Her community hailed her as a mystic and she was elected abbess of the convent in 1619. Church officials, concerned about Benedetta’s growing reputation as a mystic, launched investigations into the truth of her claims. Under interrogation (and probable torture), Bartolomena confessed that she and Benedetta had a sexual relationship, reputedly under the influence of the Angel Splenditello. She was removed as abbess and imprisoned in the convent for the remainder of her life, dying in 1661 aged 71. Her story was popularised in historian Judith C. Brown’s 1986 biography Immodest Acts: The Life of a Lesbian Nun in Renaissance Italy, based on transcripts of the various judicial inquiries into Benedetta’s visions. The book was freely adapted by Paul Verhoeven into his 2022 film Benedetta, starring Virginie Efira as a rampantly lesbian Benedetta, who is masturbated by Bartolomena with a wooden statue of the Virgin Mary.