The Story Of Natuzza Evolo: Calabrian Mystic
Natuzza was a Calabrian mystic who acted as a medium and healer, showed evidence of stigmata, and could âbi-locateâ â be in two different places at once. She is also connected with âhemography,â which is when blood stains miraculously transform into symbols, shapes, and even words, particularly Christian ones like crosses.
Natuzza was born in 1924 in Paravati, a tiny hamlet near Mileto in Calabria. Her given name is Fortunata, from which the diminutive âNatuzzaâ comes. Natuzzaâs father had left for Argentina a few months before she was born, and he never returned, leaving Natuzzaâs mother alone to care for her newborn as well as her other children.
Natuzza never learned to read or write and helped support her mother and siblings by working for local families. She allegedly began having her first visions as a small child â Jesus, it is said, appeared to her as a boy who played with her and one of her brothers â but her brushes with the dead didnât become popular knowledge around town until she began experiencing them as a young teen at work.
And it wasnât just apparitions with Natuzza, even as a child. At her First Holy Communion, her mouth reportedly filled with blood when the wafer symbolizing the body of Christ was placed inside. At her Confirmation, a large stain of blood in the form of a cross formed on the back of her shirt.
Because of Natuzzaâs experiences with the paranormal, as a young woman she was closed in an asylum with a diagnosis of "hysterical syndrome" for a few months by the local priest and was not permitted to enter a convent to become a nun.
Natuzza became known for the appearance on her body of blood-coloured images and words around the time of Easter and these caused her great psychological and physical pain. Some of the words were found to be Hebrew and Aramaic which was strange because she could not read or write, even in her native Italian. For decades devout Catholics from Calabria, then the rest of Italy and other parts of the world, began coming to her to ask for advice and prayers and to ask her for information about the souls of their relatives.
In addition to seeing Jesus, Natuzza also claimed to have also seen and communicated with the Virgin Mary, angels, and the dead, particularly souls in purgatory, throughout her life.
Natuzza was also considered a healer, credited with being able to look at a person and tell them what was ailing them, physically â using formal, medical terminology â as well as suggest treatments. She could also see the future and sometimes spoke in languages she didnât know (remember, again, she was illiterate). In fact, some of her blood stains even transformed into phrases in foreign languages.
However, Natuzza never accepted money for what she did or was accused of participating in anything fraudulent based on her abilities, which, in the eyes and hearts of many, lend credence to her and her followersâ claims.
"It's a question of removing the suggestive religious context from the event. It doesn't allow rational reading since it cloaks it in mythology and unprovable hypotheses," says the Italian Committee for the Checking of Pseudoscientific Claims, or CICAP.
The group believes the so-called stigmata cases are really examples of Gardner-Diamond syndrome, "a skin condition that, although rare, is well documented in medical literature." The syndrome gives rise to a series of periodic, painful and bleeding bruises of unclear origin, combined with psychiatric disorders such as self-harm.
Although sheâs relatively unknown internationally, Italians have been fascinated by Natuzza for generations as she has been a popular subject of books and various Italian television programs.
After Natuzza passed away on All Saintsâ Day in 2009, about 30,000 people traveled from all over Italy and beyond for her funeral in rural Calabria. One-hundred priests and six Italian bishops were also in attendance.
Follow us on Instagram, @calabria_mediterranea
areudirty
blakekathryn
tangentwithtanner
kianamaiart
pixelskylines
prguitarman
stormborns
