Nourishing Catholic souls in post‐Tridentine miracle narratives

The period of Catholic reform witnessed the proliferation of printed works that narrated historical and contemporary miracles for the edification of a vernacular readership. This article examines the role of printed miracle narratives in stimulating interior Catholic devotional life through close examination of three Italian vernacular collections printed in Italy between 1587 and 1597. Previous studies have focused on miracle stories where the resolution or prevention of earthly suffering in the forms of illness, miscarriages of justice, or accidents was the main event. Such narratives were designed to shape their readers' understanding of the culture of the miraculous and its relevance for their lives. This article takes a different approach to the role of the miraculous in early modern Catholicism by bringing narratives that had spiritual rather than physical outcomes to the centre of study. By bringing into focus the diversity of narratives compiled in miracle collections, it argues that stories also provided readers with opportunities to examine and tend to the state of their interior religious lives. This article offers a fresh perspective on the messages that early modern Catholics received about the value of the miraculous for their lives.