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Maria Valtorta was born in 1897 in Caserta, Italy. In 1916 the Lord attracted her to Himself by means of a dream which was to remain vivid throughout her life. In an evangelical vision, which seemed to anticipate the waking visions of her literary work, Jesus aided Maria with words of admonishment and piety.
In her early 20's and in the spring of 1920, while walking along the street, she was struck in the back by a young delinquent. With an iron bar stripped from a bed, he came from behind and struck her with all his might. She remained confined to bed for three months, just a sample of what was to be her future complete infirmity. January 4th, 1933 was the last day Maria was able to leave her house and after April 1, 1934, she was no longer able to leave her bed.
Her activity as writer reached intensity from 1943 to 1947, and continued, diminishing progressively, until 1953. The notebooks written by Maria included almost fifteen thousand handwritten pages. A little less than one-third of this outstanding literary production concerns her monumental masterpiece on the Life of Jesus: THE POEM OF THE MAN-GOD. The minor works include extensive commentaries on bilical texts, doctrinal lessons, histories of the first Christians and martyrs and pious compositions. "I can affirm" - one of Maria's declarations reads - "that I have had no human source to be able to know what I write, and what, even while writing, I often do not understand."
Maria died in 1961 at the age of 65. With ecclesiastical permission, her mortal remains are now venerated in the Capitular Chapel in the Grand Cloister of the Basilica of the Most Holy Annunciation, in Florence, Italy. Chiseled on her tomb are the words: "DIVINARUM RERUM SCRIPTRIX" (Writer of Divine Things). Maria's home in Viareggio, has been beautifully restored so that pilgrims may visit the place where she lived & wrote. Viareggio ("way of the kings") is on the northwest coast of Italy, north of Pisa.
At age 15 in her school uniform. |
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In 1917 at the age of 21 Maria served as a Samaritan Nurse in Florence.
  
Maria at age 25. Maria's father, who was an officer in the Italian Cavalry. Her mother.
 
Maria Valtorta's Home in Viareggio, Italy. Maria's room where she did most of her writings.
Maria Valtorta on August 5, 1961. Maria obediently passed away on October 12, 1961, at the exact moment the priest said the words: "Depart from this world, O Christian soul." In 1944 Jesus had said to her: "How happy you will be when you realise that you are in My world forever, and that you have come there from the miserable world without even having been aware of it, passing from a vision to reality, just like a child dreaming of his mother awakens to find her embracing him. That is how I will behave with you." A few years earlier she had selected her burial attire, the baptismal veil which was to cover her head, and the phrase to be printed in her memory: "I have finished suffering, but I will go on loving."
The few, solemn visitors at her death were able to admire the brightness of her right hand (the one which had been defined as the "pen of the Lord") while her left hand was turning livid. And her knees, which had served as her desk, were visibly bent under her white dress, even now that she was laid down in the repose of death.
Tombstone of Maria Valtorta, DIVINARUM RERUM SCRIPTRIX (Writer of Divine Things).
Maria at the age of 10. |
