Thinking on the woman and her body parts. Our bodies being our own kind of thing. Maybe you know this already. I was set back just now reading about Teresa de Avila’s body parts being cut off and out, and held by different people and in different places–this after her death, and during exhumations, and including thefts of her body. Human beings can be so weird. Did they all want a part of her ecstasy?
The body is now back in Alba de Tormes, Spain, except for the following parts:
- Rome – right foot and part of the upper jaw
- Lisbon – right hand
- Ronda, Spain – left eye and left hand (the latter was kept by Francisco Franco until his death, after Francoist troops captured it from Republican troops during the Spanish Civil War)
- Museum of the Church of the Annunciation, Alba de Tormes – left arm and heart
- Church of Our Lady of Loreto, Paris, France – one finger
- Sanlúcar de Barrameda – one finger
Marianne Maili 