The Anointment of Dionisio: Prophecy and Politics in Renaissance Italy

In 1566 a flamboyant Frenchman who called himself Dionisio Gallo mesmerized crowds of onlookers as he preached in the courtyard of the ducal palace in Venice. Believing he had been anointed by the Virgin, he delivered a message of reform of church and society. Soon he was arrested, tried before the Inquisition, and banished. In The Anointment of Dionisio, Marion Leathers Kuntz tells the bizarre tale of this itinerant preacher, using his story to illuminate the checkered political and religi...