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The Medieval Church · c. 1354
The Mirror of True Penitence
Specchio di vera penitenza
Jacopo Passavanti · c. 1302–1357
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What it is
Lenten sermons on confession and penance, illustrated with vivid cautionary tales of the damned appearing to the living.
Why it lasted
A classic of early Italian prose, and evidence of how preachers used narrative terror in the years after the Black Death.
Where to read it
Public domain and free to read in full, though not held here. The archives below have it.
These open a search on each archive rather than a direct link, which is the honest way to point at an edition nobody here has checked line by line.
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