Between 1713 and 1724, Sister Francisca Josefa de la Concepción de Castillo (1671 – 1742) of Tunja, Nuevo Reino de Granada, wrote a spiritual autobiography (vida) under the direction of several confessors. In the early modern Spanish world, confessors often required nuns who demonstrated mystical gifts to write vidas as tools of self-exploration and as ways of assessing whether their visions derived from God or the devil. Castillo’s vida conforms structurally and thematically to this established genre, employing standard tropes such as early signs of mysticism in childhood, a calling to religious life despite parental disapproval, a humility bordering on self-loathing, and a strong denial of the corporeal, whether through obsessive fasting or self-mortification. The lives and writings of Saint Catherine of Siena (1347 – 80), Saint Teresa of Ávila (1515 – 82), and Saint Maria Magdalena of Pazzi (1566 – 1607) inspired Castillo, and similarities between their...
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