Friar Marcellus de Pratis, a religious of the order of the Minors, was condemned in Sicily by the inquisition (because he had rashly feigned himself a saint, impeccable, confirmed in grace, and had pronounced other scandalous and rash propositions) to the gallies for three years, to be banished for two more into such a convent of his own religion as should be assigned him, with this addition; that he should fast every Friday on bread and water, eat upon the ground in the refectory, walk without his hat, and sit in the lowest place in the choir and refectory, and be perpetually deprived of his active and passive vote, and of the faculty of hearing any persons confessions whatsoever. One Mary of the Annunciation, prioress of the monastery of the Annunciation at Lisbon, a maid of thirty-two years old, had pretended that the wounds of Christ, by the special grace and privilege of God were imprinted on her, and shewed thirty-two wounds made on her head, representing the marks of those which were made by our Saviour’s crown of thorns, and blood sprinkled on her hands like a rose, the middle of which was like a triangle, and shewed the holes of the nails narrower on one side than the other. The same were to be seen in her feet. Her side appeared as though it had been laid open by the blow of a lance. When all these things were openly shewn, it was wonderful to see how they raised the admiration and devotion of serious and holy men, and withal surprized and deceived them; for she did not suffer those pretended wounds to be seen otherwise than by command of her confessor. And that absent persons might have a great veneration for her, she affirmed, that on Thursdays she put into the wounds a small cloth, which received the impression of five wounds in form of a cross, that in the middle being the largest. Upon which these cloths were sent, with the greatest veneration, through the infinite devotion of the faithful, to the pope, and to almost all the most venerable and religious persons of the whole world. And as Paramus then had the administration of the causes of faith in the kingdom of Sicily, he saw several of those cloths, and the picture of that woman drawn to the life; and a book written by a person of great authority concerning her life, sanctity, and miracles. Yea, Pope Gregory XIII. himself determined to write letters to that wretched creature, to exhort her thereby to persist with constancy in her course, and to perfect what she had begun. At last the imposture was found out, that the marks of the wounds were not real, but made with red lead; and that the woman’s design was, when she had gained authority and credit enough, by her pretended sanctity, to recover the kingdom of Portugal to its former state, which had legally fallen under the power of Philip II. Upon this the following sentence was pronounced against her by the inquisitors of Lisbon, December 8, anno 1588. First, she was commanded