The Nuns of Sant'Ambrogio: The True Story of a Convent in Scandal

In 1858, a German princess sent terrified letters from a Roman convent claiming she was being abused and feared for her life. The Vatican Inquisition investigation that followed uncovered a web of illicit behavior centered on the convent's young mistress, whose claims of divine visions had given her enormous power over her novices. German historian Hubert Wolf reconstructed the entire investigation from documents in the Vatican's secret archive, producing a meticulously sourced account of religious authority corrupted from within.

Paul Boehmer narrates this scholarly true crime account with the gravity and precision the material demands, navigating the complex ecclesiastical context and the intimate testimony of the investigation with equal authority. The archival basis of the narrative gives the audiobook an unusual documentary texture, and Boehmer's voice provides a trustworthy guide through the material's considerable complexity. At under sixteen hours, this is a genuinely startling piece of recovered history.