Geographies of the Sacred: Mystical Literature as a Source of Knowledge

Abstract

The reconstruction of the landscapes of the past, a classical theme of historical geography, is a typical case of concealed geography, intrinsically hidden from the view of the contemporary scholar. His work meets with increasing difficulties as time passes, considering the inevitable transformations that have occurred in the territory under study. The Holy Land, i.e. the land where the biblical events took place, is a typical example of this. Due to the scarcity of traditional geographical, cartographic and bibliographical sources, it is nowadays to archaeological research that we owe the most significant contributions, although nothing will ever replace coeval testimonials. This work studies the possibility of resorting to mystical literature as a source of knowledge. It is a grey area comprised between fiction and popular piety. After framing the question in the two main structures of religion and agnosticism, we shall summarize the stance of the Catholic Church, concentrating on the New Testament. We shall in particular compare the written works attributed to A. K. Emmerich and M. Valtorta, which provide us with a wealth of landscape descriptions.