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Bonkers Crimes and Criminals In History

Khalid Elhassan February 7, 2020 32 min

Thomas Blood - Royal Academy of Arts — Colonel Blood Stealing the Crown Jewels. Royal Academy of Arts

27. History’s Worst Nun?

The Nun of Monza, by Mose Bianchi. Pinterest

Marianna de Leyva y Marino (1575 – 1650) was born to a wealthy banking family in Milan. Her mother died during Marianna’s infancy, so her father dumped her on an aunt to raise her, and forgot about her as he pursued his business affairs across Europe. At age thirteen, her dad remembered her long enough to force her into a convent in Monza.

Somewhere along the line during those years of childhood neglect, something went wrong, and Marianna went off the edge. By the time the dust had settled, she had shacked up with a criminal lover, had multiple illegitimate children, and went on a crime spree that featured murder and blackmail. And just for flavor and to add to the crazy, Mariana took a stab at eating human shit.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.