PREFACE

the others; accuracy according to the spirit, which infuses the author’s blood from one language into another. Without neglecting the first of these two types of accuracy, I have tried above all to commit myself to the second. I have tried to make live in English original: "français." The author is writing the preface to his French translation of the Latin original; this English version mirrors that intent for the current reader. the book that lived in Latin. I have tried to make the soul that cried in Latin cry out in English. I have tried to translate the tears.

Brother Arnaldo Arnaldo of Foligno was a Franciscan friar and Angela’s confessor; he recorded her visions in the "Memorial," often struggling to capture her intense experiences in his formal Latin., who wrote under Angela’s dictation, placed the two prologues you are about to read at the beginning of his book. I have also tried to preserve for this excellent man the traits that distinguish him: his profound respect and his admirable sincerity.

Angela’s life is a drama in which the spiritual life manifests as a visible reality. The secret truth becomes something tangible and palpable. It is no longer possible to mistake it for a dream; it is a drama full of blood and fire. By contrast, the outward life of dishonest men—the life without light, without truth, the life far from the Spirit—appears as a shadow, as a figure, as a ghost, and as a nightmare.

The affinity between intimate things and sublime things is the light that illuminates this drama, where height and depth give each other the kiss of peace This is a biblical allusion to Psalm 85:10, "Righteousness and peace have kissed each other," symbolizing the reconciliation of God and humanity..