About Maria Valtorta
Maria Valtorta (14 March 1897 – 12 October 1961) was an Italian Catholic writer. A Franciscan tertiary and a lay member of the Servants of Mary, she reported that she had personal conversations with, and dictations from, Jesus Christ. She lived much of her life bedridden in Viareggio in Tuscany. She is best known for her 5,000 page book The Poem of the Man-God, first published in 1956 and later titled The Gospel as Revealed to Me. The book was mostly written from 1944 to 1947 and was later translated into many languages. The book was placed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum in 1959. In 2025, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith stated that her writings do not have a supernatural origin. Various Biblical experts, historians, and scientists continue to support and criticize the book to this day. Her work has been compared to the writings of other Catholic authors claiming visions and yearly conferences have been held in Italy regarding her works. The First World War (1914–1918) started about a year after the Valtorta family had settled in Florence, and Italy entered the war in April 1915 on the side of the allies. Valtorta signed a contract with Michele Pisani in 1952 to publish the book, and the first of the four volumes was published without an author name under the Italian title Il Poema di Gesu (i.e. "The Poem of Jesus"). Nonetheless, the first four-volume edition of the book was published anonymously.
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