Vita e morte della Serva di Dio Suor Maria Teresa de Liguori, Monaca nel Ven. Monastero del Santissimo Sacramento in Napoli dell'Ordine di S. Maria Maddalena de Pazzi e defunta nell'anno 1724

Description

Fonte a stampa | OPERE ASCETICHE, in “Opere di S. Alfonso Maria de Liguori”, Pier Giacinto Marietti, Vol. IV, pp. 669 - 677,Torino 1880
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Fonte della trascrizione elettronica | P. Salvatore Brugnano, CSSR

from Miller, C.SS.R's biography:

With the success of his son's career now assured, Don Joseph began to think of giving him the further advantage of a brilliant marriage. In the peremptory and rather mercenary fashion of the times, he looked about among the nobility of Naples for a sufficiently prominent bride for his son. His gaze rested upon Donna Teresa, the only child of his kinsman, Don Francesco de' Liguori, who was the wealthy Prince of Presiccio. The match seemed equally inviting to both the Prince and Don Joseph: to the former because all Naples was sounding the praises and prophesying the great career of Alphonsus, and to Don Joseph because Donna Teresa would, as an only child, inherit her father's wealth. So it was agreed and the date just about set for a solemn betrothal. Before the date came round, a son was born to the Prince, crushing Don Joseph's hopes of a large inheritance for his son's wife. With characteristic impetuosity he called the agreement off, deciding to look around for a more promising candidate. Donna Teresa took the veil as a Carmelite nun three years later, in 1724. What the feelings of Alphonsus were throughout the whole affair we do not know, but thirty-seven years later he wrote the life of Donna Teresa at the request of the mother superior of her convent, a task he would hardly have assumed had not the event in some way influenced the course of his life.