ABSTRACT
Like little Angiolina * some twenty years later, Elvira Boattini spent the last years of her life in the Carmel of S. Maria Maddalena de’ Pazzi at Florence, although not in the same actual building, for while Elvira passed the days of her cloistered life in the more ancient Carmel of Borgo Pinti, to which the Community moved from their first convent at Cestello, a few years after the death of S. Maria Maddalena de’ Pazzi, Angiolina spent hers in the new convent to which the Community migrated not long after Elvira’s death. There is not only a contrast in the age of these two beautiful souls, Angiolina dying at the age of thirteen like some sweet spring flower which dies before its petals can unfold, while Elvira’s life was prolonged to the same duration as that of our Lord’s, but there is a contrast in their social position, for little Angiolina is a child fresh from the countryside, while Elvira belongs to the city and to a socially well-established family of Florence.
