ABSTRACT
The problem of Quietism or rather the problem of Quietism in its most corrupted forms and their immediate repercussions on a disciplinary, moral and sexual level led to the realization that the dangers that believers faced were as much inside the Church as outside. In the meantime, back in 1661 Fra' Alessio Mataluccio took an even more extreme stance in the pulpit by putting forward themes which were dangerously similar to those adopted by the libertines to prove the imposture of religion. The real danger not only lay in monasteries, schools of Christian doctrine and the restless nature of clerical life; a fundamental threat lay within the court itself. The episode of Cecilia Sacrati might have been extreme, but was the product of an underlying restlessness that characterized life in Venetian female monasteries. Cecilia Ongarato her maiden name was a cook's daughter from Padua who had taken the opportunity to marry William Stuart, an English descendant of James II.
