La Vita s. Heliae. Una singolare opera agiografica in difesa della verginità

The Vita sanctae Heliae, an anonymous Latin text preserved in a collection of lives of female saints, is a hagiographic work defending the choice of the virginal life. Framed by a short narrative introducing the young protagonist, the three books contain a long dialogue between Helia and her mother, who is replaced by a bishop from the middle of the second book and by a judge in the third. By means of a fictional setting in which elements of school practice and narrative topoi typical of the romance genre can be discerned, the work aims to enliven the arguments in favour of virginity.