TERESA di GESÙ MARIA. — Discalced Carmelite, in the world Maria de Pineda y Zurita, born in Toledo on 1 October 1592, died at the Carmelite convent of Cuerva on 9 January 1641.
She entered the monastery at the age of nine, without any literary or scientific preparation, and left behind manuscripts of theologically profound works, true jewels of Castilian literature: her autobiography, a mystical exposition of the Lamentations of Jeremiah, and commentaries on various passages of Scripture. They were edited by Manuel Serrano y Sanz in the Biblioteca Renacimiento collection under the title: Las Obras de la sublime escritora del Amor Divino por T. de Jesús María Carmelita Descalza del siglo XVII (Madrid 1921), with an excellent critical study of the author’s life and writings, until then almost completely ignored.