The making of Mina Loy’s Christian Science in Florence, Italy

The poet and painter Mina Loy (1882–1966) maintained a life-long, idiosyncratic belief in Christian Science. However, little is known of her formative introduction to the faith in Florence, Italy, where she lived from around 1907 to 1916. Through original archival research, this article offers fresh biographical insight into Loy’s position within an overlooked transatlantic network of women involved in practical metaphysics. Being the first scholarly exploration of Florentine Christian Science, new historical details emerge on the faith’s localized circulation and reception. Identifying Loy’s participation in the community that gravitated around the practitioner Mary Helen Morris contextualizes Loy’s early identification with Christian Science. This occurred during a period of unprecedented expansion for the new religious movement in Florence, surrounding the 1908 launch of the Florentine Christian Science Society. For Loy, witnessing Morris’s instantaneous healings was transformative and set her future expectations for metaphysical healing.