Nonnormative Sexualities, Gender and Conversion in the Mediterranean World: The Case of Susanna Daza

y. Susanna Daza, a morisca (that is, a “new Christian” of Muslim origins) was tried by the Sicilian Inquisition for having first professed the Muslim and then the Jewish faith, yet without ever officially denying Catholicism. While her multiple conversions were triggered by her relationships first with a Muslim man and then with a Jewish partner, none of these ties were ever sealed by marriage. According to the sources, it seems that she was rather free in her sexual conduct throughout her life. Then, after her second relationship ended, she allegedly decided to integrate into her daily life religious practices from all of the faiths to which she had drawn close, thus creating a unique mosaic of symbolic and ritual gestures that were accompanied by her lukewarm and formalistic participation in the shared rites of the post-Tridentine Catholic liturgy