Page:A Dictionary of Saintly Women Volume 1.djvu/72

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58 VEN. ANGELA and those who had dreadful sores ; they made the beds, and said words of con- solation and kindness to the poor sick people. When Angela was dying, 1309, she said, "Now my sonl is washed and cleansed in the blood of Christ. He will not send saints or angels for me, He will come Himself." She was buried in A chapel of the church of St Francis in Foligno. She was beatified by Innocent XII. in 1693. Jacobilli, Santi delV Umhria^ gives other incidents of her life besides these. There exists a very curious little book of Visiems and Instructions^ dictated by her to Arnold, a Franciscan monk and her confessor, and revised by her after he had written it. He adds some little explanations and an account of her death. A copy in the British Museum is sup- posed to have been printed at Venice in 1500. It is reprinted as Part V. of the Btbliotheca Mystica et Ascetica^ 1849. There is an English translation by a secular priest. In this book Angela tells that, while she was trying to repent and was being converted, she went through 18 steps before she arrived at knowing the imperfections of her life. Collin de Plancy gives a short sketch of her in his Saintes et Bienheureuses. Eussy, in his Courttsannes de venues Saintes^ mistakenly gives the date of her death as 1588. Boll., AA,SS., Jan. 4. A.B.M., Mart, Seraphici Ordinisy March 30. Ven. Angela (3) Chigi. I4th century. 3rd O.S.A. Of the powerful family of the Chigi, lords of Macerate. Niece of B. John Chigi of Siena, for some time a monk in the old convent of Yal dAspra. She gave all her goods to the convent of Sant Antonio at Yal -d'Aspra, and took the veil there in 1306. Bepresentations of her as a saint, and bearing the title of "Blessed," were common in Italy. A short history of her life was appended to that of her holy uncle, published in Borne by Father Oapizucchi, master of the sacred apostolic palace. Torelli, Secoli Agostiniani, VI. B. Angela (4). A Eoman of the Order of Hospitallers of the Holy Ghost. 'f c, 1459. In Van Lachom's Collection of Foundresses of Orders, published 1639, she is represented with a cross crosslet on her cloak. Guenebault, Did. Icono^ graphique. B. Angela (5) of San Sevorino, in the march of Ancona. O.S.D. Perhaps 14th century. Pio. B. Angela (6) Serafina, March 24, Feb. 4 (Angelica Sebaphina, Corrb- oiABA, Cobtbeoiaba). '|'1512. Dominican nun, under B. Antonia op Brescia, in the convent of St. Cathebine the Martyb, at Ferrara. She was never guilty of mortal sin, and died in the odour of sanctity. Henschenius, in the AA.SS.i mentions Angela as a disciple of Antonia, but places her among the Prsetermissi, March 24. Serafino Bazzi, Predicatori. Pio, Uomini Blusiri per Santita, Feb. 4. St. Angela (7) de Merici, May 31, Jan. 27, Feb. 21, June 2. Called also St. Angela of Brescia. 1470 or 1474- 1540. Founder of the Order of Ursn- lines. Bepresented with a ladder beside her. Born at Desenzano, a little town on the western shore of the lake of Gkirda, six or seven leagues from Brescia. Her father was Giovanni Merici; her mother, of the family of Biancosi, of Sale. They were in a comfortable and respectable position, and were exemplary and religious. They had several chil- dren, of whom Angela was the youngest. Every evening they gathered their little flock together for religious reading, sometimes from the Bible, sometimes from accounts of the hermits and fathers of the desert. Angela and her sister, like most children of any imagination, dramatized these stories, and played at hermit life in their own room. They were still very young when both their parents died, and the two sisters went to live with their mother's brother, at Sale. Soon after they had taken up their abode in their uncle's house, both girls excited great consternation ^ by their disappearance. After an ansious search, Biancosi found the children in a cave, where they had withdrawn from the world, with the intention of living like hermits. He brought them home, but encouraged their taste for religious seclusion. It was, perhaps, at this time