HolyPersons andHolyPlaces 187
this kind of holiness immediately. The daughter of Parisio and Emilia of
Metula, near Massa San Pietro, who would later become Saint Margherita
of Citta`di Castello ( 1287 – 1320 ), was born blind and deformed. After first
shutting the child up at home ‘‘as a penitent for her father’s sins,’’ the parents
later took her, at the age of seven, to the tomb of a local saintly Franciscan—
perhaps Fra Giacomo of Citta` di Castello. When nothing happened, they
abandoned her in the church.^44 The priests there disposed of her in a local
convent. But the nuns found her fervent piety a burden and expelled her. A
neighborhood family finally took her in. She set herself up as a lay penitent,
loosely affiliated with the Dominicans. Her real support came from the
neighbors who provided her with odd jobs, mostly teaching their children.
Her legenda, composed by a lay admirer, took the nuns and clerics to task
for failing to recognize the saint in their midst.^45 In contrast, Benvenuta
Bojani of Cividale in Friuli ( 1252 – 92 ) was fortunate enough to be born to a
pious family. Having taken up the life of penance at home under the direc-
tion of some local Dominicans, she too became incapacitated by ill health.
She bore this patiently until her death at the age of forty, occasionally enjoy-
ing visions and fighting off temptations of the Devil. Her own brother wrote
the vita celebrating her life.^46
Mystical gifts or miracles were not essential to these saints’ holiness—their
patience and single-minded piety marked them out.^47 Physical afflictions set
Fina, Benvenuta, and Margherita apart from other conventionally pious
women and provided an asceticism ready to hand. Female penitents who
enjoyed good health found the road to heroic sanctity hedged about by
convention. In the later 1200 s, pious women experienced growing pressure
to enter monastic orders. Oringa Cristiana of Lucca ( 1240 ?– 1310 ), born to
poverty, refused marriage and became a conversa.^48 After a pilgrimage, she
gathered a group of followers in the town of Castro Santa Croce. Local
mendicants gave her support and convinced the group to ‘‘regularize’’ their
life. Oringa and her followers obediently learned to read and chant the Of-
fice, settling into a more or less normal cloistered life in the monastery she
founded, Santa Maria Novella at Castelfiorentino.^49 Many chose to escape
conventual life by becominginclusae—anchoresses. Sibyllina Biscossi ( 1287 –
1367 ) went blind at the age of ten, but unlike Benvenuta, she found no family
to take her in. Instead, she entered an anchorhold and lived there for sixty-
44 .Legenda B. Margaritae de Castello, 9 ,p. 120 ; 14 ,p. 122.
45. Ibid., pp. 115 – 28.
46. Corrado of Cividale,Vita Devotissimae Benevenutae,pp. 152 – 85 ; Butler,Lives of the Saints, 4 : 223 – 24.
47. Cf. Kieckhefer, ‘‘Holiness and Culture,’’ 291 , who perhaps overemphasizes mystical experience.
48. On Oringa Cristiana, see Anna Benvenuti Papi, ‘‘Santitafemminile nel territorio fiorentino e lucchese: Considerazioni intorno al caso di Verdiana da Castelfiorentino,’’Religiositae societain Valdelsa nel basso Medioevo(Florence: SocietaStorica della Valdelsa, 1980 ), 113 – 44. Her life is edited inLegenda Beatae
Christianae,pp. 189 – 258.
49 .Legenda Beatae Christianae, 12 , pp. 197 – 98.