Angelina of Marsciano, Bl.
ANGELINA OF MARSCIANO, BL.
Founder of a congregation of Third Order Regular franciscans; b. Angelina Angioballi in Montegiove near Orvieto, 1377; d. Foligno, July 14, 1435; known also as Angelina of Corbara or of Foligno. She was married to John of Terni, Count of Civitella, at 15 and was a widow at 17. She became a Franciscan tertiary and converted her castle in the Abruzzi into a home for a community of tertiaries. She was so successful in persuading young girls of the area to choose a state of virginity and to enter the convent that she was denounced as a sorcerer and a Manichaean to Ladislaus of Durazzo, King of Naples. He dismissed the charges against her, but in 1395 he exiled her. She and her companions went to Assisi and then to Foligno, where they formed a community of which she became the abbess; in 1398 they made solemn profession and set up strict enclosure. Pope Martin V united her 16 foundations into one congregation, making her superior general in 1428. Evidences of her sanctity were noted at her death, and her body was found incorrupt in 1492. Pope Leo XII approved her cult in 1825.
Feast: July 21; July 13 (Franciscans).
Bibliography: a. butler, The Lives of the Saints, ed. h. thurston and d. attwater (New York 1956) 3:160–161. o. bonmann, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, ed. j. hofer and k. rahner (Freiburg 1957–65) 1:532.
[n. g. wolf]