Cecilia Romana, Bl.
CECILIA ROMANA, BL.
dominican nun; b. Rome, c. 1200; d. Bologna, Italy, 1290. Cecilia Cesarini began her religious life in the
St. Cecilia. (Archive Photos)
monastery of S. Maria in Tempulo, Rome. In 1221 she moved with her community to S. Sisto, a reformed mon astery founded in that year by St. dominic, from whom the group received the Dominican habit and in whose hands they renewed their vows. In 1225 Cecilia and three other S. Sisto nuns were sent to Bologna to the monastery of S. Agnese, newly founded by (Bl.) jordan of saxony and (Bl.) Diana d'Andalo, in order to establish the Do minican life there. Cecilia was prioress of S. Agnese in 1237. Her reminiscences of Dominic, embodying much information about the foundation of S. Sisto, and including the only eyewitness description of Dominic's fea tures, were preserved in writing by another nun c. 1280. Her cultus was confirmed in 1891.
Feast: June 9.
Bibliography: a. m. walz, ed., "Die Miracula Beati Dominici der Schwester Cäcilia," in Miscellanea Pio Paschini, Studi distoria ecclesiastica, 2 v. (Rome 1948–49) 1:293–326. h. m. cormier, La Bienheureuse Diane d'Andalò et les bienheureuses Cécileet Aimée (Rome 1892). h. wilms, Geschichte der deutschen Dominikanerinnen (Dülmen 1920) 25–28.
[j. a. doshner]