BIONDINI, Maria Arcangela. - Mystical writer, born on 12 June 1641 to Venetian parents in Corfu, where her father was governor, died at Arco (Trentino) on 23 November 1712. She entered (1655) the Servite nuns of Burano and there served as mistress of novices and abbess. She founded (1689) in Arco a monastery of enclosed Servites of the primitive observance, writing its constitutions, which received apostolic approval. During the French invasion (1702–1703) the nuns were exiled and the convent partly destroyed; she later received aid from Leopold and Joseph I. After an intense spiritual life with extraordinary manifestations, at her death she repeated to Fr. Angelo Zanetti, later her biographer, three times: “annihilation.”
She wrote much in prose and verse, almost all unpublished. Most of her manuscripts are preserved in Arco. We may note: Autobiography; Spiritual Lights; Compendium of Divine Love; Doctrine of Christ; Sermons and various discourses; Treatise on True Quiet Prayer and False; Treatise on Quiet; On Mystical Books.
The following have been printed, but are difficult to find: Banquet for the Sinner; Small Ray of Heavenly Light; One Hundred Spiritual Letters.