Gambacorta, Chiara, Blessed

GAMBACORTA, Chiara, Blessed. - Born in Pisa in 1362 to Pietro G., governor of the city. At the age of seven she was betrothed to the young Simone di Massa; but she had already offered herself to God, fasting, praying and dedicating herself to the service of the most repugnant of the sick. She was barely fifteen when Simone died prematurely: then she cut her hair, abandoned her rich garments and took refuge in a convent of Poor Clares, where she gave up her name of Tora (a diminutive of Teodora), assuming that of Chiara. But her brothers, who looked unfavorably upon the ardent vocation of the young conversa, dragged her by force from the convent, holding her prisoner for five months. Yet, faced with the heroic irremovability of their sister, they ended up allowing her to enter among the Dominicans of Pisa.

The tragedy which shortly thereafter brought ruin upon her noble family reduced her to a state of such acute prostration that her recovery was despaired of. Once restored, she wished, with evangelical charity and noble magnanimity of soul, to succor those very Appiani who had done so much harm to her loved ones. In 1584 she founded the monastery of St. Dominic in Pisa, with a very strict rule, to which she herself was the first to submit, despite her frail physical constitution, giving a wonderful example of self-denial, zeal and holiness of life. She died still young on 17 April 1419. Pius VIII in 1830 approved her cult. Of her activity as a religious and of her sincere faith, certain Letters bear witness (cf. the edition edited by C. Guasti, Livorno 1871), in which a poetic Franciscan ingenuousness alternates with attitudes and cadences reminiscent of Catherine.

Antonio Altamura