GEMMA GALGANI, Saint. — Virgin, born at Camigliano (Lucca) on 12 March 1878, died at Lucca on 11 April 1903. Docile to the teachings of her most pious mother (Aurelia Landi), from childhood she had a lively desire for heaven and a holy devotion to the Crucified Jesus. She attended the schools of the Sisters of St Zita in Lucca and had as her teacher the foundress herself, Sister Elena Guerra. Orphaned of her mother at the age of eight, she also lost her father, a pharmacist, at nineteen; after which the family found itself in the most squalid poverty. A pious lady of Lucca, Cecilia Giannini, took her into her home, where she lived until her death, together with the large family of the pharmacist Matteo Giannini.
God willed to enrich this faithful servant with singular gifts. Ecstasies were very frequent in her, with Jesus Christ, the Virgin, the saints, and particularly her guardian angel appearing to her with great affability; this angel repeatedly carried her letters to her extraordinary director, Fr Germano di S. Stanislao, Passionist. She also participated, in a sensible manner, in the sufferings of the Redeemer: bloody sweat, scourging, crowning with thorns, stigmata on her hands, feet and side; all these things, however, ceased by the will of her confessor, the Servant of God Msgr Giovanni Volpi, bishop. The pains, especially those of the spirit, did not cease, however, which G. bore together with frequent and long illnesses, with generous spirit, as a victim of expiation for the sins of men. Her particular virtues were a burning love for the Crucified Jesus, united with an unquenchable thirst for sufferings. Her characteristic was an ingenuous simplicity, which she manifested both in dealing with God and with men. A copious epistolary and other writings of hers, published in print, exist which allow one to follow her in her mystical ascents. The marvellous conversations of her ecstasies were also collected by eyewitnesses and published after her death. She was beatified by Pius XI in 1933 and canonized by Pius XII in 1940. Her body is venerated in the sanctuary erected in her honour at Lucca, near the monastery of the Passionists.
G. edited by the Postulation of the Passionist Fathers, Rome 1971, p. 231.
On S. G. the stigmata are attributed to the demon.
Diary, autobiography, various writings of S. G. G., 2 vols., 1943; Suor Cesaula dello Spirito Santo, S. G. G.: un fiore di Passione della città del Volto Santo, 2 vols., 1944; Icilio Felici, S. G. G., Florence 1940; Pietromarchi Maria Eugenia, S. G. G., 2 vols. (Vittoriosi); Piergiorgio Bonardi, S. G. G., Varese 1949.