BEATA GERARDESCA. — Mystic, born in Pisa c. 1210 to Gherardo della G. Having received her initial education in a monastery of claustral nuns, she returned home and was induced to enter into marriage. After several years of holy wedlock, the couple, still childless, decided to separate, with the husband entering the Camaldolese monastery of S. Savino, while she lived as an oblate in a cell near the same monastery. Here G. spent the rest of her life, devoting herself to prayer, penance, and works of charity. She was favored with sublime visions and extraordinary revelations. The day and year of her death, which occurred c. 1261 (1269?), are unknown. She was buried in the church of S. Savino. Her life, presumably written by her confessor, is known from an ancient, somewhat mutilated manuscript formerly kept by the nuns of S. Silvestro.
GERARDESCA, BEATA
BIBL.: F. Ranieri, Vita della b. G., Venezia 1736; G. Sainati, Vita della b. G., vedova pisane, oblata camaldolese, Pisa 1838; id., in Vite di cinque beate pisane, Monza 1876; id., in Vite dei santi, beati e servi di Dio nati nella diocesi pisana, ivi 1884, 138-160; I. B. Vittorelli and D. A. Costadoni, Annales Camaldulenses, V, Venezia 1760, pp. 97-98, 100-102; the Acta Sanctorum discuss her in vol. VII on May 29, following the life of St. Bona, because it was G. who was revealed the heavenly glorification of St. Bona. Felice da Maroto