Joanna Maria della Croce, Venerable

JOANNA MARIA DELLA CROCE, Venerable. - Poor Clare (secular name Bernardina Floriani), b. at Rovereto on 8 Sept. 1603, d. there on 26 March 1673. She founded in Rovereto the Convent of the Poor Clares of St. Charles (1650), of which she was abbess; that of St. Anne, of the same Order, at Borgo Valsugana (1672); and she persuaded the condottiere Mattia Galasso to found one of the Carmelites at Le Laste di Trento.

A self-taught woman of high intellect, she studied mysticism, and at the age of 30, on the eve of Pentecost 1634, she had written the Evangelici spirituali sentimenti, composed of 20 discourses; important is her Esposizione del Cantico dei Cantici, followed by the Esclamazioni and various other ascetic opuscules, in which poems are scattered, not without grace and originality, for which reason G. must chronologically be considered the first poetess of Trentino.

The Curia of Trent in 1643 subjected G. to the Inquisition; but the judges, Fr. Teberelli, an Augustinian, and Fr. Alberti, a Jesuit, invited G. to continue writing.

She was favored by distinguished Carian figures and had a notable part in the political history of the region, in the terrible era of the Thirty Years' War, and she carried out a work of pacification.

Besides the aforementioned works, there remain by her unpublished an Autobiography in 3 vols. and a rich collection of letters; some of her opuscules were put into print. The cause of her beatification is in progress.

Antonio Rossaro