GIOVANNA MARIA della CROCE, venerable. – Poor Clare (in the world Bernardina Floriani), born at Rovereto on 8 Sept. 1603, died there on 26 March 1673. She founded at Rovereto the Convent of the Poor Clares of S. Carlo (1650), of which she was abbess; that of S. Anna, of the same Order, at Borgo Valsugana (1672); and persuaded the commander Mattia Galasso to found a Carmelite convent at the Laste of Trento.
A self-taught woman of great intelligence, she studied mysticism, and at the age of thirty, on the eve of Pentecost in 1634, had written the Evangelici spirituali sentimenti, consisting of twenty discourses. Important is her Esposizione del Cantico dei Cantici, followed by the Esclamazioni and various other ascetical works, throughout which poems are scattered, not without grace and originality; chronologically, therefore, G. must be regarded as the first woman poet of Trentino.
In 1643 the Curia of Trento brought G. before the Inquisition; but the judges, Fr. Teberelli, an Augustinian, and Fr. Alberti, a Jesuit, urged G. to continue writing.
She was favoured with remarkable charisms and played a notable part in the political history of the country during the terrible period of the Thirty Years’ War, carrying out a work of pacification.
Besides the works mentioned above, there remain unpublished an Autobiography in three volumes and a rich correspondence; some of her shorter works were published. The cause of beatification is in progress.