IDA di TOGGENBURG, blessed. - A lay sister or recluse among the Benedictines of Fischingen from 1218, where she was buried. She died in 1226. Feast on 3 Nov. In 1481 Albrecht von Bonstetten published a Vita,
based on the legend of St. GENOVEFFA, SANTA (v.): I. was said to have been the daughter of Count Hartmann of Kirchberg (d. ca. 1110), founder of the monastery of Wiblingen, and the wife of a supposed Count Enrico of Toggenburg; he threw her from a window of the castle, but, miraculously saved, she continued to live as a hermit. A similar legend is connected with the castle of Braunsberg near Merano.
BIBL.: Many biographies reproduce the legend: A. Gemperlin, Histori V. der heil. Gräfin Via, Friburgo 1590; M. V. CODICE, I., Gräfin oder die wunderbare selige Einsiedlerin, oder der Todessturz vom 100 Ellen hohen Felsen, Passau 1840; anon., Das Leben der heil. Idda, Gräfin V. T., Einsiedeln 1864. - Critical studies: Acta SS. Novembris, II, Bruxelles 1894, pp. 102-20; E. Stübelberg, Die schweizerischen Heiligen des Mittelalters, Zurigo 1903, pp. 61-63; A. Zimmermann, I. von T., in L'ThK, V, col. 294 sg.; L. M. Kern, Die I.-Legende, Friburgo 1928.