MONTALDI, PAOLA, blessed. - Poor Clare, born at Volta Mantovana in 1443, died on 18 Aug. 1514. As a child she was called “little saint.” At the age of 14, in 1458, she entered the Urbanist Poor Clares of the monastery of S. Lucia in Mantova, where she soon attained lofty mystical heights, with ecstasies and raptures. Her fellow sisters elected her abbess, to their great spiritual profit. As the fame of her virtues spread, many came to commend themselves to her prayers and to receive counsel. Pius IX approved her cult on 6 Oct. 1866.
BIBL.: A. Baccanti, Vita e gesta della b. P. M., monaca professa nel monastero di S. Lucia in Mantova, Casalmaggiore 1772; Positio super cultu imm., Roma 1866, and Super Officio et Missa, there 1867; Analecta iuris pontificis, 9 (1867), cols. 390-91; Acta SS. Octobris, VI, Parigi 1869, pp. 207-25; P. Leone, Aureola serufica, IV, Quaracchi 1900, pp. 211-13; Wadding, Annales, ad an. 1380, n. 31, 1460, n. 31, 1514, n. 11; Martyrologium Franciscanum, Vicenza 1939, 18 ag. Felice da Mareto