NEGRI, PAOLA ANTONIA. - Mystic, Virginia in secular life, born at Castellanza near Gallarate (Milan) in 1508, died at Milan on 4 April 1555. She was among the first admitted by St. Antonio M. Zaccaria to the new Order of the Angeliche di S. Paolo (1535). Elected mistress of novices, she became, because of the supernatural gifts with which she seemed endowed, although unlettered, an object of admiration to eminent persons.
Several times in the Veneto, at Vicenza, Verona, Padua, and Venice, she everywhere exercised an extraordinary influence that produced notable conversions and religious vocations. This offended the political sensibilities of the Republic, which, under the pretext of accusations neither clearly specified nor still less proved, banished the Barnabites and the Angeliche from all Venetian territory (1551). The ensuing apostolic visitation imposed enclosure upon the latter and segregation upon N. in the monastery of S. Chiara (1552). Having nevertheless received permission to withdraw to a family, when she presented herself to the Poor Clares to re-enter the monastery, she was not received because of her poor health. Sheltered by devout persons, she died there at the age of forty-seven.
Whatever the final judgment upon her may be, N. remains one of the most characteristic figures of the religious movement of the first half of the sixteenth century.
The Lettere spirituali della devota religiosa angelica P. A. N., Milanese. Vita della medesima, edited by G. B. Fontana (Rome, 1576), is a work of little reliability, because the life has the character of a panegyric, and the letters are largely by Fr. G. Besozzi.