SERAFINA di Dio, venerable. — Carmelite mystic, in the world Prudenza Pisa, born in Naples on 24 October 1621, died in Capri on 17 March 1699. A woman of profound interior life, endowed with supernatural graces, including the stigmata, she founded monasteries of Carmelite nuns in Capri, Anacapri, Massalubrense, Nocera dei Pagani, Torre del Greco, and Fisciano.
At her death she left innumerable writings, subsequently collected in 22 volumes. In them the Venerable treats, with astonishing acuity, every subject of ascetical and mystical theology, as well as dogmatic theology. She was MOLINISMO (v.), against whom she wrote an esteemed Trattato sopra l'orazione di fede.
BIBL.: Tommaso Pagani, Vita della sen. madre suor S. di D., Naples 1723; M. Ventinaglia, Il S. Carmelo italiano, Naples 1779, pp. 134–40; C. de Villiers, Bibliotheca Carmelitana, II, Rome 1927, cols. 728–730; Analecta Ord. Carmelit., 6 (1927), pp. 410–42. Valentino di Maria