TORELLI, LUDOVICA, Countess of GUASTALLA. - A beneficent lady, b. in Guastalla in 1500, d. in Milan on 28 Oct. 1569.
The only daughter of Achille, Duke of Guastalla, she became a widow at 17 when her husband, Ludovico Stanga, a Cremonese patrician, died. At 22 she was orphaned when her father was killed by Ercole Gonzaga during a ball. At 27 she was widowed a second time after only a year of marriage to Count Antonio Martinengo of Brescia, who had been assassinated by the relatives of his first wife, whom he had killed, under the instigation of Fra Battista da Crema (q.v.). She then devoted herself entirely to works of piety and charity and took the name Paola. Moving to Milan, she assisted St Anthony Mary Zaccaria (q.v.) in founding the Angeliche, for whom she built the convent and church of S. Paolo in Milan and of S. Marta in Cremona; she lived among them in a holy manner without, however, taking their habit or making their vows. In 1538 she sold the fief of Guastalla and other castles to Ferrante Gonzaga. The convent of the Most Holy Crucifix in Milan, for repentant women, regarded her almost as its foundress. With the Angeliche she took part in the mission to Vicenza (1537), and was held in high esteem in Ferrara by Monsignor Giberti, and in Venice, where the Barnabites and the Angeliche had taken charge of the Hospital of SS. John and Paul. But when the Angeliche were subjected to enclosure, on 15 Dec. 1553 she first retired to the home of the widow of the Marquis del Vasto, Maria d’Aragona, Princess of Molfetta, governor of Milan, and then to the convent she had founded in Ferrara in 1547. In 1557, in Milan near S. Barnaba, she founded the College for noblewomen fallen on hard times, which the people called, like the street in which it stood, “della Guastalla,” and one of the city gates was named Porta Ludovica. She entrusted its spiritual direction to the Jesuits, and there, strengthened by a visit from St Charles Borromeo, she died after twelve years of most pious life. She was buried in the church of S. Felice; but after the recent transfer of the College, damaged by bombing (1943), from Milan to a villa near Monza, the remains of the pious foundress were also moved and interred in the chapel.
Virgilio M. Colciago