UMILTÀ (Humilitas), saint. — Abbess who propagated the Vallombrosan order, born at Faenza in 1226 or 1227 and died at Florence on 22 May 1310.
Married to Ugolotto Caccianemici; after several years of marriage, both she and her husband entered, respectively, among the Canons and Canonesses of S. Perpetua at Faenza. After two years, U. enclosed herself for another twelve in a cell near the church of S. Apollinare of the Vallombrosans. Then, with the help of the abbot general Plebano, she founded (around 1265) and governed the monastery of S. Maria Novella della Malta near Faenza, in which she introduced the rule of Vallombrosa, and the other monastery (1282) of S. Giovanni Ev. at Florence.
She possessed the gift of reading without having studied and dictated, in Latin, Laudes B. M. V., also translated into Italian, De curia paradisi, in honour of her two guardian angels, and two Sermones on S. Giovanni Ev. (edited by Torello Sala, Florence 1884). Her cult was confirmed by Clement XI on 27 January 1720. Her relics are preserved at S. Spirito di Varlungo. Feast day: 22 May.
Felice da Mareto
UMORE (sentimental tone, state of mind). — A particular equilibrium of the sphere of the deeper feelings (v.) and of the affective state of consciousness (thymopsychē), capable of imparting to the subject’s entire personality a tone of pleasant satisfaction (serenity, cheerfulness) or painful dissatisfaction (sadness, ill humour).
Mood, although it must be distinguished from disposition (v.) and character (v.), is closely connected with these elements of personality, particularly with the equilibrium of metabolic conditions, endocrine functioning, the totality of cenesthetic sensations (v. CENESTESIA), variations in the vegetative and animal neurotone, and the subject’s neuropsychological and moral state.
Even in the normal individual, in relation to the sum of organic variations and the repeated interference of the external environment in the form of pleasant or unpleasant stimuli, mood undergoes continual changes, tending toward the aforementioned state of dissatisfaction or satisfaction. In the absence of unpleasant tensions arising from the present state, from recollection of the past, or from concern about the future, mood is serene, tending toward a feeling of euphoria; in the opposite case, its tone turns toward melancholy.
Within the limits of normality, stimulating events succeed in disturbing mood only if they attain a certain intensity and duration; a proportional relationship must exist between these two elements. On the other hand, every stimulus, beyond a certain limit that cannot be precisely defined, ceases to be effective, leading first to obtundation and then to the total disappearance of the affective reaction.
Different individual types exhibit very different ways in which mood is oriented in relation to the internal and external causes that tend to produce and modify II. While some, because of the weak resonance of affective life (hypothymic subjects), are little subject to variations in mood, others (hyperthymic subjects), endowed with lively affectivity, easily and for long periods undergo modifications and disturbances of the affective equilibrium of consciousness. Among those with lively affectivity are individuals in whom mood reactivity may manifest itself indifferently in either of the two opposite directions of cheerfulness and sadness (poikilothymic or emotionally labile subjects); such lability is found particularly in hysterics, in so-called lunatics, in constitutional spasmophiles, in meteorolabile subjects (at the mercy of meteorological variations), and in Kretschmer’s cycloids or cyclothymics. Other individuals, however, more readily slide into a definite, constant tone of mood, whether serene or ill-humoured, from which contrary stimuli have difficulty moving them (dysphoric or euphoric hyperthymic subjects).
When the conditions of mood reach degrees clearly beyond those compatible with the extreme normal limits of fluctuating variability, whether in intensity, duration, or form, one enters the abnormal field of mental illnesses or psychoses (mania or melancholia of affective psychoses [v.]); here the severe alterations of mood are accompanied by psychosensory disturbances in the form of delusions and visual and auditory hallucinations.
Lack of stability of mood, and its easy variation under the action of stimulating events of little importance, constitutes a serious impediment to the normal development of the subject’s cognitive and volitional activity; while on the one hand it requires a stronger impetus for the fulfilment of one’s duty, beyond certain limits of intensity this defect may diminish moral responsibility. Gradually, one may thus arrive psychopathic personalities (v.) or of various mentally ill persons; in such an eventuality, the moral judgment formulated for them applies.