VALMARANA, DEIANIRA (Dianira). - Foundress of the Congregation of the Dimesse or Modeste, girls or widows of the Venetian State, b. at Vicenza in 1549, d. there on 3 February 1603.

After the death of her husband and her son, in 1572 she took the habit of the Franciscan Third Order and withdrew to a religious life in a house of her own with four other ladies under the direction of the Observant Friar Minor Antonio Pagani. Her widowed cousin Angela V. followed her example, withdrawing into a house adjoining that of Deianira with other pious women. For the two houses Fr. Pagani wrote common rules, approved in 1584 by the bishop of Vicenza and by the apostolic visitor Cardinal Ag. Valerio, bishop of Verona. The Institute came to be called that of the Dimesse or Modeste. The congregated women lived in common, taught catechism to women and assisted the sick in hospitals. They could leave the Congregation in order to marry.

Bibliography5 works

BIBL.: A. Pagani, Gli ordini della drobia Compagnia delle Dimesse, Venice 1587; E. A. Cicogna, Saggio di bibliogr. veneziana, Venice 1547, pp. 44, 926-27; Moroni, IV, p. 284; XX, p. 67; XCI, p. 571.

Felice da Mareto

@incollection{ec12_valmarana_deianira_dianira, author = {Felice da Mareto}, title = {Valmarana, deianira (dianira)}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {XII}, pages = {999--1000}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1954}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/valmarana-deianira-dianira} }

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Valmarana, Deianira (Dianira)

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