VARANO, BATTISTA da, blessed. - Mystic of the Order of S. Chiara, in the world Camilla, b. at Camerino on 9 Apr. 1458 to Giulio Cesare, lord of that city, d. there on 31 May 1524 or 1527.
Having heard the blessed Marco da Montegallo preach (1468), she became devoted to meditation on the Passion of Jesus and strove to live it in a spirit of penance. Having overcome her parents’ opposition, on 14 Nov. 1481 she entered the Poor Clares at Urbino; in 1484 she founded a monastery in her native city and subsequently another at Fermo. Then, at Camerino, she was elected abbess. Under the guidance of the blessed Pietro da Molliano and Marco da Montegallo, she courageously endured infirmities, temptations, threats, and other evils. She always forgave, and prayed for the wicked murderers of her father and two of her brothers, who were slaughtered in a revolt instigated by Cesare Borgia (1502). She rests in the church of the Poor Clares at Camerino. Her cult was approved by Gregorio XVI on 7 Apr. 1843.
She received a thorough humanistic education and left, among other writings, the following: Autobiography spiritual (1491); Treatise on the Mental Sorrows of Jesus Christ Our Lord in His Passion (Naples 1493, Milan 1515, attributed in 1593 to Fr. Scupoli [v.]; Account of the Death of the blessed Pietro da Molliano (1760); Instructions to her disciple Fr. Antonio Spagna; Exhortation Received from the Lord While She Was Still in the World, after Her Firm Resolution to Embrace Religious Life; The Spiritual Life (republished with an introduction by M. Sticco, Milan 1944); poems; letters.