Edvige Carboni

Edvige Carboni was born in 1880 in Pozzomaggiore, a town in northwestern Sardinia in the Kingdom of Italy. She was the second of six children of Giovanni Battista Carboni and Maria Domenica Pinna. Raised in a devout Catholic family of modest means, she was baptized shortly after birth and received catechetical instruction, First Communion, and Confirmation in childhood. From an early age she showed a marked inclination to prayer and a desire for religious life. Family obligations, however, kept her in the world: she remained at home to assist her parents and siblings, performing domestic labor and working as a seamstress rather than entering a convent.

Her interior life, as later attested by her spiritual diaries and by priests and lay witnesses, was characterized by reported mystical experiences that began in youth and continued throughout her life. She spoke of visions of Jesus Christ, the Blessed Virgin Mary, angels, and saints, and of encounters with souls she believed to be in Purgatory, for whom she offered prayer and penance. Those who knew her also attributed to her the stigmata and other extraordinary gifts such as bilocation. She joined the Third Order of Saint Francis and sought to live a Franciscan spirit of poverty, humility, and hidden charity while remaining a laywoman. She placed herself under spiritual direction and was described as obedient, reserved, and unwilling to publicize her experiences.

Carboni spent her earlier adulthood in Sardinia, caring for her family. In the late 1920s she moved to Rome with a sister, where she continued a life of work, daily participation in the Mass, prolonged prayer, and intercession. She remained in the capital during the Second World War. Those around her regarded her as a woman of peace, patience, and concern for the conversion of sinners and the relief of the souls in Purgatory. She died in Rome in 1952 after a heart ailment and was first buried in the Campo Verano cemetery.

A reputation for holiness developed in Rome and in her native Sardinia. A cause for beatification was introduced in the Diocese of Rome. On 2 May 2019 Pope Francis recognized that she had lived the Christian virtues to a heroic degree and declared her Venerable. She has not been beatified or canonized. Her remains were subsequently transferred from Rome to Pozzomaggiore, where they rest in the parish church of Santa Maria della Consolazione.