Veronica Giuliani

Ursula Giuliani was born on 27 December 1660 at Mercatello sul Metauro in the Duchy of Urbino, in central Italy, the youngest of seven daughters of Francesco Giuliani and Benedetta Mancini. Her family belonged to the local gentry. Traditional accounts of her childhood describe early piety, concern for the poor, and an unusual religious awareness. Her mother died while Ursula was still a young child. After a period in which her father, who had hoped she would marry, opposed her vocation, she obtained permission to enter religious life.

In 1677, at the age of seventeen, she entered the monastery of the Capuchin Poor Clares at Città di Castello in Umbria and took the name Veronica, in remembrance of the Passion of Christ. She made her solemn profession the following year and remained in that community for the rest of her life. She served for many years as novice mistress and, from 1716 until her death, as abbess. Her superiors and confessors required her to record her interior experiences. The resulting spiritual diary, together with letters and other writings, became the principal source for later knowledge of her life and is an important document of early modern Catholic mysticism.

In Catholic tradition Veronica Giuliani is remembered as a mystic who reported visions of Christ and the saints, participation in the sufferings of the Passion, and the reception of the crown of thorns and the stigmata in the 1690s. These claims were investigated by ecclesiastical authorities, and she underwent periods of trial, including restrictions on the sacraments and on her offices in the community. She was also described as experiencing demonic assaults and prolonged spiritual desolation. Despite such trials she continued in the ordinary duties of monastic life and in the government of her monastery.

She died at Città di Castello on 9 July 1727. Her body was later reported to be incorrupt and is preserved in the monastery church there. Devotion to her spread in the region and among Capuchins and Poor Clares. She was beatified by Pope Pius VII in 1804 and canonized by Pope Gregory XVI on 26 May 1839. Her feast is observed on 9 July.