Virgin Veronica of Binasco

Veronica of Binasco, also called Veronica of Milan, was a fifteenth-century Italian Augustinian lay sister and mystic, born of a poor peasant family in the village of Binasco in the Milanese countryside. Near-contemporary hagiographical accounts place her birth in the middle of that century. She spent her childhood in agricultural labor and never received formal schooling; she remained illiterate all her life. From an early age she was described as devout, given to prayer while at work in the fields, and desirous of religious life.

Tradition holds that she first sought admission among the Poor Clares and was refused because she could not read. She later went to Milan and was received as a converse, or lay sister, in the monastery of the Augustinian nuns of Saint Martha (Santa Marta). There she performed the humblest domestic offices, especially in the kitchen, and was noted for obedience, patience, and care of the sick. Her community belonged to the Order of Saint Augustine. She never married and had no children.

Hagiographical sources attribute to her frequent ecstasies and visions, including of the Passion of Christ, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and various saints. She was said to have received interior lights concerning the spiritual condition of persons who consulted her. These experiences were examined by her superiors. Despite her lack of letters she acquired a reputation for spiritual counsel. In later years she suffered a prolonged illness.

She died in Milan on 13 January 1497. A cultus developed promptly among the Augustinians and the faithful of the Milanese region. Pope Leo X beatified her in 1517. Her liturgical feast is kept on 13 January. She is commemorated as a virgin of the Augustinian family. Precise details of her original burial and of any later translation of relics are not uniformly recorded in the principal older sources.