Marescotti, Hyacintha, St.
MARESCOTTI, HYACINTHA, ST.
Virgin of the Third Order Regular of St. Francis; b. Vignanello, Papal States, 1585; d. Viterbo, Italy, Jan. 301640. Daughter of Count Marc Antonio di Mariscotti and Ottavia Orsini, Clare entered the convent of St. Bernardino in Viterbo and received the name Hyacintha. Taken ill after ten unhappy years, she was persuaded by a confessor to give up her well-furnished cell and follow a strict religious life. Devotion to the Passion, harsh penance, poverty, and humility flowered in mystical prayer and charity. She became mistress of novices. During a plague she founded two congregations, Oblates of Mary, to care for the sick and orphaned. She followed the common life even during a long exhausting illness. She left a small diary. Cardinal G. Mariscotti requested her beatification, and benedict xiii, an Orsini, beatified her in 1726. pius vii canonized her in 1807. Her incorrupt body lay in the convent in Viterbo until the church was destroyed by aerial bombardment.
Feast: Jan. 30.
Bibliography: g. ventimiglia, Vita di s. G. M. (Rome 1695; 2d ed. 1907). c. r. hallack and p. f. anson, These Made Peace, ed. m. a. habig (Paterson, N.J. 1957). a. mercati and a. pelzer, Dizionario ecclesiastico, 3 v. (Turin 1954–58) 2:95–96.
[m. o'callaghan]