Blessed Maria Adeodata Pisani

Maria Adeodata Pisani, OSB (29 December 1806 – 25 February 1855) was a Maltese Catholic Benedictine nun at St Peter's monastery in Mdina, Malta. Pope John Paul II beatified Pisani on 9 May 2001. A number of bishops also released a pastoral letter emphasizing the serious difficulties that she had to face, stating that Pisani had had "a difficult childhood as her parents did not live together. She renounced and disposed of her wealth, willingly living as a cloistered nun." The only daughter of Baron Benedetto Pisani Mompalao Cuzkeri and Vincenza Carrano, she was born Maria Teresa Pisani in Naples, Italy on 29 December 1806, and baptized the same day in the Parish of St Mark at Pizzofalcone. Her father held the Maltese title of Baron of Frigenuini; her mother was Italian. Her father took to drink and this soon led to marital problems, so much so that whilst Pisani was still a small child her mother left the conjugal house and entrusted the child's care to her mother-in-law, Elisabeth Mamo Mompalao, who lived in Naples. Mompalao died when her granddaughter Maria Teresa was only ten years old. After her grandmother’s death, she was sent to the famous Istituto di Madama Prota, a boarding school in Naples where the daughters of the local aristocracy received their education. In 1821 her father was involved in the uprising in Naples and wanted by the law. Since he was a British citizen, his sentence was suspended and King Ferdinand I had him expelled from Naples and deported to the Mediterranean island of Malta. In 1825, Pisani and her mother came to live in Malta with relatives in Rabat, the old suburb of Mdina. Besides suffering from delicate health, Pisani had a deformed shoulder, caused, it was later testified, by injuries sustained at the hands of a maid who beat her when she lived with her grandmother in Naples.