Venerable Umiliana de' Cerchi

Umiliana de' Cerchi (1219 - 19 May 1246) was an Italian Roman Catholic widow and a member of the Third Order of Saint Francis. She came from the Cerchi family, prominent merchants, and was married in her mid-adolescence as part of a political alliance that her ambitious father had engineered though her husband later died and she fled to become a Franciscan after her father pressured her into accepting a second marriage. Her beatification received approval from Pope Innocent XII on 24 July 1694 after the latter formalized her beatification in the recognition of the late Franciscan's local and enduring veneration. Umiliana de' Cerchi was born in Florence in 1219 to a noble house to the prominent merchant Ulivieri de' Cerchi. Her father had six daughters and twelve sons. Her mother died when she was a child. One of her brothers held important public offices. Another brother was Arrigo and a sister was Ravenna. In her childhood she was prone to undertaking charitable initiatives that sought to benefit the poor and the sick and those that knew her best were firm in their belief that she was being called to the service of God rather than to that of the world. Her ambitious father however aimed for political alliances and the augmentation of the reputation of his name and so promised her in marriage to the nobleman Bonaguisi in 1235. Umiliana submitted to this desire and married him though found he was avaricious and often treated her as a mere servant and she would retaliate with a spirit of meekness and patience. The marriage was more of an economic partnership for her father. In secret she would distribute food and clothes to the poor. She bore two daughters. Her husband fell ill in 1240 and it was she who nursed him before he died at which point she ceded his entire fortune to his relations on the condition that his relatives make restitution for her late husband's injustices.