Margaret of Cortona

Who they were

Margaret was born at Laviano, near Perugia, in 1247 to a humble peasant family. At eighteen she became the mistress of a young nobleman of Montepulciano, who never married her even when their son was born, and who was murdered nine years later. Turned out by his family and her own, she found shelter at Cortona.

There she worked as a nurse to women in childbirth, raised her son, who became a Franciscan, and cared for the sick poor. Received into the Third Order of St Francis, she washed away the stains of her youth by penance and gave herself to contemplation, following Francis and Clare in chosen poverty and abandoning herself to Christ crucified.

The miracles

The Dicastery's biography does not describe the miracles approved in the cause.

Why that counted as sanctity

A penitent who turned from a life of sin to poverty, prayer and the care of the sick.