Saint Humility

Who was Saint Humility?

Saint Humility was a founder of Vallumbrosan convents, and is considered the founder of the Vallumbrosan Nuns.

Born Rosanna Negusanti to a noble family from Faenza, she was married at the age of fifteen to a nobleman named Ugoletto dei Caccianemici. She bore two children, both of whom died in infancy. In 1250, Ugoletto became a monk upon recovering from an illness that nearly killed him. Rosanna entered the same double monastery of canonesses named Saint Perpetua, near Faenza, becoming a nun and taking the name Humilitas.

She became an anchoress in a cell attached to the Vallumbrosan church of Saint Apollinaris in Faenza, where she lived as a hermit or recluse for twelve years.

However, at the request of the abbot-general she founded a Vallumbrosan monastery outside Faenza and became its abbess. Blessed Margherita became one of her disciples.

In 1282, she founded a second convent at Florence, dedicated to Saint John the Evangelist, where she died in 1310 of natural causes. She left a number of mystical writings. She is most known for composing and preaching nine Latin sermons, and for writing Lauds to the Virgin Mary in verse.