St. Veronica Giuliani

Veronica receives the stigmata, which her confessor and a physician see, and says the instruments of the Passion are impressed on her heart. After her death on 9 July 1727 the bishop orders the heart opened: the shapes she had described are reported in the tissue, set against notes under seal. The body is called incorrupt for some years. A flood destroys it. What Città di Castello shows now is a figure made to hold the relics, not the body the water took. Pius VII beatifies her in 1804. Gregory XVI canonizes her in 1839.

Ursula Giuliani was born at Mercatello on 27 December 1660 and entered the Capuchin Poor Clares at Città di Castello in 1677, taking the name Veronica. From the 1690s she bore the stigmata, inspected by her confessor and by physicians, and she said the instruments of the Passion were marked inside her heart. She died on 9 July 1727, having been abbess. The bishop ordered the heart opened. The shapes she had described were reported in the tissue and compared with notes sealed while she was alive. The body was described as incorrupt for some years afterward. A flood later destroyed it. What the monastery shows now is a lifelike figure containing the relics, not the untouched body of 1727. Pius VII beatified her on 17 June 1804. Gregory XVI canonized her on 26 May 1839. The canonization accepted a life lived under confessors who often refused to believe her. It did not define the anatomy of the heart, and it cannot show you a body the water took.