Blessed Santuccia Carabotti

Santuccia was born in Gubbio in ca. 1240, married and had a daughter who died in childhood.  She and her husband then agreed to separate and enter religious life under the spirtual guidance of the Blessed Sperandio, Abbot of S. Pietro, Gubbio.   Santuccia’s husband became a monk at San Pietro while she obtained the permission of the bishop of Gubbio to found a new Benedictine nunnery on a hillside (presumably near Gubbio) that belonged to the “sons of Ugone”.  She adopted a constitution that the Blessed Sperandio devised, which stressed that the nuns were to live in poverty.

The Blessed Sperandio died in 1260, but Santuccia continued to develop her new congregation.  The nuns were formally Serve di Maria (servants of Mary), but they were often known as the Santuccie.  Santuccia established nunneries at Perugia (San Sperandio), Cagli and Rimini in the early 1260s.  In 1265, she fell foul of the new abbot of San Pietro, who excommunicated her.  Fortunately, she had influential supporters, and Pope Clement IV took the new order into direct papal protection in 1265.  The Templars gave Santuccia the church of Santa Maria in Julia (later Sant’Anna dei Funari), Rome, and this became their mother house.  She died there in 1305, by which time her order encompassed some 25 nunneries.