Margherita Colonna
Italian nun
Feast: 30 December (not on the universal Roman calendar; kept in the Roman Martyrology or local calendars)
Who they were
Margherita Colonna, orphaned young, refused marriage to Rome's chief magistrate and withdrew near Palestrina to a life of prayer and penance; her charity to the poor was boundless.
Through her brother, a cardinal, she founded a community of Poor Clares at Palestrina. For seven years she bore a painful ulcer with generous resignation, and died in Rome on 20 September 1284.
The miracles
She is honoured as Blessed; the Catholic Encyclopedia does not describe her cause.
Why that counted as sanctity
A Roman noblewoman who gave up marriage for prayer and the poor.
The cause
The cause continues. No postulation address is published here yet. Favours received through this person’s intercession, and offers of help, are best sent to the religious order or congregation they belonged to, or to the diocese where the cause was opened; either will pass them to the postulation.
- Catholic Encyclopedia (1913), via New Advent - Blessed Margaret Colonna
- Wikidata Q606835 — dates, feast day and identifiers (CC0)
- English Wikipedia — Margherita Colonna (CC BY-SA)
Checked against the sources listed on 21 September 2026. Corrections welcome.