Santa Ugolina di Vercelli

Who they were

A strange story, this, of the Vercelli-born saint who lived at the end of the twelve-hundreds and start of the thirteen-hundreds. She shut herself in a hermitage, passing herself off as a man, and stayed there for forty-seven years to escape her father's designs on her. To keep her secret she had herself called Ugo, revealing her identity to no one; in the hermitage she grew in faith and prayer, and only at her death was it discovered that she was a woman, and her story pieced together amid everyone's astonishment and admiration.

Born at Vercelli in 1239 to the wealthy, noble de' Cassinis family, Ugolina was gentle, beautiful and good, an only child dearly loved by her parents; at ten she already helped and prayed for the poor. When her mother died, her father began to be tempted to seduce his fourteen-year-old daughter; Ugolina's prayers and prudent conduct held back his intentions, but she resolved to flee, and one day while he was away on business she disguised herself as a man and ran into the woods, stopping at the church of Santa Maria di Betlemme, where she settled into an empty hermit's cell, living there disguised, known as Ugo or Ugone, eating very little and praying much, her secret known only to a priest and her friend Libera. She died at Vercelli on 16 August 1300.

The miracles

There was never a formal cause: she has been honoured as a saint since before the Church's formal processes began.

Why that counted as sanctity

Hermit who lived disguised as a man for forty-seven years at Vercelli to escape her father, her true identity discovered only at her death in 1300.