Veronica Giuliani was born in Mercatello, near Urbino, daughter of Francisco Giuliani and Teresa Mancini on December 27, 1660, last of seven sisters, of whom two died while still in arms, three Poor Clare nuns in Mercatello, one Capuchin Poor Clare in Città di Castello and one remained in the world. Prodigious events occurred around the girl such that they indicated in little Veronica an extraordinary precocity in grace. The spiritual education of the girl by her mother, a woman of deep Christian sensitivity, was not ordinary. The mother, when she died, left her daughters a mystical inheritance: the wounds of the Lord, one for each one. Veronica, who was barely four years old, got the one on the side, the one closest to Jesus' heart.
At the age of seventeen, precisely when the world was offering itself to her with all its ardent flattery, the youngest of the Giuliani sisters left her comfortable home, her free life, her comfortable condition, and entered among the Poor Clares of the Capuchin convent of Città di Castello. Buried alive among the very poor daughters of Saint Clare, she prepared to sanctify herself in silence and humility with her confreres. Enclosed within the walls of the cloister, the young woman showed signs of an exceptional predilection on the part of the heavenly Husband. Devotee of the Passion, she punctually and visibly relived her sufferings. Her forehead was wounded by an invisible crown of thorns; on Good Friday she was pierced by the wounds of the sores.
Faced with extraordinary signs that were appearing in her life, suspecting that they could be forms of ostentation or diabolical machinations, out of understandable prudence, the superiors kept the sister in total seclusion. They prohibited her from any contact with the outside world, and invited her to obey a converted sister. The Holy Office, upon learning information about the case, made him suspend Eucharistic communion, in addition to total isolation from the rest of the community. All this was accepted by her humbly, as a sign of divine predilection... Aware of the mystical disturbances that were stirring in his penitent, the confessor imposed on Veronica to keep a spiritual diary.
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Thus, day after day, for more than thirty years, the Poor Clare meticulously narrated in that diary her sufferings and her joys, her prayers and her dejections. Of those pages written without artifice and that the confessor forbade him to reread, 44 thick volumes were formed. Even today the pages of Veronica Giuliani are among the most beautiful of mystical literature in Italy. Equally interesting are the testimonies that have come down to us about her, about her life and about her attitudes towards the other sisters.
“Today the pain in my hands, feet and heart was renewed, and I spent a beautiful night, all of it full of pain and torment. Thank God. …This morning I made holy Confession and I believe it has strengthened me to suffer more” (From the autobiographical “Diary”). He spent his life in prayer and contemplation, resolving to conform himself more and more to Christ Crucified. Because of his love for the mystery of the Cross he had the gift of the stigmata. In the monastery she carried out all the professions: cook, butcher, cloakroom, nurse, turner, baker, novice teacher for thirty-three years until her death, abbess for eleven years. The heroic nature of his virtues surpassed all suspicions and sinister machinations against him. Uniting his inner martyrdom to that of Christ, he suffered an attack of apoplexy on June 6, 1727, and passed from this life to the heavenly homeland on the following June 9. He was 67 years old. His body rests in the church of the Monastery of Città di Castello.
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