Bl. Archangela Girlani

Eleonora Girlani was born in 1460 at Trino in Monferrato, northern Italy, into a well-off family. She and two of her sisters decided to become nuns. Eleonora refused the convent near home, because she felt being close to her family would hold her back.

With the help of a Carmelite friend of the family, she entered the Carmelite convent in Parma in 1478, taking the name Archangela. She later became its prioress. In 1492 she went to lead the new Carmelite convent of St Mary of Paradise in Mantua, where she wanted her sisters to live "as if already in heaven". She had a special devotion to the Holy Trinity.

She died in Mantua in 1494. Pius IX approved her cult in 1864.

Archangela Girlani was beatified in 1864.

Beatification allows public veneration, usually in a particular region or religious family. Canonization extends it to the whole Church.