Agnes of Montepulciano

About Agnes of Montepulciano

Agnes of Montepulciano spent her life building and guiding communities of religious women. She entered religious life while still a child and became a superior at Proceno unusually young, before returning to establish a monastery near her home. Her leadership was not a late achievement after a long career: responsibility for other women came early and remained central to her vocation.

Born at Gracciano near Montepulciano around 1270, she belonged to the Segni family. She entered the community known as the Sacco before she was ten. Later she accompanied her teacher Margherita to Proceno, where a papal dispensation allowed her to become superior despite her youth.

The New Catholic Encyclopedia describes a girl entrusted first with the work of bursar and then with responsibility for a whole house. It also remembers demanding austerities, including a restricted diet and sleeping on the ground. These practices belong to the account of her religious discipline; they are not a medical explanation of her eventual death. The same biography places her later foundation on property associated with a former brothel, a remembered change in the use of the site rather than an account of the lives of the women who had worked there.

In 1306 she founded Santa Maria Nuova outside Montepulciano. She was first called abbess and later prioress as the house came under Dominican guidance. The exact circumstances of that affiliation have been disputed; the evidence establishes Dominican oversight before 1330, without fixing every stage of the change.

Vatican City's account remembers her intervening between feuding noble families, bringing a concern for peace beyond the monastery walls. It also describes a final period of illness. In 1316, on medical advice, she went to the thermal waters at Chianciano. The visit did not restore her health.

Agnes's story reached later readers especially through Raymond of Capua, who wrote her life in 1366. He consulted records and people who had known her. The resulting tradition includes healings and other wonders, but also the practical detail that her body was embalmed. Reports of preservation therefore should not be retold as proof that no treatment had taken place.

She died at Montepulciano on April 20, 1317. Benedict XIII canonized her in the Vatican Basilica on December 10, 1726. The long interval separates the life of a medieval superior from the Church's later formal recognition.

Catherine of Siena later visited her tomb. The prayer published by the English Dominicans asks for steadiness in attention to God and a fruitful life of holiness.

The Dominican commemoration on April 20 remembers Agnes as a virgin who founded a monastery under the Order's care and taught humility by her example.

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Prayers for Agnes of Montepulciano