ANDALÒ, Diana d'

ANDALÒ, Diana d'. - She was born, in the early thirteenth century, to the noble and powerful Bolognese family of Carbonesi. Her father Andrea (from whose diminutive family, Andreolo, Andalò, derives the patronymic surname, then remained to the descendants) had two wives and many children, almost all male, who held illustrious positions: from the first wife, whose name and lineage is unknown, was born Diana together with four brothers, including Brancaleone, who was always for her the favorite brother; from the second wife, Agnes, Andalò had Castellano, who was a senator of Rome, and Loderengo, founder of the Friars Gaudenti.

In his early youth, A., who showed high moral and intellectual qualities, listened to the sermons of the famous friar Reginald, already professor of canon law at the university of Paris, sent by St. Dominic to Bologna in 1218.

When Dominic arrived in Bologna (summer 1219), he met A. and perfected in her the work started by Reginald: he approved her idea to enter the Order of Preachers and received confidentially (but with a solemn ceremony, held in the presence of the friars Reginald, Guala and Rodolfo) her promise, together with that of four other young ladies of powerful Bolognese families.

Domenic, who fully appreciated the importance of the female apostolate, consulted with his confreres to realize the great aspiration of A. to found a monastery of Dominican nuns in Bologna and, before leaving for Rome, entrusted the task to the friars Rodolfo, Guala, and Ventura da Verona. But they met the double opposition of the bishop of Bologna and of the girl's relatives; nor was it possible to found the new convent against the opinion of the ecclesiastical authority and without the financial help of the Andalò family.

A. then tried to put the relatives in front of a fait accompli. On July 22, 1221 she organized with her friends a pilgrimage to the hermitage of Ronzano, on the spurs of the Apennines facing Bologna, where the Augustinian canonesses had settled. During the visit to the convent, Diana suddenly entered the dormitory and asked for the sacred habit with such an impassioned eloquence that she was instantly granted her. But the relatives, warned, rushed with a large crowd of family members and customers, dragging the girl away by force and brutally beating her: painful in body and soul (she even had a broken rib), she was isolated in the house for about a year: Domenic himself could not see her anymore and could barely make her deliver some letters. This cruel ordeal deformed Diana's body for the rest of her life, but it did not weaken her vocation, nor did it bend her determination. After the death of St. Dominic she fled again to Ronzano, and this time the relatives did not dare to disturb her.

In the meantime, Jordan of Saxony had been appointed Procurator General of the Dominicans in Lombardy, and he immediately resumed the project, dear to A. and Dominic, of founding a convent of Dominican nuns in Bologna. He was successful. The new convent, built on the slope of a hill overlooking Porta S. Proculo, on the chapel of Our Lady of the Mount dedicated to St. Agnes Virgin and Martyr, was originally a poor and small house, "domuncula parva". On May 13, 1222, neighboring lands were purchased with a deed of sale in the name of Diana Andalò (Cormier, pp. 57-59); about a year later, on the octave of the Assumption in 1223, Jordan, who had become general of the Order, introduced the first group of nuns (A. together with four sisters, also from noble Bolognese families) and on June 29th, the feast of the Apostles Peter and Paul, he personally imposed the Dominican habit on them, in the presence of all the brothers of Bologna. Four nuns (including Amata and Cecilia) were called from the monastery of S. Sisto in Rome to govern the new female community (which kept the name of S. Agnese). They were already experts in the exercise of the Rule, which, apart from the act of preaching, was almost identical for the nuns as for the friars.

Cecilia, of the noble Roman family of Cesarini, was appointed prioress; in a short time many new proselytes, almost all of illustrious lineage, flocked to the convent of St. Agnes.

She was the soul of the community: to her personally are addressed most of the numerous and beautiful letters, with which Jordan of Saxony assisted and directed the nuns of the Italian convent founded by him and that he evidently preferred.

Not a single letter, unfortunately, has been handed down to us of those that A. wrote to Jordan: and they must have been many. But Jordan's letters, lovingly saved by the nuns of St. Agnes, help us to know, from the inside, the singular personality of Andalò.

Jordan addressed her as sister and daughter, because they were both born from the same spiritual father Dominic, who left Jordan to her as a second father (lett. XVIII, p. 20). He wrote to her not only to assist her in her religious life, but to confide to her his doubts, his hopes, his discouragements, his often unexpected, miraculous successes: he evidently knew that she was capable of listening, understanding and responding. He wrote to her quickly, from the four corners of Europe, under the influence of the most diverse circumstances. He told her news about his studies, confided his losses (as on the occasion of the bitter grief he felt for the death of one of his fellow students); he asked her for help for his neighbor in need (a very delicate letter in which he entrusted her with a German girl, abandoned by her parents, begging her, among other things, to speak her native language often); he asked her to implore from God vocations for the Order; he worried about her health, always unsteady after the trauma suffered in her youth; he admonished her not to exaggerate, she and her sisters, in abstinence and corporal mortifications ("we must know how to climb step by step on the ladder of perfection, we must not pretend to fly"). Particularly significant are the letters of comfort for the death of her father, of her sister Octavia, of her beloved brother Brancaleone: in spite of the cruel experience of her youth, she must have been deeply attached to her relatives and her spiritual director found it difficult to obtain from her resignation and moderation to the impetus of her affections.

The most difficult test, to which A. and the sisters were subjected, was the dispute to defend their right to be assisted by the direct superiors of the Order.

A. reacted vigorously in the face of the danger that her Dominican vocation would be frustrated, as did the sisters in Prouille, Madrid and Rome. In order for the thorny question to be authoritatively clarified, the intervention of the pontiff was solicited: Honorius III, in a brief dated December 17, 1226, reiterated to the general of the Dominicans the order not to refuse the direction of the women's convents founded personally by St. Dominic, as well as the monastery of St. Agnes (Cormier, App. E, p. 167); this resolution was confirmed by Gregory IX in 1236 (Cormier, App. G, p. 171). Jordan hastened to transmit to Diana the authentic text of the pontifical letters and to reassure her, together with her sisters, that he would maintain, indeed redouble his assistance (lett. VIII, p. 10, lett. XLVIII, pp. 54 f.).

A. died at a young age (about 35 years old) a few months before his spiritual father, who disappeared in a shipwreck on his return from the Holy Land on February 13, 1237. The exact day of her transit is uncertain: in the Archives of the convent of St. Agnes it is written that "she ascended to heaven on the eve of the feast of St. Barnabas in the year of our Lord 1236" (Cormier, pp. 122 f.); in the epigraph, placed on her tomb, we read: "monasterium S. Agnetis extruxit, in quo anni XIII sanctissime vixit migravitque ad dominum MCCXXXVI" (ibid., p. 123).

In life and death the name of A. was united together with that of Amata and Cecilia; their bones were placed in a single burial (after the death of Cecilia, who died almost ninety years old in 1290) and their cult as blessed was confirmed together by Leo XIII in 1891.

Sources and Bibl: H. M. Cormier, La b. Diane d'Andalo et les bb. Cécile et Aimée, Rome 1892, with tavv. (ritr.) and appendices of documents, including (App. A, pp. 149-157) the chronicle on the life of the blessed woman, composed by a nun of the mon. of S. Agnese between 1264 and 1283; Chroniques du monastère de San Sisto et de San Domenico e Sisto à Rome, II, Levanto 1920, pp. 585-588; Beati Iordani de Saxonia Epistulae, edited by A. Walz, in Monumenta Ord. Fr. Praed. histarica, XXIII(1951), with critical examination of earlier editions; Iordani de Saxonia Opera quae extant, edited by J. J. Berthier, Freiburg 1891; Acta Sanctorum, Iunii, II, Antverpiae 1698, pp. 363-368; G. B. Melloni, Atti e Memorie degli uomini illustri in santità nati o morti in Bologna, I, Bologna 1773, pp. 194-255, 363-389, with ritr. p. 363; Confirmationis cultus immemorabilis simul ac concessionis et approbationis commemorationis servarum Dei Caeciliae et Amatae auae beatae nuncupantur ad iungendae Officio, Missae et Elogio in Martyrologio in honorem b. Dianae de Andalo, Rome 1890; N. Malvezzi, Diana d'Andalò, Bologna 1894; A. Mortier, Histoire des maîtres généraux de l'Ordre des Frères Prêcheurs, I, Paris 1903, pp. 94-106, 138-170; H. Ch. Scheeben, Beiträge zur Geschichte Jordans v. Sachsen, in Quellen u. Forschungen zur Gesch. d. domenikaner Ordens in Deutsch., XXXV, Leipzig 1938, pp. 16, 18, 46, 55, 74 5-, 83-95; A. Walz, About the letters of b. Jordan of Saxony, in Angelicum, XXVI(1949), pp. 143 164, 218-232; Encicl. Catholic, IV, col.1552; Dictionnaire d'Hist. et de Géogr. Ecclés., XIV, coll. 379 f.