Camilla Pio di Savoia

Camilla Pio di Savoia (c. 1440 – 1504) was born an Italian noblewoman and later founded the first female monastery in Carpi, Italy, Santa Chiara, of which she was elected abbess. Her Cause for Canonization has been opened.

Life Camilla was born into a noble family in Carpi, Italy as the daughter of Giberto II Pio and Elisabetta Migliorati. Because she belonged to the Pio family, the lords of Carpi, she was second cousin to Alberto III Pio.

Camilla was considered a cultured and devoted woman when, in 1471, she received a substantial inheritance from her paternal aunt Margherita Pio, the second wife and widow of the condottiere Taddeo d'Este. Camilla took that opportunity to pursue a cloistered life and decided to establish the first female monastery in Carpi dedicated to St. Clare (in Italian: Santa Chiara).

With the completion of monastery construction in 1500, Camilla officially joined the Poor Clare Nuns as a novice together with the other sisters who already lived with her and Violante Pio, sister of Giberto II. Camilla was elected abbess and she died there only four years later, 15 April 1504 of natural causes. Several prodigies and miracles have been credited to her and among some Franciscan martyrologists, she is already called "Blessed." The beatification process, closed in the diocesan phase, is still ongoing at the Congregation of Saints in Rome.

A street in the municipality of Carpi, Via Camilla Pio, is named after her.