Maria Adeodata Pisani

Maria Adeodata Pisani, OSB (29 December 1806 – 25 February 1855) was a Maltese Benedictine nun at St Peter's Monastery in Mdina, Malta. Pope John Paul II beatified her on 9 May 2001. A number of bishops also released a pastoral letter stating that Pisani had a difficult childhood, renounced her wealth, and willingly lived as a cloistered nun.

Life The only daughter of Baron Benedetto Pisani Mompalao Cuzkeri and Vincenza Carrano, she was born Maria Teresa Pisani in Naples, Italy, on 29 December 1806, and baptized the same day in the Parish of St Mark at Pizzofalcone. Her father held the Maltese title of Baron of Frigenuini; her mother was Italian.

Her father took to drink, and this soon led to marital problems, so much so that whilst Pisani was still a small child her mother left the conjugal house and entrusted the child's care to her mother-in-law, Elisabeth Mamo Mompalao, who lived in Naples. Mompalao died when her granddaughter Maria Teresa was only ten years old. After her grandmother’s death, she was sent to the famous Istituto di Madama Prota, a boarding school in Naples where the daughters of the local aristocracy received their education.

Besides suffering from delicate health, Pisani had a deformed shoulder, caused, it was later testified, by injuries sustained at the hands of a maid who beat her when she lived with her grandmother in Naples. Her mother tried to find her a suitable husband, but Pisani declined all marriage proposals, preferring to lead a quiet life, attending church and helping the poor. Instead, she wanted to enter St Peter's monastery as a novice. Her charity was a benefit to her fellow nuns and to many people outside the cloister as well.

Pisani wrote various works, the most well-known of which is The mystical garden of the soul that loves Jesus and Mary, a collection of her personal reflections between the years 1835 and 1843.

She was abbess from 1851 to 1853 but had to retire from her duties because she suffered from heart problems. She died on 25 February 1855, aged 48, and was buried the next day in the crypt of the Benedictine monastery at Mdina.

Pisani was remembered for her sanctity, love of the poor, self-imposed sacrifices, and ecstasies so complete that she was seen levitating. Pope John Paul II declared her a Blessed on 9 May 2001 at Floriana, Malta, citing as the miracle required for her beatification a 24 November 1897 incident in which the abbess Giuseppina Damiani from the Monastery of Saint John the Baptist Subiaco, Italy was suddenly healed of a stomach tumour following her request for Maria Pisani’s intervention. The beatification was soon followed by the unveiling of a huge portrait of the Blessed — a replica of an original oil painting commissioned in 1898 by Pietro Pace, the Archbishop of Rhodes and Bishop of Malta. The Pontiff also announced that her feast would be celebrated on 25 February, the day of her death.

Today the back wing of St Peter's monastery in Mdina has been opened to the public as a museum. The rooms of the Blessed Adeodata Pisani at the monastery are also open to visitors.