Paola Gambara Costa
Paola Gambara Costa (3 March 1463 - 24 January 1515) was an Italian Roman Catholic professed member of the Third Order of Saint Francis. She was born to nobles and married in 1475 to the nobleman Lodovico Antonio Costa - and had one child - who soon acquired a mistress and chastised her for her generous nature towards the poor and ill. Her husband later repented and died leaving her widowed and she died not long after this.
Gambara desired to become a nun but complied with the desire of her parents to embrace marriage and so dedicated herself to serving her husband while at the same time learning to detest his excessive lavishness and the pomp of his noble court. Her friend and confessor was Angelo Carletti whom she and her husband later attributed the latter's cure to.
Her beatification received formal confirmation from Pope Gregory XVI on 14 August 1845 after the latter ratified that there existed a spontaneous and enduring local 'cultus' - or longstanding and popular veneration.
In the Martyrology
- January 24 Blessed Paola Gambara Costa, widow