ITEN
Time-worn hands clasped in prayer in golden light. Peter Law / Unsplash

Guide

The Story of Saint Margaret of Cortona

By Hotel Villa Santa Margherita

Margherita shared her life with a man. Then he died, and a little dog led her through the woods to his body. That was the day everything turned. The woman she had been became the penitent an entire town would learn to venerate. Saint Margaret of Cortona (1247–1297) is one of the most vivid figures of Tuscan Franciscan history. Here is her story from the start: the famous legend of the dog, the reason Cortona holds her so close, and the places that still keep her memory alive, along the pilgrim routes of the spirit that climb toward her basilica.

At a glance

  • Born: 1247
  • Early years: her years at the side of a man
  • Turning point: his death and her conversion to a life of penance
  • Calling: Franciscan penitent
  • Death: Cortona, 1297
  • Tradition: the “Magdalene” of the Franciscan order 1

Who was Saint Margaret of Cortona

Saint Margaret of Cortona (1247–1297) was a penitent tied to the Franciscan world who lived in Cortona. After a youth marked by her relationship with a man, she turned to a life of prayer and penance and became a spiritual touchstone for the town. Tradition calls her the “Magdalene” of the Franciscan order, the sinner who becomes a saint 1. Cortona still venerates her with a devotion that runs deep.

Her origins, in 1247

Margaret was born in 1247. Of her childhood we know little for certain. The sources that tell her story took shape after her death, when she was already an object of devotion, and they blend historical memory with edifying legend. Read them for what they are: a portrait drawn by people who wanted to show just how far she had come. On one point the sources agree. Her youth led her toward a life her age judged scandalous.

The years of the relationship

Giovanni Lanfranco's Ecstasy of Saint Margaret of Cortona: the little dog, her attribute, at the lower left
The little dog that led her to her lover’s body became her attribute in sacred art. · Photo: Giovanni Lanfranco (pd) / Wikimedia Commons

Margaret lived at the side of a man, and her position was a precarious one. This is the thread the hagiographers would load with moral weight, until she became the “Magdalene” of the Franciscan order 1. Told without the filter of judgment, it is the story of a woman who chose a life outside the rules, and who would pay dearly for that freedom once he was gone.

The legend of the dog

One day the man did not come home. His dog came back alone and began to tug at her until she followed. The animal led her into the woods, all the way to the body 2. This episode sits at the heart of her legend. When you come across her image in a church or among the sacred art of the local villages, it is often that little dog that tells you you are looking at her. The discovery in the woods also opens the second act of her life, the moment death crashes into her story and forces her to rethink everything.

Arriving in Cortona and choosing penance

Cast out by the man’s relatives and with no place left in her own family 2, Margaret came to Cortona and found a welcome there. Here her life took the turn that would make her famous. She became the penitent the Franciscan tradition would remember as its “Magdalene” 1. Her bond with the Franciscans would shape the rest of her story, and even now her name runs alongside that of Saint Francis in Cortona.

A conversion that became public

Margaret’s conversion soon became something that concerned the whole town. It is the root of a devotion born from the initiative of a woman on her own. The saint the people of Cortona pray to still carries the memory of a presence close to the everyday life of the community.

Why Cortona feels so close to her

Cortona spread across the hillside, seen from the valley
The town where Margaret spent her final decades and which still venerates her as its patron saint. · Photo: LigaDue (CC BY-SA 4.0) / Wikimedia

Cortona perches nearly five hundred metres above the Valdichiana, a town of stone suspended between Tuscany and Lake Trasimeno 3. In a place like this, where everyone knows everyone, Margaret’s presence has worked itself into daily life for generations. The town venerates her with a devotion that grew from the ground up, carried by the people of Cortona themselves. Her figure stays bound to the penitent who chose silence. It is the story of a radical conversion, and at the same time an account of how a community decides who it wants to protect, and who it wants to be protected by.

Where to find her today, between basilica and climb

The basilica of Santa Margherita at the top of Cortona.
The basilica dedicated to the saint, reached by the steep climb the people of Cortona have walked for centuries. · Photo: Diego Baglieri (CC BY-SA 4.0) / Wikimedia Commons

Margaret’s story has a place you can still reach on foot. The basilica that bears her name stands at the top of the town. To get there you climb a steep rise, the same one that now follows the Stations of the Cross. Walking up that slope, you retrace, without meaning to, the path that leads to her. Visitors who come to Cortona for the art or the landscape almost always end up meeting her, because her name is everywhere, from the churches to the signs above the town’s shops.

What remains, after her

Margaret died in Cortona in 1297 4. The devotion of its people has stayed with her ever since, kept alive by those who made the climb. The woman who had lived outside the rules is, from that day on, the one Cortona looks to whenever it raises its eyes toward her hill.

Fonti

Footnotes

  1. The Iconography of Saint Margaret of Cortona. openpublishing.psu.edu ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  2. Margherita da Cortona. diocesi.arezzo.it ↩ ↩2

  3. Cortona — dati (Wikidata). wikidata.org ↩

  4. Margherita da Cortona (1247-1297). causesanti.va ↩

Frequently asked questions

Who was Saint Margaret of Cortona?
She was a Franciscan penitent, a tertiary of the Third Order of Saint Francis, who spent the last decades of her life in Cortona. After a youth marked by her relationship with a nobleman, she devoted herself to prayer, penance and charity. Tradition calls her the "Magdalene" of the Franciscan order.
What is the legend of the dog linked to Saint Margaret?
When the man she lived with was murdered, his little dog came back alone from the hunt and dragged her into the woods to his body. That discovery was the turning point of her life and the beginning of her conversion.
Where and when was Saint Margaret of Cortona born?
She was born in 1247 in Laviano, a small inland village in the province of Perugia, in Umbria. Tradition describes her as the daughter of a peasant family, left motherless at an early age.
When was she proclaimed a saint?
She was canonized on 16 May 1728 by Pope Benedict XIII. She had died in Cortona on 22 February 1297, after decades devoted to penance and caring for the poorest.
What is Saint Margaret of Cortona the patron saint of?
She is the patron saint of Cortona and is venerated as the protector of women in childbirth. Around 1278 she founded a free hospice for the sick, the poor and expectant mothers.
Why is Saint Margaret called the "Magdalene" of the Franciscan order?
Because of the parallel with the sinner who becomes a saint: after nine years living with a nobleman outside marriage, she converted to a life of prayer and charity. Hagiography gave this transformation deep moral meaning.