“Lived with a man as an unmarried couple, she suffered from child abuse” St. Margaret of Cortona

Margaret was born in Laviano around the year 1247, within a modest farmers family.

She had a difficult childhood, because she lost her mother when she was a little girl and she suffered the abuses of her stepmother. She left her house to go live to Arsenio´s Castle, a noble from Montepulciano, who had seduced her. She lived with him and his son for almost nine years, until Arsenio was found dead, murdered in very mysterious circumstances.

Margaret tried to go back with her father, who did not received her back; at last, she found asylum in the house of two ladies who sent her with the Franciscan friars. Margaret started to help the poor and the sick, led a life of sacrifice, slept and ate very little. After a revelation she actively devoted to redeem sinners. She died in 1297, in odour of sanctity.