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230 230 B. DIANA Bologna. During the life of St. Dominic, a monastery of his order was built at Bologna, and dedicated in the name of St. Nicholas. As the number of the friar-preachers increased, the monastery became too small for them, and Diana, then a young girl, persuaded her father to give them, without payment, a vine- yard of his, which lay beside their narrow piece of ground, so that they might en- large their house. > She used to go often to hear them preach, and soon she took a vow of virginity in the presence of St. Dominic and of several pious matrons of Bologna, 1219. This vow was kept secret for a time, as she knew that her parents would not approve of it. She confided to St. Dominic her wish to found a convent of his order for women. He approved, and ordered the enlarge- ment of the monastery of St. Nicholas to be suspended, and all the resources of the community to be devoted to constructing the convent of St. Agnes in Monte. Meantime Diana tried to prepare her- self in her father's house for monastic life by secret austerities and increased devotion. This life, however, neither satisfied her heart nor tended towards fulfilling the promise she had made to St. Dominic that she would build a convent ; so one day she went with a great many of her friends — for recreation, as she said — to the Benedictine convent of Eonzano, and, going into the dor- mitory, she asked the nuns to give her the dress of their order. They had already prepared everything for her, and now received her gladly as one of themselves. So she dismissed her companions, telling them she intended to remain in the convent. When her parents heard what had happened, they came in great indigna- tion, with many of their friends and relations, entered the convent with fury and violence, and carried Diana off by force ; her rib was broken in the scuffle, and she was so much exhausted that she appeared to be dead when first they brought her home. Everybody was more or less hurt, and the whole place was in an uproar, as great as if Bologna had been invaded by a hostile army. - She was confined to bed for a long time, and was not allowed to see any one, except in the presence of her parents. About this time (1221) St. Dominic, who had been absent, returned to Bo- logna, and soon lay on his death-bed. Diana grieved that she could not go and visit him on account of her own illness, and of the strict watch her parents kept over her; but ho wrote her several letters, exhorting her to persevere in the religious life she had undertaken. Soon after his death Diana recovered, and took the first opportunity of returning to the convent of Eonzano. Her father saw that all his efforts to reconcile her to a secular life were vain, and molested her no more, lest he should fight against God. The convent of St. Agnes in Monte was finished in 1223, and Diana with four other Dominican nuns moved thither, and in the same year they were joined by two illustrious matrons of Ferrara. They then sent to the convent of St. Sixtus at Eome, with permission of the Pope, Honorius III., to beg that some of the sisters might be sent to teach them all the rules and holy cus- toms enjoined by St. Dominic. Among those who came, the chief was B. Cecilia, who had received the religious veil at seventeen from St. Dominic himself, and was the first nun who ever received it from him. It is supposed that B. Amata was one of those nuns of St. Sixtus who came to establish the new order at St. Agnese, in Bologna. No particulars are recorded of her, but she is commemorated with the other two. Diana died 1286, being probably about thirty-five years of age. Cecilia lived in great sanctity to the age of eighty- nine, and died 1200. A letter from B. Giordano, the second general of the Order of St. Dominic, to Diana, " Priora del venerabile monastero di St. Agnese in Bologna," was published at Eome in 1800. AA,SS.j from the Life of Diana, by Malvenda. (See also Histories of the Dominicans by Pio and Fernando del Castillo, who give her Life with slight variations in the order of the events.) B. Diana (2), or Jeanne. + 1300. First Prioress of Sobrives, aunt of St. EOSSELINE.