Another miracle took place five days after in favour of Lucia di Sante Lalli, from the town of S. Maria, in the territory of Nursia. One of her eyes was entirely blind for fifteen years, and the other was nearly so. She went, accompanied by her mother, to visit the holy body of the saint in Cascia, and remained there praying for fifteen days, at the end of which, through her faith and the intercession of the saint, she regained her sight, as she had ardently desired.
After describing the last-mentioned miracle there is a break in the ancient records, and we read of no other miracles till thirty years later. Under the date of the 3rd of June, 1487, we find that Pietro di Giovanni of Paganelli, and his wife, a native of Nursia, made a vow to St. Rita for the restoration to health of their son Pietro, who was so tongue-tied that he could not utter a word. The saint consoled them, for in a short time their son was in perfect health, with full use of speech.
A daughter of Gregorio d'Antonio of Col Giacone, who had lost the power of speech after a severe illness, recovered it after being brought to the saint's tomb. This fact is mentioned under the date of the 22nd of June in the same year.
About the same time Sante di Mariano of Rocca Porena, whilst playing bull, was thrown violently against one of his companions, who had a knife in his belt, and was accidentally so severely wounded in the ventral region that the physicians despaired of curing him. He had recourse to the saint, and although he was not cured instantly, yet he immediately began to improve, and ultimately he was restored to perfect health.
On the 18th of May, about two years afterwards, Angela, wife of Domenico Berardi of Logna, a town in the territory of Cascia, whose arm was crippled and so diseased that it brought on feverish feelings every day, had recourse to the invisible virtue of that holy body, and was completely healed.
Father Nicola Galli, who had been confessor of the nuns in the convent in which the saint lived, and who wrote her life, which to a great extent we are making use of in this chapter, and who declares that he took his account of Rita's miracles from the process of her beatification given him by the nuns, relates as the sixteenth of her miracles that a certain Giovanni di Rocca Porena was restored from death to life through the merits of the saint, but he mentions no circumstances.
A woman named Fior di Pier Antonio had a son named Spirito, who suffered from a sort of insanity, which doctors would call lycanthropy (a species of insanity in which the patient imagines himself to be a wolf), owing to which he was given to wandering through the woods and mountains, and felt a tendency to hurl himself from high places. His afflicted mother, seeing that all the remedies of science were useless, had recourse to St. Rita, and was consoled by her son's being restored to health and his right mind.
About the year 1491 a certain Vannetta, daughter-in-law of Ser Antonio di Nardo, from the town of Fogliano, near Cascia, was suffering from so dangerous an affection of the throat that she could swallow neither food nor drink, and therefore believed that she had reached the end of her days. Once, on being awakened from a heavy sleep, which her friends thought was the lethargy of death, she complained of being deprived by them of the beautiful vision she had been enjoying. To their questions about her vision she replied that she had seen St. Rita, who had called to her and touched her throat with her finger and disappeared. It was found that the cure was not simply imaginary, but that the girl was freed from her disease.
About the same time a boy named Amico, the son of Antonio of Col Forcella, who was suffering great pain from gravel, was recommended by his mother to the powerful intercession of the saint, and her faith was rewarded by his instantaneous cure.
In the following year Giovan Marino, of Logna, was cured of a disease called serpentina, through which his whole body was paralysed, for it pleased God to hear, through the intercession of Rita, the fervent prayers offered in his behalf by his aunt Donna Santa.