In 1488, it was a small, windowless, dark, roofed room where Colomba lived the first seven years, described by her confessor-biographer as a “horrid prison.” When the first monastery was being rebuilt, the little room was expanded and located in the dormitory attic.

Description: A small cell, entirely made of wood, reconstructed in the current monastery. Here, all the furnishings and relics from the original cell have been reassembled: the plank bed, a painting on rough linen canvas depicting a “Christ Carrying the Cross” that belonged to Colomba by an unidentified artist, a tempera panel with an image of the blessed, the work of an Umbrian painter from the early 1500s, many ex-votos on the walls, a papier-mâché Calvary (made of linen, wool, and glue) specially crafted for her by her confessor, Father Sebastiano Angeli, as well as various penitential garments and instruments such as a napkin, a towel, a rough woolen shirt, a head veil, a cloak, two horsehair cilices, an iron belt she wore around her waist, iron chains she wore around her neck, and a large reliquary containing the upper part of the blessed’s skull placed on a small altar.

Type: Object of worship not classifiable as an image or relic
Location: Other
Original location in the Sanctuary: In the chapel of Saint Catherine of Siena in the church of San Domenico, where Colomba used to pray during her lifetime; after her death, the chapel was rededicated as the Chapel of the Blessed Colomba.

Notes on the collection: Many of these ex-votos are described in the biography by Father Sebastiano Angeli.
Types of ex-votos: Illuminations, inscribed tablets or plaques, goldsmith objects, real or represented prosthetics.
Reference to publications or printed descriptions: Raffaele Argenziano, *Iconography of the Blessed Colomba in Perugia*, in *Una santa, una città. Atti del Convegno storico nel V centenario della venuta a Perugia di Colomba da Rieti* (Perugia, November 10-12, 1989), edited by Giovanna Casagrande and Enrico Menestò, Regione dell’Umbria-«La Nuova Italia» Editrice, Perugia-Florence, pp. 253-289, particularly pp. 280-289.

The miracles are recorded in the Latin and Vernacular *Legenda* by her confessor-biographer Father Sebastiano Angeli and later recounted in the many biographies dedicated to her.

The dates of the earliest attestation refer to Colomba da Rieti’s stay in Perugia. When Colomba da Rieti arrived in Perugia on September 17, 1488, she was welcomed into a “common house” of Penitent Sisters located near the church of San Domenico, in Porta S. Pietro, where only two nuns lived. Within a few years, her fame for holiness, linked to prophecies, miracles, and messages of peace, attracted new vocations, so that by the time of her death, the sisters numbered about fifty.

From the end of 1489, funds donated by communal magistrates and simple devotees are documented, first for the expansion of the house of the tertiaries, then in 1493, the foundation stone was laid for the “construction” of a proper monastery, which Colomba herself dedicated to Saint Catherine of Siena. This monastery, which housed the small cell where the Dominican nun slept and prayed, was expanded and restructured several times during the 18th century until, in 1864, due to the suppression of religious orders after the unification of Italy, it was confiscated and largely rebuilt for another purpose: it was converted into a barracks (now the headquarters of the Fire Brigade). The nuns were housed in a small residence on Via Antica (now Via Imbriani), where they remained until 1940, when the Bishop of Perugia, Giovan Battista Rosa, united them with another Perugian Dominican female community, that of San Tommaso, and both merged into the current monastery of the “Blessed Colomba” in Porta S. Angelo.

Via Monteripido, 06123 Perugia, Italy