Monna Tessa

Monna Tessa was the servant of Folco Portinari and the tutor-chaperone of his ten children, most notably including Dante’s beloved Beatrice Portinari who regularly attended mass and prayed with Tessa and her mother in the church of Santa Margherita (where a reproduction of this tombstone is located).

There is no doubt that Dante knew her and, indeed, we may assume that Tessa was present alongside Beatrice whenever she appears in the Vita nova. Tessa is also remembered as the driving force behind the foundation of this Hospital of Santa Maria Nuova.

Monna Tessa, who died on July 4, 1327, remains to this day an inspirational figure in Florence. This sculpture, which was once a tombstone, shows her in religious garb, with her hands crossed over a book (presumably containing the Rules of her Order, the Pious Ladies of Santa Maria Nuova, which she established in 1301).

The cord hanging from her waist denotes her membership as a tertiary in the Order of Penance of St. Francis. Some of her most significant accomplishments are remembered on the (late seventeenth-century) plaque below her effigy:

“Madonna Tessa, servant of Folco Portinari represented in this ancient bas-relief just as charitable as she was loyal, by having been engaged as long as she lived in the praiseworthy and commendable care of the sick in her master’s houses and by providing an example for others in her great charity and sincere benevolence toward those who suffer, inspired Folco, in his devout and copious generosity, to found this now magnificent hospital. And it was opened on June 23, 1288.”

Monna Tessa was more than a glorified nursemaid; indeed, she is an outstanding example of the power once wielded by the lay class and by its female members in particular. Within the hospital’s chapel, Father Giuseppe Richa (1693-1761) discovered a rhymed inscription on an altar that was probably once located near Monna Tessa’s tombstone, but has since gone missing. It read as follows:

PRO. ANIMA. DI MONNA. TESSA.
FATT. E. QUESTO. PER. DIR. LA. MESSA.
MOGLE. FU. DI. TURE. BASTAIO.
E. DE. PAGHO. OGNI. DANAIO.
MILLE, TRECENTO. VENSETTE.
DI. IIII. DI. LUGLIO. DEL. SECHOL. PARTETTE.

(For the soul of Monna Tessa, this [altar] was made for saying mass. She was the wife of Ture the Cane Maker and paid all the money [for the masses?]. In 1327, on the 4th of July, she left this life.)

It has been hypothesized that her husband may have died long before she did and that she then devoted herself completely to those less fortunate than herself. Though Folco Portinari (the father of Dante’s Beatrice) died on the last day of 1289, just a year after the hospital had been opened, Monna Tessa surely continued her work there until the end.

Coat of arms of the Portinari family