Camilla Pio di Savoia

Camilla Pio di Savoia (c. 1440 – 1504) was born an Italian noblewoman and later founded the first female monastery in Carpi, Italy, Santa Chiara, of which she was elected abbess.

Camilla was considered a cultured and devoted woman when, in 1471, she received a substantial inheritance from her paternal aunt Margherita Pio, the second wife and widow of the condottiere Taddeo d'Este.

Camilla took that opportunity to pursue a cloistered life and decided to establish the first female monastery in Carpi dedicated to St. Clare (in Italian: Santa Chiara).

[2] To begin, Camilla obtained a Papal bull with the authorization of Pope Innocent VIII in 1490, and immediately began to build a church and monastery.

In 1494 Alberto Pio and his cousin Giberto II, co-lords of Carpi, gave Camilla a large landed property, the Cassina (500 biolche of land) north of Carpi, and allowed her to incorporate a road into the monastery's garden, so the nuns would have a large green space for meditation, in addition to the cloister.