She is known for being the counselor of the Duke of Ferrara, for founding convents in two different and distant city-states and for her remains being returned to her home city of Narni on 26 May 1935, 391 years after her death.

[3] When she was twelve years old, Lucy made a private vow of chastity, and she determined to become a Dominican nun.

He had invited the man he had chosen to become Lucy's husband to the party, with the intention of having the couple publicly betrothed.

The suitor made an attempt to put a ring on Lucy's finger, only to be slapped repeatedly by her for his efforts.

Lucy was actually quite fond of him but felt that her earlier vow of perpetual virginity made the marriage impossible.

They reportedly advised Lucy to contract a legal marriage to Pietro, but to explain that her vow of virginity would have to be respected and not violated.

[3] In 1491, Lucy became Pietro's legal wife and the mistress of his household, which included a number of servants and a busy social calendar.

Despite her busy social schedule as a Countess, Lucy made great efforts to instruct the servants in the Catholic faith and soon became well known locally for her charity to the poor.

Nor when she performed austere penances, which included regularly wearing a hair shirt under her garments and spending most of the night in prayer and helping the poor.

[3] However, when one of the servants came up to him one day and told him that Lucy was privately entertaining a handsome young man she appeared to be quite familiar with, he did react.

Even the other sisters were concerned about her, and at one point called in the local bishop who watched Lucy go through the drama of the Passion for twelve hours straight.

Reports here vary, some indicating that he referred the case directly to the pope, who is said to have spoken with her and, with the assistance of Columba of Rieti (another mystic of the Third Order of Saint Dominic), ultimately decided in her favor, telling her to go home and pray for him.

After extensive correspondence between the parties, on April 15, 1499, Lucy escaped secretly from Viterbo and was officially received in Ferrara on May 7, 1499.

When Duke Ercole died on 24 January 1505, the new prioress quickly found Lucy to be guilty of some unrecorded transgression (most probably of her open and public support for the Savonarolan church reform),[7] and placed her on a strict penance.

In response to Lucy's insistent prayer, her stigmata eventually disappeared, which caused some of the other members of the community to question whether they had ever been there at all.

Her tomb in the convent church was opened four years later and her perfectly preserved body was transferred to a glass reliquary.

Lucy has a very important part in Prince of Foxes by Samuel Shellabarger, a historical novel which dramatizes her escape from Viterbo.

206 p. Edmund G. Gardner, Dukes and Poets in Ferrara: A Study in the Poetry, Religion, and Politics of the Fifteenth and Early Sixteenth Centuries.

578 p. E. Ann Matter, Prophetic Patronage as Repression: Lucia Brocadelli da Narnia and Ercole d'Este.

New York 2005, 316 p. ISBN 0-8091-0523-3 Tamar Herzig, Witches, Saints, and Heretics: Heinrich Kramer's Ties with Italian Women Mystics.

The manuscript recently discovered in Bologna and published by E. Ann Matter and Gabriella Zarri in Una mistica contestata : la Vita di Lucia da Narni (1476-1544) tra agiografia e autobiografia (pp.1-255).