She was born in 1457 in
Brescia, Italy, to Lorenzo de Quinzanis and his wife, who were a poor and pious couple. Her father became a member of the
Third Order of St. Dominic while Stephana was very young. While accompanying him on visits to the Dominican monastery in nearby
Soncino, she met the
stigmatic friar,
Matthew Carrieri,
OP, who instructed her in the
catechism. Carrieri told her that she would be his spiritual heiress, a statement she did not understand for many years. She began receiving visions of Dominican saints from age seven, at which point she made vows of
poverty, chastity and obedience. She participated in various stages of the
passion of Jesus Christ, which was attested to by 21 witnesses in 1497 in a still extant account, written in the vernacular, and entitled ''Relazione dell'Estasi della Passione''. De Quinzanis had a particularly intense devotion to
Saint Thomas Aquinas. In fact, to overcome the temptation of
thoughts against purity, she once threw herself upon a cartload of thorns in imitation of the
Doctor Angelicus. Exhausted from this
penance, she prayed to Saint Thomas, and, according to legend, was girded by angels with a cord, which they tied so tightly around her waist that she cried out in pain. Though she had no formal theological training, she could discuss
mystical theology at the most profound level. She is therefore considered a
patron saint for theologians. It is said that she could read the hearts and minds of the people around her, and had the gift of
prophesy and
healing. She lived in a nearly continuous
fasting. She accurately predicted the date of her own death, which occurred from natural causes on 2 January 1530. ==Veneration==