She was the twenty-fourth of twenty-five children but still stubbornly independent and idealistic in her devotion. She was a female expected to be quietly married in her early teens but who won her fierce battle to remain single. She had no formal schooling but was one of four women to be named a doctor of the church. She taught herself to read but penned the spiritual classic The Dialogue and an array of letters and recorded mystical experiences. She founded a monastery of strict observance for women but traveled widely, including abroad as a mediator for the papacy.