Sibyllina was born in 1287 at Pavia in Lombardy to an Italian family. Orphaned in her infancy, she was raised as a servant-girl in the Pavian household of a wealthy family. At the age of 12, she became completely blind.
Sibyllina undertook the Dominican Third Order (Tertiary) vows in her youth and entered the Dominican-Tertiary community of Pavia. Around the age of 15, she undertook the vocation of the Italian Dominican-Tertiary anchoress — being walled-up in a small cell attached to the outer wall of the Dominican Church of San Domenico at Pavia.
Sibyllina spent the 65 years (1302–1367) in her Pavian anchoress-cell — producing one of the longest documented Catholic anchorite-lives in history. Her cell opened to the adjacent Dominican Church-altar for the daily Eucharist and to a small window for the reception of food and the spiritual-conversation with the Pavian faithful who sought her counsel.
Sibyllina became famous during her lifetime for her mystical-ecstatic experiences (visions of Christ and the Blessed Virgin, levitations, prophetic gifts) and for her ministry of spiritual-direction to the Pavian Dominican community and to the Lombard-Catholic faithful.
Her blindness became the iconographic emblem — institutionally establishing her patronage of blind persons and the Catholic-medieval tradition of blind-anchoress mystical-spirituality.
She died at Pavia on March 19, 1367 at the age of 79, having spent 65 years in her anchoress-cell.