Giuseppina Nicoli (18 November 1863 – 31 December 1924) was an Italian

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

religious sister A religious sister (abbreviated ''Sr.'' or Sist.) in the Catholic Church is a woman who has taken public vows in a religious institute dedicated to apostolic works, as distinguished from a nun who lives a cloistered monastic life dedicated to pr ...

. Nicoli - aged 20 at the time - became a member of the

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and became a

catechist Catechesis (; from Greek: , "instruction by word of mouth", generally "instruction") is basic Christian religious education of children and adults, often from a catechism book. It started as education of converts to Christianity, but as the ...

Sardinia Sardinia ( ; it, Sardegna, label=Italian, Corsican and Tabarchino ; sc, Sardigna , sdc, Sardhigna; french: Sardaigne; sdn, Saldigna; ca, Sardenya, label=Algherese and Catalan) is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after ...

where she was positioned for most of her life despite holding several positions of leadership in

Turin Turin ( , Piedmontese language, Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital ...

and elsewhere for a brief period. Her beatification was started under

Pope Paul VI Pope Paul VI ( la, Paulus VI; it, Paolo VI; born Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini, ; 26 September 18976 August 1978) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City, Vatican City State from 21 June 1963 to his ...

in 1966 and she was later named as

Venerable The Venerable (''venerabilis'' in Latin) is a style, a title, or an epithet which is used in some Western Christian churches, or it is a translation of similar terms for clerics in Eastern Orthodoxy and monastics in Buddhism. Christianity Cathol ...

under

Pope Benedict XVI Pope Benedict XVI ( la, Benedictus XVI; it, Benedetto XVI; german: link=no, Benedikt XVI.; born Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger, , on 16 April 1927) is a retired prelate of the Catholic church who served as the head of the Church and the sovereign ...

in 2006 who also approved her beatification - Cardinal José Saraiva Martins beatified Nicoli in 2008 on the behalf of the pontiff. Her annual liturgical feast was not affixed to the date of her death (as is the norm) but rather on the date of her beatification.

Life

Giuseppina Nicoli was born in

Pavia Pavia (, , , ; la, Ticinum; Medieval Latin: ) is a town and comune of south-western Lombardy in northern Italy, south of Milan on the lower Ticino river near its confluence with the Po. It has a population of c. 73,086. The city was the capit ...

on 18 November 1863 as the fifth of ten children to Carlo Nicoli - a magistrate. Nicoli studied in Pavia and

Voghera The Castle of Voghera in a 19th-century etching. Voghera ( Vogherese dialect of Emilian: ''Vughera''; Latin: ''Forum Iulii Iriensium'') is a town and ''comune'' in the Province of Pavia in the Italian region Lombardy. The population was 39,374 ...

where she achieved excellent results. Nicoli became a member of the

at their San Salvario house in

on 24 September 1883. She was vested in the habit in late 1883 while in

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. On 1 January 1885 her superiors dispatched her to the island of

where she served the poor and aided her order in a series of social initiatives targeted at the poor and orphaned. She dealt with the victims of a

cholera Cholera is an infection of the small intestine by some strains of the bacterium ''Vibrio cholerae''. Symptoms may range from none, to mild, to severe. The classic symptom is large amounts of watery diarrhea that lasts a few days. Vomiting and ...

outbreak in 1886. She made her simple vows on 24 December 1888. In June 1899 she became the director of the

Sassari Sassari (, ; sdc, Sàssari ; sc, Tàtari, ) is an Italian city and the second-largest of Sardinia in terms of population with 127,525 inhabitants, and a Functional Urban Area of about 260,000 inhabitants. One of the oldest cities on the island, ...

orphanage and there taught

catechism A catechism (; from grc, κατηχέω, "to teach orally") is a summary or exposition of doctrine and serves as a learning introduction to the Sacraments traditionally used in catechesis, or Christian religious teaching of children and adult c ...

to the poor and illiterate as well as to the daughters of rich families who had no religious instruction whatsoever. Nicoli encouraged Eucharistic Adoration and she supported the "Associazione dei Figli di Maria" while also serving as the director of the "Associazione delle Figlie di Maria". In 1893 she contracted

tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, in ...

that remained with her and corroded her health. In 1910 her superior summoned her to Turin and - until August 1914 - served as the provincial administrator for the order there and was then sent back to Sardinia when her superiors noted her great contributions to the order's presence there. In Turin she also had served as the directress of the order's

novitiate The novitiate, also called the noviciate, is the period of training and preparation that a Christian ''novice'' (or ''prospective'') monastic, apostolic, or member of a religious order undergoes prior to taking vows in order to discern whether ...

from 1912 until a mere nine months after. She also tended to wounded soldiers during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. Nicoli also worked alongside the "Monelli di Maria" and got the children that the movement aided to

mass Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different elementar ...

and also taught them how to read and write. It was while in Sassari that she became acquainted with Giovanni Battista Manzella. Nicoli died of

bronchial pneumonia Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of productive or dry cough, chest pain, fever, and difficulty breathing. The severity of ...

at 9:00am on 31 December 1924. Her relations wanted her to be interred next to her parents at

Casatisma Casatisma is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Pavia in the Italian region Lombardy, located about 45 km south of Milan and about 15 km south of Pavia. Casatisma borders the following municipalities: Bressana Bottarone, Cast ...

but the people of

Cagliari Cagliari (, also , , ; sc, Casteddu ; lat, Caralis) is an Italian municipality and the capital of the island of Sardinia, an autonomous region of Italy. Cagliari's Sardinian name ''Casteddu'' means ''castle''. It has about 155,000 inhabitant ...

persuaded the relations to inter Nicoli's remains in the town. In October 1932 her remains were moved into a chapel at the Asilo della Marina in Cagliari.

Beatification

The informative process for beatification commenced in 1930 and concluded its business in 1947 while two separate processes were held in other Italian cities - one in Sassari spanned from 1932 until 1947 while the other in Turin opened in 1934 and closed in 1947 at the same time as the other two processes. Theologians approved her writings to be orthodox on 12 January 1950. The formal introduction of the cause came under

on 27 January 1966 and she was accorded the title of Servant of God as the first official stage in the process. The Congregation for the Causes of Saints validated these processes in

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on 27 September 1985 and received the official

Positio In the Catholic Church, a ''positio'' (''Positio super Virtutibus'') is a document or collection of documents used in the process by which a person is declared Venerable, the second of the four steps on the path to canonization as a saint. Des ...

dossier from the postulation in 1998 for inspection. Theologians approved the cause on 4 February 2005 as did the C.C.S. on 17 May 2005. On 28 April 2006 she was declared to be

after

confirmed that Nicoli had indeed lived a model life of heroic virtue. The process for the investigation of the miracle needed for her to be beatified was held in

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

from 1934 until 1936 and was later validated on 28 September 1998 which allowed for a medical board to approve it on 30 June 2005 and theologians to follow suit on 13 June 2006. The C.C.S. also voted in favor of the miracle on 20 March 2007 which led to Benedict XVI approving it on 6 July 2007 thus confirming Nicoli would be beatified. Cardinal José Saraiva Martins presided over the beatification in Cagliari on the pope's behalf. There were 400

priests A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deity, deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in p ...

present in addition to sixteen Sardinian bishops and fourteen Italian mainland bishops. Cardinal Franc Rode was also present as was Prince

Emanuele Filiberto of Savoy, Prince of Venice Emanuele Filiberto Umberto Reza Ciro René Maria di Savoia (born 22 June 1972)''Genealogisches Handbuch des Adels, Fürstliche Häuser'' XIV. "Haus Italien". C.A. Starke Verlag, 1997, pp. 33, 38–39. .Willis, Daniel, ''The Descendants of Louis ...

. The miracle in question involved the cure of Battista Colleoni of severe tuberculosis on 26 December 1933. The

postulator A postulator is the person who guides a cause for beatification or canonization through the judicial processes required by the Roman Catholic Church. The qualifications, role and function of the postulator are spelled out in the ''Norms to be Obse ...

for this cause is Shijo Kanjirathamkunnel.

References

External links

Hagiography CircleSaints SQPN
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nicoli, Giuseppina 1863 births 1924 deaths 19th-century venerated Christians 19th-century Italian Roman Catholic religious sisters and nuns 20th-century Italian Roman Catholic religious sisters and nuns 20th-century venerated Christians Beatifications by Pope Benedict XVI Daughters and Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul Deaths from pneumonia in Sardinia Italian beatified people Religious leaders from Pavia Venerated Catholics by Pope Benedict XVI Vincentian beatified people