ANNUNZIATINE CELESTI. – Female congregation founded in Genoa in 1602 by the Blessed Vittoria Fornari, who, after her husband’s death and having settled her children, had withdrawn into religious life under the direction of the Jesuit B. Zanoni. The Constitutions were approved by Clement VIII in 1604. To the three common vows, the religious added that of perpetual enclosure and that of not speaking with relatives except a few times a year. From Genoa, the institution spread to France with excellent success. Suppressed during the French Revolution, it was revived in 1842 at Joinville in the Priory of Our Lady of Pity. Today only 5 houses remain, three in Italy and two in France.
BIBL.: P. H. Hélyot, Dictionnaire des Ordres Relig., IV, Paris 1714, pp. 297–309; M. Heimbuchen, Die Orden u. Kongregationen der kathol. Kirche, I, 3rd ed., Paderborn 1933, pp. 625–27. Silvero Mattei