BRENTI, ROSA TERESA. — Foundress of the Institute of the Most Blessed Sacrament at Fognano (Ravenna), born at Tredozio (Forlì) on 23 February 1790, died at Fognano on 7 December 1872. A Dominican religious in the monastery of Tredozio until the Napoleonic suppression (1810), she moved to Borgo S. Sepolcro (Arezzo) as a pious teacher, where she prepared herself for her mission as an educator. In 1822, with the collaboration of Giacomo Ciani, archpriest of Fognano, and Giuseppe M. Emiliani, a nobleman of Faenza, she began that work which, developing within the splendid monastery and the adjoining «Emiliani» boarding school, soon became for the entire region a «colony propagating austere yet graceful customs» (L. Scarabelli).
Of adamantine character, she faced difficulties, misunderstandings, and utterly unfounded calumnies with the resolve, expressed in a vow, «to make amends by herself for all the evil committed in the universe». Favored with visions, ecstasies, and revelations, she set down, in part and out of obedience, the fruit of her mystical experiences in numerous notebooks, published in Bologna in 1936 under the editorship of Msgr. Giulio Cantagalli (2 vols.). Just as her Institute (of Dominican spirit) has as its purpose to render a «particular homage» to the Eucharist, so her spirit constantly moves within the atmosphere of «Sacramental Love», offering us an example of Eucharistic mysticism worthy of further study. B. casts a particular light on the troubled nineteenth century in Romagna and on the figures who came into contact with and admired her, such as Emiliani, Cardinal Fesch, Cardinal Falconieri, and Pius IX, who visited the monastery at Fognano in 1857.