BRENTI, Rosa Teresa. - Foundress of the Institute of the Most Holy Sacrament of Fognano (Ravenna), b. at Tredozio (Forlì) on 23 Feb. 1790, d. at Fognano on 7 Dec. 1872. A Dominican nun in the monastery of Tredozio until the Napoleonic suppression (1810), she moved to Borgo S. Sepolcro (Arezzo) as a pious teacher, where she prepared for her mission as an educator. In 1822, with the collaboration of Giacomo Ciani, archpriest of Fognano, and Giuseppe M. Emiliani, a nobleman from Fucine, she began that work which, developing in the sumptuous monastery and the attached "Emiliani" boarding school, soon became for the entire region a "colony propagating strict yet graceful customs" (L. Scarabelli).
Of adamantine temperament, she faced difficulties, misunderstandings, and unspeakable calumnies with the resolve, translated into a vow, "to make amends alone for all the evil committed in the universe." Favored with visions, ecstasies, and revelations, she recorded in part and by obedience the fruit of her mystical experiences in many notebooks, printed in Bologna in 1936 under the care of Mons. Giulio Cantagalli (2 vols.). As her Institute (of Dominican spirit) has as its purpose to render "particular homage" to the Eucharist, so her spirit constantly moves in the atmosphere of "sacramental love," providing us with an example of Eucharistic mysticism worthy of further study. Bl. Rosa sheds particular light on the troubled 19th century in Romagna and on the figures who approached and admired her, such as Emiliani, Cardinals Fesch and Falconieri, and Pius IX, who visited the monastery of Fognano in 1857.