DAUGHTERS OF THE CRUCIFIED OF SAINT MARY MAGDALEN. — In 1836 the priest Giovanni Quilici, parish priest of Livorno, gathered together some women into a pious association to provide shelter for young women at risk and abandoned, offer a retreat for penitents, and also perform charitable work for girls of every class through Christian and civil education. Meanwhile, with the support and financial aid of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, the College of Saint Mary Magdalene had been established for the education of young ladies. The first associates of Quilici went to this Institute.
The administration and direction of the work were entrusted to a representative of the civil government, called an *operajo*. It was the ever more progressive interference of these *operai* in the internal affairs of the association that gave rise to other branches of the Daughters of the Crucified. Indeed, some associates who had gone to Florence to the Institute of Saint Francis and Saint Mary Magdalene declared themselves independent in 1853, and likewise did others who had gone in 1880 to Fauglia, in the diocese of San Miniato. This branch, free from all civil interference, developed further and obtained papal approval on 28 August 1882 and 2 March 1906. On 14 December 1922 the Sacred Congregation of Religious decreed the union of the branches of Livorno and Florence; and on 12 July 1927 it approved the union of all three branches. Thus united, the Institute obtained temporary approval of its constitutions in 1899, which were definitively approved on 4 January 1946.
