FRANCESCANE DI CRISTO RE. – They were founded in 1459 in Venice, at S. Francesco della Vigna, by Maria Benedetta di Carignano Savoia and Maria Angelica Canal, as sisters of the Third Order, devoted to the education of girls from the Venetian upper aristocracy. After the Napoleonic and Italian suppressions,
the Congregation flourished again, extending its activities also to the missionary field, and in 1928, with the cooperation of Fr. Leonardo M. Bello, who prepared its new constitutions, it began a new life under the name it currently bears.
The institute, widespread in Italy and East Africa, has 55 houses, with 500 sisters devoted to various works: schools, workshops, orphanages, clinics, etc.
BIBL.: A. Berengo Morte, L'Istituto delle suore F. di C. R. dai primordi alla soppressione napoleonica, in Le Venezie francescane, 4 (1935), pp. 65-84. Alberto Ghinato