MINIME DELL'ADDOLORATA. — On May 1, 1868, the Servant of God Clelia Barbieri and two of her companions, under the direction of Fr. Gaetano Guidi, began a common life at Le Budrie (diocese of Bologna), dedicating themselves to the education of children and the visitation of the sick.
Scarcely three years later the pious foundress died; yet the Institute she had founded continued to live and develop. First approved experimentally by the Archbishop of Bologna in 1879 and later definitively in 1905, it received its Constitutions approved by the same archbishop on September 26, 1926, and obtained the decree of praise and the first approval of the Holy See on March 20, 1934. Final approval was granted on January 24, 1949.
The sisters engage in the Christian and civic education of children in kindergartens, schools, orphanages, and boarding schools; in catechetical instruction in parishes; and in the care and service of the sick in hospitals and at home. In 1947 there were 249 professed sisters and 19 novices distributed in 32 houses.