ORSOLINE

ORSOLINE. – Name of the religious congregation founded by St. Angela (see) Merici, from which many other congregations of the same name but with different habits and customs developed.

I. COMPANY OF ST. ORSOLA. – Founded in Brescia on 25 November 1535 by St. Angela Merici of Desenzano. It is the first secular institute for women to arise in the Church. Its members remain in their own families and dedicate themselves to all works of charity within the competence of women, but especially to the teaching of Christian doctrine as a means of countering errors and bad morals. Through the sanctification of women in the domestic hearth, it aims to bring about the renewal of society. The Rule, dictated by St. Angela for her Company of secular virgins, was approved by the Bishop of Brescia, Monsignor Cornaro, on 18 August 1535. After the founder’s death, Paul III approved it on 9 June 1544.

The Company spread rapidly in Italy. Cremona was the first to receive it in 1565. Then St. Charles Borromeo had the Rules sent to him to establish it in Milan in 1566, and at the Provincial Council of 1576 he recommended to all his suffragans to establish it in their cities as an excellent means of reform. In 1581, after the apostolic visitation made to Brescia, he again approved the Rules and obtained confirmation from Gregory XIII (24 December 1582). Soon Lombardy and Venetia saw the Ursulines flourishing everywhere.

From Italy the institution spread to Switzerland and thence to France, thanks to the activity of the Venerable César de Bus, founder of the Doctrinarians. In 1594 Father Romildo gave the Venerable Francesca de Bermond and her companions the Rule written by St. Charles for the Milanese Ursulines, who lived in community, and established them at Isle-sur-Sorgues in the Venaissin territory. This was the origin of the French Ursulines. Other similar congregations soon arose in various parts of France, but without any bond of filiation among them; so that subsequently eight different branches of monastic Ursulines originated from them (see below).

(Kindly provided by the Superior General of the Ursulines of the Roman Union)
ORSOLINE – St. Angela Merici, foundress of the Ursulines (1474–1540)
Portrait by Moretto da Brescia taken from the body of the Saint in 1540 – Rome, General House of the Ursulines of the Roman Union

Other works include a painting by an Umbrian artist of the 14th century (now in the Museo del Castello, Milan), the altarpiece by Tintoretto (S. Lazzaro dei Mendicanti, Venice). The multi-episode cycles follow the different versions of the legend, sometimes enriched by the personal imagination of the artists. The earliest illustrations appear to be those engraved on two bronze liturgical cups of Rhenish art (11th–12th centuries), one preserved in a private collection and the other in the Museum of Aix-la-Chapelle; also important are the illustrative engravings in the text of the *Legenda* of Jacobus de Voragine or in those of the various *sacre rappresentazioni* (Biblioteca Marciana, Venice). Yet the most interesting examples are found above all in pictorial art.

Among the principal cycles, some belong to the school of Cologne between the second half of the 15th century and the early 16th: the 15 panels (now in the Kunstgewerbe Museum, Cologne), the 30 paintings by J. and G. van Scheven, dated 1456 (church of St. Ursula, Cologne), and the 18 small panels (notably *The Dream*) by an anonymous artist called the “Master of the Legend of St. Ursula” (Wallraf-Richartz Museum and other museums and collections). In Belgium there is the reliquary of St. Odilia at Kerniel, painted c. 1292 with scenes connected to our legend; at Bruges two works of great importance: eight panels painted by a local master of the 15th century (Convent of the Soeurs Noires) and the famous reliquary-chest (Hôpital St-Jean), with the marvellous panels painted by H. Memling c. 1489. But the legend had already spread in the Veneto in the 14th century: thus, besides a triptych attributed to Maestro Paolo (formerly Queiroy collection, Paris) and the modest frescoes in the little church of Vigo di Cadore, two great painters treated this theme, following the version of the *Golden Legend* and transposing it with imaginative flair into their own setting: Tommaso da Modena, in the mid-14th century, in the frescoes of the church of St. Margaret at Treviso (now in the city museum); Vittore Carpaccio, in the last decade of the 15th century, in the nine canvases painted for the Scuola di S. Orsola in Venice (now in the Gallerie dell’Accademia). Traces of our legend are also found in Spain, in works by masters

Meanwhile, in Brescia the Company of St. Orsola preserved its primitive state and flourished until the French Revolution, when all sisterhoods were prohibited; the Company of St. Orsola was then stripped of all its property. After the Revolution, Monsignor Nava, Bishop of Brescia, invited the sisters to repopulate the convents; some preferred to become Daughters of St. Angela; but, having no place to gather, the Company seemed for a time on the verge of disappearing. This lasted until 1864, when the Countess Maddalena and Elisabetta Girelli established in Brescia a group of associates of the “Pious Union of the New Ursulines, Daughters of the Immaculate Mary.” The two Girelli sought canonical erection from the bishop, Monsignor G. Verzeri, but he insisted that they rather restore the Company of St. Orsola in its primitive form; to this the Girellis readily assented; and on 13 June 1866, the very day on which the Italian Parliament voted the suppression of all religious orders, Monsignor Verzeri issued the decree of erection, reviving the Institute of St. Angela, namely the Company of secular Ursulines. A wonderful flourishing immediately ensued; Leo XIII granted a brief of praise (12 July 1901), Pius X favoured it with another brief on 15 May 1907, and Pius XI on 12 September 1930. There is scarcely a city of any importance that does not have a meeting place of the “Angeline” or Daughters of St. Angela, as they now like to call themselves. From the earliest years of this century the Company has also spread to France, Monaco, the East Indies (Mangalore), Mexico, Colombia, and Venezuela. All these foundations depend on the Superior General, who resides in Brescia. Only in Italy does the Company number about 16,000 sisters, distributed in 46 dioceses.

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II. URSULINES OF ST. CHARLES (Milan). – St. Charles Borromeo obtained in 1566 the primitive Rule of the Company of St. Orsola and gave it to a group of pious young women of his city, introducing a few modifications required by the Milanese environment. These secular Ursulines multiplied quickly in the diocese and did immense good, so that at the Provincial Council held in 1576 the saintly archbishop exhorted all his suffragans to adopt the Company of St. Orsola as the principal means of organizing parish catechesis and female education. In 1582 they were approved by Gregory XIII.

Various changes occurred, however, which pushed these Ursulines toward regular monasteries, and St Charles had to yield to their wishes on several occasions and make them into Capuchins, Clarisses, or Augustinians. At that point, to preserve the Ursulines, he established, by decree of 5 Sept. 1584, the first four convents where they could live in community, and drew up suitable rules. These, however, were not handed over to the “Congregated Ursulines” until after the death of the Saint, which occurred on 4 Nov. 1584. They do not add to the Rule of St Ursula either vows or enclosure, but they establish the organisation of the houses with a view to the perfection of their members. Nevertheless, the original Brescian form continued to flourish in Milan.

The Rule of St Charles was published by Cardinal Monti in 1643. A list of 17 Dec. 1789 records the names of 14 houses of Congregated Ursulines operating in the Milanese area. All were dispersed by the Revolution. In 1844 Cardinal Gaisruck, Archbishop of Milan, gave to a group of Franciscan tertiaries, led by Maria Maddalena Barioli, the Rules of the Congregated Ursulines and a convent in Via Lanzone. From then on they took the name of Ursulines of St Charles. The houses founded subsequently and initially autonomous were later grouped under the authority of a superior general resident in Milan. The Ursulines of St Charles now have two houses in Milan, one in Rome, and eight others in other Italian cities, where they provide instruction at all levels, from kindergarten to classical lyceum and teacher training colleges. The nuns number about 600 in all.

**Ursulines – Detail of the inner courtyard of the St Ursula Institute of the Ursulines of St Charles in Rome.**

### III. ORDER OF ST URSULA
In France eight different branches of Congregated Ursulines had been founded according to the Milanese model (see above), independent of one another yet acknowledging the same Brescian origin. The Paris group, founded by Françoise de Bermond, “the first Ursuline of France,” asked for and obtained from Paul V, by a bull of 1612, to be raised to the status of a monastic Order. The other original groups soon achieved the same: Toulouse in 1616, Bordeaux in 1618, Lyons and Dijon in 1618, Tulle in 1621, Arles in 1624, Avignon in 1632.

The Order spread in these eight somewhat different forms, yet all united in spirit, and lived thus divided into eight monastic congregations for almost three centuries. The largest were those originating from Paris, Bordeaux, Lyons and Toulouse. In 1639 the Venerable Marie de l’Incarnation Guyart (see), of the Tours community (observance of Bordeaux), left with some companions from Tours and Paris for Canada, where she founded the first work of female education in a mission territory. Ursuline monasteries soon spread throughout Europe, but especially in France, where on the eve of the Revolution they numbered 350. The first monastery of the Order in Italy was founded in Rome (Via Vittoria) in 1688 by Orsolina of Flanders, invited by Laura d’Este, Duchess of Modena, and her daughter Maria d’Este, wife of James II, King of England. The French Revolution was later to destroy two-thirds of the Order’s monasteries in France, which, in compensation, developed considerably in the 19th century in other countries and in the Americas.

At present, apart from the numerous houses aggregated to the “Roman Union” (see below), the monasteries of the Order are divided into autonomous houses (about 65) and groups of dependent houses around a central house, whose superior bears the title of mother general. An example is the group derived from Quebec and recently organised under the name of “Union of the Canadian-French Ursulines,” and that of Chatham (Ontario), founded in 1860 by the Ursulines of Faouët (Brittany), which brings together under a superior general nearly 300 religious of English Canada and possesses about thirty schools and boarding schools in the dioceses of London, Toronto and Calgary (Alberta).

### IV. URSULINES OF DÔLE
Founded at Dôle in Burgundy in 1616 by the Venerable Mother Anne de Xainctonge for the education of girls; they were never enclosed.

Their Constitutions were approved by Innocent X in 1648 and by Innocent XI in 1678. The French Revolution closed their houses, but Mother de Vers later re-established the convent at Dôle and Mother Rolando de Bussy founded that at Tours. In 1898 this house obtained approval of the revised Constitutions and its own elevation to the status of mother-house of the entire Institute. Driven from Tours in 1903 by French anti-clerical laws, the nuns transferred their mother-house to Avelgem-les-Bruges in Belgium, where it still remains. They later founded houses at New York (1902), Rome (1904) and Sluis in Holland (1911); they run a flourishing college at Fribourg in Switzerland and have houses in Germany and England. Their method of education is that of the Jesuits. In 1902, to distinguish themselves from the Daughters of St Angela Merici, with whom they have nothing in common except the patronage of St Ursula, they added to their original title of Ursulines that of “of the Holy Virgin.”

### V. URSULINES OF THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION
Founded at Piacenza in 1649 by Mother Brigida of Jesus, in the world Brigida Morello, widow Zancani.

The Institute was approved from the outset by Bishop Alessandro Scappi. In our own times its general superior for about twenty years was Countess Radini-Tedeschi, who brought it to great prosperity. It has flourishing houses at Rome, Rapallo, Fidenza and La Spezia; the castle of Rezzanello is a centre for spiritual exercises for young ladies. Since 1934 it has had three mission houses in the diocese of Calicut (India).

### VI. URSULINES OF JESUS
Also called Daughters of the Incarnation and Ursulines of Chavagnes.

Founded at Chavagnes-en-Pailier (Vendée, France) in 1802 by the Venerable Servant of God Louis-Marie Baudouin, they took the name of Ursulines to obtain official recognition of their educational houses, since Napoleon then granted such recognition only to Ursulines. They have, however, no relation to the Ursulines descended from St Angela Merici. They have houses in France, Italy, Algeria, England, Scotland and Holland.

### VII. JERUSALEMITE URSULINES OF THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION, CALLED OF GANDINO
They derive from a group of young women from Brianza in the Milanese area, gathered in 1818 by Don Francesco della Madonna, also from Brianza.

Canonically erected by the Bishop of Bergamo in 1858, they founded their first dependent house in 1864. Until 1858 they had observed the Rule of St Charles Borromeo; but the Bishop of Bergamo gave them new ones, preserved in manuscript until 1889 and then printed with an appendix concerning the works undertaken at Gandino: a hospital in 1864, a day-nursery in 1886, an orphanage in 1888.

In 1921 the Institute numbered 34 houses: day-nurseries, workers’ hostels, boarding schools, hospitals, homes for the aged and deaf-mutes, elementary schools, assistance to apostolic houses of missionaries, orphanages, schools for the deaf and dumb. From 1921 to 1934 a further 48 houses were founded. At present the nuns number about 500; they instruct 6,000 pupils and care for 7,000 others. The mother-house is at Bergamo.

### VIII. URSULINES OF THILDONCK
Under this name are included all the houses of Ursulines descended from that of Thildonck, which was founded in 1818 by the local curate, the Venerable Jan Cornelius Lambertz, to assist him in his work. He placed the first sisters under the protection of St Ursula and gave them Rules derived from the monastic Constitutions of Bordeaux, but without enclosure. During his lifetime he founded no fewer than 90 houses in Belgium, Holland, England and Germany.

In 1899 the houses of the Order in Belgium were organized into two centralized diocesan Unions, each headed by a superior general: that of the diocese of Mechelen with Thildonck as the mother house, and that of the diocese of Liège with the mother house at Maesyk. Two communities refused to affiliate: Saventhem, which joined the Roman Union, and Wavre-Notre-Dame, which developed independently, later founding eight branches, one of which was in the Belgian Congo.

Other Unions of houses of the Order, stemming from Thildonck, also formed in the Netherlands; for example, the Union of Roermond, which was aggregated to the Roman Union in 1929. This Dutch Union founded flourishing houses on the island of Java, which now form a province of the Roman Union.

At present the Union of Maesyk has 500 religious, 11 houses, and a mission in the Belgian Congo. The Union of Mechelen, the only one that retains the title of the Order of Thildonck, has more than 800 religious, 17 houses, four mission posts in Bengal, and two branches in North America.

IX. ORDER OF SOMASCA OF VERCURAGO (Bergamo)

The Institute was founded in 1822 at Somasca.

Approved by the bishop on 4 December 1857, it was confirmed by the Holy See on 5 August 1917. It has 37 houses in Italy, where 300 religious work for the benefit of 3,000 children, young women, and apprentices, and provide religious and social assistance in parishes.

X. ORDER OF CALVARIENBERG

They were founded in 1838 by the transfer to Calvarienberg (diocese of Trier) of an ancient convent originally from Bordeaux, re-established in 1828 at Monschau, near Cologne.

The Order prospered there to such an extent that it founded several other monasteries, which remained administratively grouped around the mother house in the form of a diocesan congregation, approved by the bishop of Trier. Expelled from the country during the *Kulturkampf*, they founded flourishing houses in the Netherlands and Belgium; they returned to Germany as soon as the persecution ended. On 21 December 1909 they were approved by Pius X and became a Union of pontifical right. They have four branches in America. At present they number 560 religious in 14 houses.

XI. DAUGHTERS OF MARY IMMACULATE

The Institute originated at Mornese, in the diocese of Acqui, through the work of the pious young woman Angela Maccagno, who had gathered five companions to practice religious perfection in the world (1854). The Servant of God Giuseppe Frassinetti composed for them a rule of life under the title *La Pia Unione delle Figlie di Maria Immacolata*.

In 1859 they realized that the Rule was almost identical to that which St. Angela Merici had given to her Company; the new association then took the name *Pia Unione delle Nuove Figlie di Maria Immacolata, sotto la protezione di S. Orsola e di S. Angela Merici*. The Rule was approved under this title by the bishop of Novara, Msgr. Giacomo Filippo de’ Gentile. Subsequently, in several places where they had established themselves, the associates resumed simply the primitive Rule of St. Ursula, under the name *Compagnia di S. Orsola*. It is noteworthy that St. Maria Mazzarello, co-founder with St. John Bosco of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, came from the Pia Unione of Mornese.

XII. ORDER OF VELTEVREDEN

This house, founded in 1859 by that of Batavia-Northwyck, itself a branch of Thildonck (1856), was for a time affiliated with the Union of Roermond; then in 1922 it became autonomous under the jurisdiction of the Apostolic Vicar of Batavia and became the mother house of a congregation whose Constitutions were approved by the Holy See in 1929. This Union of Veltevreden joined the Roman Union in 1939.

XIII. ORDER OF VERONA, known as THE DAUGHTERS OF MARY IMMACULATE OF VERONA

They were founded in 1860 by Fr. Zeffirino Agostini, curate of SS. Nazario e Celso, who wrote their Rules, inspired by the Constitutions and life of St. Angela Merici.

The bishop approved them on 28 November 1860. From the beginning the sisters ran schools and provided assistance in all parish works, including those for the elderly. As their numbers grew, they spread through the diocese of Verona and twelve others, with 85 branch houses, about 300 religious, and an average of 150 pupils per house. The Institute was definitively approved by Cardinal Bacilieri in 1917; in 1932 it received from Pius XI the decree of praise and final approval in 1940.

XIV. ORDER OF THE ROMAN UNION

To assist the monastery of Rome, reduced to poverty by the Italian government’s suppression laws, the Ursulines of Blois from 1878 onward accepted novices on behalf of that monastery, since Italian law prevented it from doing so. Soon, however, they themselves had to move to Rome to place the Ursulines in another house, because the monastery had gradually been taken over by the Royal Academy of Music (which still occupies it).

Meanwhile another monastery, that of Calvi in Umbria, called upon the Ursulines of Blois, who in 1896 sent three religious. In 1898 the two houses of Rome and Calvi, in order to secure their restoration, petitioned and obtained from the Holy See permission to form with the house of Blois a canonical Union, with a superior general resident at Blois. Scarcely had the Blois–Rome–Calvi Union been constituted when Leo XIII, through Mother St Julien Aubry, superior general, officially made known to the whole Order his desire that this Union become general for all autonomous houses of Ursulines. Moreover, the Pope had an official letter sent to the bishops (29 July 1899) urging them to propose this union to all Ursuline houses in their dioceses (letters of Cardinal S. Vannutelli, Prefect of the Congregation of Bishops and Regulars). The proposal, however, guaranteed full freedom to the religious.

On 15 November 1900 the first General Chapter of the Order opened in Rome with representatives from 70 houses from all countries and all Congregations. On the 21st a vote was taken in favor of the union, which Leo XIII approved verbally on the 28th, reserving the decree for later because of the persecution in France. The first superior general, appointed by the Pope on the unanimous presentation of the Chapter, was Mother St Julien Aubry, professed of Blois. On 17 July 1903 Leo XIII promulgated the decree of approval; on 17 September of the same year Pius X provisionally approved the first Constitutions; and finally, in 1926, at the Church’s request and under the effective impetus of the third mother general, the Institute was perfected according to ecclesiastical norms and fully centralized. The revised Constitutions were definitively approved on 17 March 1936.

From its foundation, the Roman Union never ceased to receive into its fold autonomous monasteries from various countries, and even entire regional Unions, such as those of Ruremonde and Poland (1929 and 1936); and within 50 years it has grown from 63 to 240 houses, gathering under Roman obedience more than 7,000 religious women. The Roman Union is solidly constituted with a centralized and hierarchical government. Each province (there are now 20), or at least each country, has its own novitiate where young religious spend at least three years in study houses until their perpetual profession. After another ten years of apostolate among the young, they undergo a third probation, purely religious, lasting six months; then they spend a further four months in complementary studies of theology, philosophy, the history of the Order, and art. The education imparted by the Ursulines is imbued with a family spirit: children are grouped according to age to receive suitable human and religious formation under the immediate direction of the "division directors" and the supervision of the "general directress," who is subordinate to the prioress (cf. M. de St-Jean Martin, *L'educazione delle Ursuline*, Rome 1947). The Roman Union also works in several missions: Alaska, Brazil, China, British Guiana and the Antilles, Greece, Indonesia, Manchuria, the state of Montana (Native Americans), Siam, and Transvaal.

The generalate is in Rome.

XV. O. OF FRANKFURT ON THE MAIN

They are also called the Sisters of the Congregation of Ursula. They were founded on 29 September 1879 by three Ursulines of Venray (Netherlands), of the Congregation of Thildonck, to direct the higher female school.

Parishes served by 25 diocesan priests; it has 2 male and 3 female religious communities.

O. was united in 1437 to the diocese of Civitacastellana (q.v.) by Pope Eugenius IV with the bull *Sacro-sancta Romana Ecclesia*. O. (Horta dei Romani), is well known for its municipal organization from the beginning of the Roman Empire, as attested by Pliny the Elder (*Nat. Hist.*, 3, 52) and by some Roman inscriptions (CIL, VI, 238; VIII, 4194 and 4249). But its first bishop is not encountered until the year 502.

The cathedral is dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, assumed into heaven.

Enrico Josi