ZILERI DAL VERME, LUCREZIA. - Mother General of the Ursulines of the Sacred Heart of Parma, in the world Drusilla, b. at Parma on 1 Aug. 1839, d. there on 3 Aug. 1923.
Educated at the city college of the Ursuline Ladies, founded in 1575 under the name of Virgins of S. Ursula by Maria Vittoria Masi, she did not hesitate to join their Institute, entering it in 1858 and diligently fulfilling the various offices entrusted to her, which gradually led her to the position of mother general in 1886. Since the Institute, founded three centuries earlier, no longer corresponded, as it stood, to the new needs—indeed urgencies—of the times, Z. sought increasingly to consolidate its spirit and to bring it to the status of a true religious congregation. To this end she drew up new Rules, retaining from the old those provisions still suited to the times, and had the joy of seeing them definitively approved in 1899. She later provided an extensive commentary on them, published in 1910. Meanwhile, the number of houses and religious had increased (Milan, Modena, Colecchio), and Z. watched over the formation of all of them in a profound interior life, centred on devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus; and with prudent energy she overcame the difficulties which the stormy times never ceased to raise. Z. was responsible for the establishment of the Marian Congregation among young women and of the Work for Teachers, offering the latter the opportunity for closed retreats and weekly conferences on religion, a prelude to the Work of the Higher School of Religion, established in 1908 by Bishop Guido Conforti and entrusted in large part to the care of the Ursulines.