Leopoldina Naudet

Leopoldina Naudet was born in 1773 in Florence, then the capital of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. Her father Giuseppe Naudet was a Frenchman who served at the Habsburg court of Grand Duke Peter Leopold, and she received her name in the grand duke's honor. After the death of her mother while she was still a child, Leopoldina was educated by religious sisters in Florence. The combination of courtly Catholic culture and convent schooling instilled in her a serious piety and a desire for a consecrated life.

During the years of the Jesuit suppression and the Napoleonic upheavals she was drawn to groups that tried to preserve Ignatian spirituality. She lived for a time in Rome and was associated with the Society of the Faith of Jesus. Controversies surrounding that movement and the political instability of the age led her to leave the papal city. In 1816 she settled in Verona, in the Veneto region of northern Italy.

In Verona, encouraged by priests of the city including Gaspare Bertoni, later beatified, Leopoldina founded the Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Family. The new community devoted itself to the Christian education of girls, with particular attention to the poor, and to a modest religious life patterned on the Holy Family of Nazareth. As foundress and superior she formed the first sisters in prayer, humility, and teaching until her death.

Leopoldina Naudet died in Verona in 1834. She was remembered for gentleness, trust in divine Providence, and tireless work for the young. Her cause of beatification was opened in the twentieth century. Pope Benedict XVI proclaimed her Venerable in 2009 after recognizing her heroic virtues. Pope Francis subsequently approved a miracle attributed to her intercession, and she was beatified in Verona in 2017. The Catholic Church commemorates her on 17 August.