God�s servant, Giuseppina Nicoli, a Daughter of Charity, was born in Casatisma (Pavia) Italy on November 18, 1863, the fifth of 10 children. (Thanks to Josie Cabiglio of the SVDP for this quick translation from the Itatian original.)Her family always lived in unity with the deep sentiments of Christianity and in the reciprocal incentive of an intense evangelical existence: her familiar surroundings nevertheless were a spiritual hotbed of grace and faith, which among other things, helped form the decided belief that Giuseppina had within her something that was particular and extraordinary from the time that she was a child.

Everyone was aware that the road to holiness was a remote possibility for the young girl. On September 24, 1883, Giuseppina Nicoli entered, in fact, the House of San Salvario in Turin, Central House of the Daughters of Charity, Turin Province.

After her period as a Postulant and as a Novice, and after taking her veil as a Daughter (at the motherhouse of the Daughters of Charity in Rue de Bac, Paris) she was sent until 1885 to do apostolic work in Sardegna, (an Italian island). Other than a few intervals of time spent in Turin, where she had to attend to other important tasks, a good part of Sr. Nicoli�s apostolic life took place on the island, in the Dioceses of Sassari and Cagliari.

She always dedicated herself to the evangelization and service of the poor, according to the teachings of St. Vincent de Paul, without ever thinking of herself. She was dedicated entirely to the well-being of Sardegna�s population in an epoch that certainly was not the best in the island�s history.

In Cagliari, from 1885 to 1899, she was at the Providenza Conservatory. At the time she already lived and worked with people who worked for the cultural and spiritual betterment of those less fortunate: among other subjects, she taught Catechism to young students and workers of the Societ� Pia Unione dei Figli di Maria (called Lugini) because this put them under the protection of St. Louis; she founded the Societ�, which she directed, also..

According to the rule of the Daughters of Charity, simple vows are spoken five years after entrance in the Seminary. Giuseppina professed her vows in Cagliari on Christmas night in 1888. On this occasion she was given a hollowed-out crucifix in which, at her death, was put her self-written prayer in which the Servant of God promises the Father �to always and loyally serve him, practicing poverty, chastity and obedience for the love of your poor��

The Servant of God remained in Cagliari for 15 years, then in June of 1899 she became the Sister Superior of the Sassari orphanage. Regardless of the difficulties which the Servant of God found in running the orphanage (caused primarily by a lay administrators who were very mistrustful), she was respected even in hostile environments in which people recognized her gifts of dedication, courage and good will. Even in Sassari, Sr. Nicoli preferred schools of Catechism for all types of needy people: children, homemakers and the uneducated.

She also contributed to a religious high school for young ladies of the upper class, at a time in which religious education did not exist in the schools. She had an important role in promoting in the city the work of tabernacles and of the Associazione dei Figli di Maria (Association of the Sons of Mary).

Above all she was director of the Associazione delle Figlie di Maria (Association of the Daughters of Mary) and was zealously active in the work of the Daughters of Charity, which in Sassari was a busy and beneficial operation.

One cannot forget the love Sr. Giuseppina had for the poor, which she expressed especially toward the orphans and the needy who were ill, and also toward the incarcerated: the Servant of God used herself to introduce the Sisters in this last work of assistance.

In 1910 (with �painful amazement� even by the lay Administration of the Orphanage) Sr. Nicoli was called by her superiors in Turin, first as Provincial administrator and then as Director of the Seminary: Sr. Nicoli lived with these administrative charges in a spirit of absolute dedication and service, without saving herself even on the physical level. In the meeting of January 9, 1913, the Provincial Council, while judging as positive and exemplary the experience of Direction of the Servant of God, regardless decided to send her, as a Superior, again to Sassari; this also was because the climate in Sardegna seemed more adapted to her delicate health.

Her return to Sassari opened for Sr. Giuseppina a particularly difficult and painful period. Regardless, in fact, of the excellent memories she had from her previous work there, the Servant of God found a climate that was completely changed, both in the Community itself and in the civilian Administration. All the testimony agrees in affirming that this climate (caused by a diffused anticlericalism and aims and interests of a political-administrative nature) was not at all caused by the work of the Servant of God.

The same President of the Administration �referred at home as to how he and the Administration had a particular devotion toward Sr. Nicoli, of whose holy life he was aware�� The Provincial Council, however, preferred, even though unwillingly and confirming its respect for Sr. Nicoli, to transfer her from Sassari, sending her to be the Superior at the Asilo della Marina (Preschool of the Marina) in Cagliari, where the Servant of God arrived on August 7, 1914, and where she stayed until her death.

Already from the following October, her memory was used to open the Scuola di Religione (School of Religion) that, having overcome the initial, inevitable difficulties, revealed itself very soon in a providential way of religious formation of studious youth. They all followed a series of converging works of charity founded in the first section in Italy of the small operation of Louise de Marillac (a Lady of Charity), a place where the ladies mended and sewed clothing to give to the poor in collaboration with the Daughters of Charity, with the Congregation of the Daughters of Cagliari in the Colonia Marina del Poetto (Marina Colony of the Poetto) in Cagliari to assist children born with a tuberculin disease that invades the lymph nodes, helping improve their health and instructing them in the Sacraments.

Her years at the Colonia Marina del Poetto coincided with World War I, whose dramatic developments didn�t keep from registering on the life of Sardegna and Cagliari. In the rooms of the asilo (preschool), they set up cots, transformed the rooms into a hospital for the war injured, for whom Sr. Nicoli and her co-sisters cared lovingly and without hesitation.

Always in Cagliari, the Servant of God started the association of the Dorotee, that had as its primary scope that of bringing souls to God, and the Zitine, who on Sundays gathered up the areas servants and other service people, to teach them their Catechism and also how to read and write.

Sr. Nicoli also was Director of the Figlie di Maria (Daughters of Mary), which she guided diligently and with great zeal, inculcating in the writings not only the everyday practice of their responsibilities, but the very imitation of their celestial Mother: the Figlie di Maria whom she directed noticed a great blossoming of religious vocation in her.

Thanks to Sr. Nicoli the Propagazione della Fede e della Sant�Infanzia (Propagation of the Faith and the Holy Infancy), the Circolo di S. Teresa, (Circle of St. Teresa), which she also founded, was the first Catholic, women�s Circolo di Giovent� (Circle of Youth) in Cagliari and the first nucleus of the future women�s Azione Cattolica (Catholic Action).

The Servant of God tirelessly continued doing her best to teach religion and Catechism, founding in particular the Associazione dei Giuseppini (Association of Josephites) who were so named because they put themselves under the protection of San Giuseppe (St. Joseph) and they differentiated themselves from the already known Luigini (Louisites) because they came from families of a greater economic status. Sr. Nicoli, in fact, had noted that these families, through social prejudices, would not let their children study catechism with poor children, thus compromising their religious education!

But, between much apostolic zealousness and charity and in the often original multiplicity of the initiative of the Servant of God, there exists an institution founded in Cagliari, that has remained particularly tied to the name of Sr. Nicoli, maybe because it was the forefont of her heart: we are speaking of the so-called Marianelli, or Monelli di Maria. (Urchins of Mary).

This work involved assembling Cagliari�s idle, vagrant street children, mostly orphans who were left without assistance, or children who had abandoned their families or whose families had kicked them out on the streets. They lived between the port and the market, sleeping on the street and spending their days as pickpockets and otherwise being delinquent. They also earned a little money carrying luggage or packages that they loaded in chests they carried on their heads, thus earning the dialectal nickname of picci�sus de crobi, or the little basket brats.

Feeling the need that someone should care for the youth, Sr. Nicoli until July of 1915 dedicated herself to this difficult work with a true heroic ardor. She had them help with the Mass, and in the evening she attended to their religious instruction, taught them to read and write, and made sure that each of them learned a trade.

It is easy to imagine the difficulties and the misunderstandings: everyone said that it was impossible to tame the youth and it was inconvenient to collect such types of dirty people. But Sr. Nicoli did not allow herself to become discouraged, not even in the face of this resistance that, each time, was present in the hell of the same Community: however, it is significant that the same people who were in charge of the Servant of God remained admiring of and convinced in the usefulness of the work!

These misunderstandings added themselves, moreover, to the hundreds of tests that the last years of life had reserved for the Servant of God, once again, as in Sassari, involuntarily at the center of a controversy regarding conflicts of competency, rights, and property relative to the Asilo della Marina (Preschool of the Marina).

There came to be an anticipation of the retreat of the Sisters, but, just because of the spirit of charity, condescension and peace of the Superior everything returned as before and the civil Administration recognized the reason for the sisters, in particular through the example of Sr. Nicoli�s behavior.

In May of 1924, the Servant of God was close to the end: she made a general confession to prepare for the big step and every morning, at Mass, she would renew her sacrifice. In December, beaten by an unyielding bronchial pneumonia, she was forced to take to her bed. She asked for Extreme Unction and it was administered on December 27: one could see she suffered greatly, but she rejoiced and intensified her union with God.

At 9 a.m. on December 31, 1924, at 61 years of age, as told by a fellow sister �when the Rev. Superior gave her the absolution, she opened her eyes, looked lovingly at everyone, made the sign of the cross, and without agony, without wheezing � she flew to the embrace of her Celestial Husband � Her death was the crown of a life mirrored and proven to be of a virtue practiced in an heroic fashion.� Her funeral revealed the moving manifestation of the devotion and love of an entire city, which confirmed the fame of the holiness that already surrounded Sr. Giuseppina.

She did her best her entire life in multiple, and in certain aspects, incredible activities in favor of her brothers. It appeared to all that Sr. Giuseppina was able to do so much for others because from her childhood she was imbued in Christian ideals of perfection, which she pursued and put into practice always, notwithstanding those of her own religious family, which she had entered with a momentum that never wavered.

She was buried in the Cagliari cemetery even though her family wanted to bury her next to her father and mother. Relatives ceded to the pressing requests of the citizens of Cagliari, who wanted to keep their Sr. Nicoli on the island. Then, in October, 1932, her body was exhumed and she was transported to the chapel at the Asilo della Marina, with the following inscription written on the tomb of the Servant of God:

HE WHO GENTLY POURS OUT AT THE FEET OF JESUS AND HIS IMMACULATE MOTHER THE UNSTOPPABLE MOMENTUM OF THE LOVE OF GOD AND THE TREASURES RELATED TO THE ARDENT CHARITY OF HER BEAUTIFUL MATERNAL HEART, HERE RESTS SR. GIUSEPPINA NICOLI, F.D.C
IN THE PEACE OF THE JUST.