CABRINI CENTER MUSEUM AND DOCUMENTATION

Tuesday July 7th 2009 the new museum arrangement of the birthplace of St. Frances Cabrini was inaugurated. It provides for a redistribution of space and new witnesses missionary

The Birthplace was acquired by the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart probably in 1929 (the date cited by the poet Ada Negri), or in 1931 (the date shown on the history of the Institute treated by the Missionaries), surely at the behest of the then Superior General, Mother Antoinette House , who succeeded Mother Cabrini.
It was Don Nicola De Martino, a brilliant young priest of St. Angelo, to call and make the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart in the birthplace of their founder, and to begin the first restoration of the house where she was born.
Over the years following Don Nicholas’s death in 1962, the birthplace suffered from a series of restoration works sometimes too invasive, the last one tried to give back to the house the essentiality and simplicity of a late nineteenth century tenement.
Two years ago, at the behest of the Superior General of the mother Lina Colombini, restoration works began. These brought today to the new accommodation with historical and cultural standards. The work was challenging because it had to combine the look of a museum collection exhibition with the functional aspect, since the house is a daily meeting and prayer place.
At the entrance hall, "the kitchen", is left with the task of bringing through a simple setting, the atmosphere that accompanied the childhood years of the Saint. The display panels illustrates the story of her family and some of its components through letters and original documents, others are about the priests who accompanied religious Francesca in the preparation of her young years. Among these priests we can remember the pastor Bassano Dede, a man with a strong personality and a leading figure in the life of the country. Then there is a wooden bench that has the name of her father, used by families in the basilica, a chair that belonged to her and a collection of the Annals of the Propagation of Faith which is usually read at home.
After this first room other two follow. In the first there are niches containing crafts from the countries where the missionaries operate today: Ethiopia, Swaziland, Nicaragua, Philippines, Australia, Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and of course North America ...
Besides there is a small chapel where there is the picture of the Sacred Heart  and in a shrine a relic of the Saint: it is a small place for prayer and meditation, which directly faces the Via Santa Cabrini, to offer the pilgrim a silence break.
Upstairs the three rooms are more closely related to the life of the saint.
After climbing the steep wooden staircase, you reach the landing where a valuable document, dated 3rd October 1933, is exposed: it is the act of recognition and transfer of the body of St. Frances Cabrini for the beatification process and a panel with some pretty black and white photographs of the festivities prepared for S. Angelo in 1946 on the occasion of the canonization of the illustrious compatriot.
On the right there is the room where Santa was born on July, 15th 1850. Here we can see a chest used to store books and personal items; a chair that probably is the one she used at school in Vidardo where she taught for two years before becoming a nun. Then there is a display case with some items that belonged to her: an atlas, a wooden square, an inkwell, the register of the Franciscan “Terziarie” that she had enrolled in 1867, a votive image and an interesting hand-embroidered net used for the altar. On a wall there is the beautiful picture of thirty years old Mother Cabrini at the time when she founded the Institute in Codogno. Finally there is another display case with some embroidery works made by herself.
Into the room of missionary travels, so called for the large map that shows the Cabrinian routes, there is a large display and inside it the alpaca wool cloak that Mother Cabrini and her sisters wore to cross the Andes mountain range during the long, arduous and adventurous journey from Panama to Argentina in 1895. Another display case contains her travel goods (handbags, purses, slippers, crucifix and rosary) and objects used during his religious life (a pencil, the guide used by Italian people in the United States, 1890, several books of religious education, etc ...). There is also a clock embedded into a trunk given to Mother Cabrini and that she brought to Italy.
Very interesting is the original photograph, taken in June 1889 in the first house of the Institute founded in the United States: this picture portrays the Mother with nine sisters, six of them were with her in March of 1889 while the other three had reached her in June.
Then you go towards the bedroom she used during his stay in Milan, at the Institute of Corso di Porta Romana,105 from 1902 to 1910. Here we can see a typical late nineteenth century bed, a kneeling-chair, a bedside table, the picture of the Sacred Heart, a nightgown into a showcase, the napkin with the number 1 and the symbol of the Sacred Heart, and the petticoat she was wearing the day of his death. The tour continues down the staircase when you reach the courtyard that is now a quiet green oasis where, according to tradition Saint’s birth is announced by a flight of doves that then alight on Cabrini home’s threshing-floor.
The courtyard arrangement was inaugurated on 15th July 2008.  A fountain shows the main stages of her life and her mission in a slow flowing water. This place has become an ideal setting for cultural and religious events organized during the year in honour of Mother Cabrini.
On the first floor, in a part of the building built in the '50s, there is the Cabrini Documentation centre that collects books and documents related to Santa.
The design and implementation of the archive was funded by the Rotary Club Belgioso - Sant'Angelo. The collection has gradually expanded thanks to donations of many individuals who have brought the material from their travels or to old documents concerning the events related to the memory of Mother Cabrini.
Systematically, people take care of the material and the large library that contains the Saint’s holy writings, the publications about her (biographies, essays, articles, brochures, conference proceedings, music), sacred images, writings on Italian emigration and a wide miscellany including postcards, documents of various types, objects, etc.
The section of the documentation centre can be used for research during the opening hours of the birthplace only previous appointment. Some publications can be lent.
We are thinking about enriching the information on the topics of Italian emigration abroad by collecting photographs, letters, travel documents: if someone knows or has lived in the family experiences of migration and is interested in donating material or borrowing it for some shows, he or she can contact the Institute of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart (phone number +39 037190227) or Luisella Lunghi (phone number +39 0371933793 - email luisellalunghi@yahoo.it).