Maria Teresa Gabrieli

In 1864, Teresa met Father Luigi Maria Palazzolo and became involved in the Pious Work of Saint Dorothy. In May 1869, she moved to Via della Foppa and, on the night of May 21 to 22, 1869, took her religious vows, thus founding the Congregation of the "Sisters of the Poor" (Suore delle Poverelle). She immediately took in a young disabled orphan. After the founder's death in 1886, Teresa assumed sole leadership of the institute, which, under her governance, experienced remarkable expansion with the opening of more than thirty new communities.

In 1934, the mortal remains of Teresa Gabrieli were transferred to the Mother House of the Sisters of the Poor in Bergamo. The diocesan inquiry into the heroic nature of her virtues opened in Bergamo on September 13, 2006, and closed on October 24, 2007, before the file was transmitted to Rome for examination by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.

Maria Teresa Gabrieli is currently recognized as Venerable by the Catholic Church. The decree recognizing the heroic nature of her virtues was signed on March 19, 2019, by Pope Francis. The official recognition of a miracle attributed to her intercession remains required for her beatification.

The spirituality of Teresa Gabrieli rests on a deep faith, an unshakable hope, and a total abandonment to the divine will, characterized by a gentle firmness toward the poor. Her legacy is perpetuated through the Palazzolo Institute, present in Italy and throughout the world (Brazil, DRC, Ivory Coast, etc.). In 1995, six sisters of the institute died heroically from the Ebola virus in Kikwit. In 2018, the municipality of Bergamo inaugurated a square in her name in her native district of Loreto.