Anna Maria Adorni
Italian religious (1805–1893)
Feast: 7 February (not on the universal Roman calendar; kept in the Roman Martyrology or local calendars)
Who they were
Anna Maria Adorni was born at Fivizzano on 19 June 1805, an only child. After her father died in 1820 she worked as a governess; in obedience to her mother she married and had six children, five of whom died young. Her surviving son Leopoldo became a Benedictine.
Widowed in 1844, she began visiting the women in Parma's prison, teaching them the faith. To help women released from prison find honest work, she opened a house of rehabilitation, later the Good Shepherd Institute, and founded the Handmaids of the Blessed Immaculate Mary to serve prisoners, fallen women and orphans.
The miracles
The Dicastery's biography does not describe the miracles approved in the cause.
Why that counted as sanctity
A widow and mother who gave her life to women prisoners.
- Dicastery for the Causes of Saints - biography: Anna Maria Adorni
- Dicastery for the Causes of Saints - beatification of 3 October 2010
- Wikidata Q3617739 — dates, feast day and identifiers (CC0)
- English Wikipedia — Anna Maria Adorni Botti (CC BY-SA)
Checked against the sources listed on 22 September 2026. Corrections welcome.