She was born in 1786 in the town of
Saludecio, the second child of seven of a prosperous couple, Giambattista Renzi, a respected
appraiser, and Vittoria Boni, a member of a noble family in
Urbino. Five years later, the family relocated to the city of
Mondaino where her father hoped for better opportunities. At the age of nine, she was sent for her education to a local monastery of
Poor Clare nuns. She developed there a strong love of Christ, which she associated with a desire for seclusion and poverty. Early in her life Renzi felt called to become a nun. At the age of 21, she was admitted to a monastery of
Augustinian nuns in
Pietrarubbia, in the
Marche, located at a high elevation and therefore noted for its isolation and poverty. There she experienced great happiness, however in 1810 she and the other nuns were expelled from their monastery under the occupation of the Italian peninsula by the
Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy, which suppressed all monasteries. She then returned to her family home. Seeking new direction in her life, Renzi sought guidance from her
spiritual director, through whom she was led to the village of
Coriano, where she arrived on 29 April 1824 and took charge of a school established to educate poor girls and young women of the region. Renzi initially sought to place the school under the administration of the
Canossian Sisters to provide it greater stability. However their foundress,
Magdalene of Canossa, after visiting the school and getting to know both her and the situation, advised her to take charge herself. Renzi then drew a group of women seeking deeper spiritual lives who were also drawn to the education of the poor. In 1828 she organized them into an unofficial religious community, which she called the Poor Women of the Crucified, for whom she wrote a
Rule of Life. Soon other schools were established by the community in surrounding towns of the region. Renzi sought formal recognition of the community by Ottavio Zollio, the
Bishop of Rimini, who named her Superior of the community. Full recognition finally came in August 1839, when the subsequent bishop, Francesco Gentilini, established the women as a religious
congregation of diocesan right and presided at the ceremony wherein Renzi and ten companions took the
religious habit and professed their vows. At that time, the bishop gave the community their current name and placed them under the Rule of the
Filippini Sisters based in Rome. ==Veneration==