y employing a spiritual, socio-political, and cultural approach, this collection of essays reveals the stories of women from early Christianity to the present day - women who were confronted with diverse crisis situations. They were either born in Rome or moved there at some point in their lives, and their legacy is still visible in the history of many places in the Eternal City.
I envision our ideal reader to be a curious and passionate explorer of Rome, in search of the places marked by the presence of the female figures that lived their vocations as sisters, spouses, virgins, and mothers - in both natural and spiritual ways. Following the examples of Saint Praexedes, Saint Pudentiana, Saint Marcella, Saint Catherine of Siena, Saint Frances of Rome, Vittoria Colonna, Blessed Elisabetta Canori Mora, Blessed Anna Maria Taigi, Blessed Celine Borzecka, Blessed Colomba Gabriel, and the twenty-one women of the 1946 Constituent Assembly, along with the Syrian, Colombian and Lebanese female migrants, we are called not only to reflect and pray, but also to act, right here and now. These fearless women, who lived their feminine genius in the most extraordinary ways, responded to crisis situations by putting their own lives on the line. I believe that, under their protection, we too will be able to respond to the personal, medical, economic, political, and spiritual crises of our time with hope, love, and strength. The heroic, but all too frequently forgotten or overlooked gestures of the women presented here, have had a great impact across space and time, and are a constant reminder for us of resilience and hope in the face of the hard times we might come up against. This volume is a tribute to their silent yet powerful presence.