Mulieres domenicane e ‘vita apostolica’ alle origini dell’Ordine: l’idea, la prassi

According to the recent historiography, will be proposed a reconstruction of the origins of the Dominican nuns. Diego of Osma and Domenico of Caleruega, in fact, proposed to offer an access to regular life to converted prostitutes or to the religious women working in hospices and leprosariums, until then living without a canonical rule. The Apostolic See, in particular Cardinal Ugo of Ostia, later Pope Gregory IX, obtained from Dominic and his friars the necessary collaboration to start religious life in the monastery founded by the popes at St. Sixtus in Rome. The constitutions of St. Sixtus thus acted as a normalizing element for all the religious experiences promoted or supported by the Dominicans, first of all the monastery of St. Agnes in Bologna, whose foundation dates back to the friendship between Dominic and DIana of Andalo.