The photo seen here is taken from the December 1974 issue of the Seton Causeway, announcing that “Pope Paul VI, at a consistory held on December 12, 1974, promulgated the decree of canonization of Blessed Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton and set September 14, 1975 as the date for the canonization ceremony.” Tomorrow’s post will include exerpts from the Seton Causeway‘s report on Mother Seton’s canonization ceremony.
Filed under Elizabeth Ann Seton
Elizabeth Ann Seton birthday display in Gallery 1, August 28, 2013
(Photograph of Simon Bruté’s letter to Elizabeth Ann Seton used with permission of the Provincial Archives of the Daughters of Charity)
The Provincial Archives today celebrates the 239th birthday of the foundress of the Sisters of Charity of St. Joseph’s, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton. In honor of the day, we’ve assembled a small exhibit of materials including three letters in her hand written on Aug. 28 of various years. One is from 1805; one is from 1807. The third is a wonderful letter to Mother Seton from her friend and spiritual mentor, Fr. Simon Bruté, penned in French on Aug. 27, 1820, as the top right of the text translates, the “Eve of the birthday of such an excellent heart.” Stop by and visit if you’re in the area – the Archives exhibit gallery is open to the public Wednesdays from 1 to 4:30 p.m.
Letter, Simon Brute to Elizabeth Ann Seton, August 27, 1820
Filed under Announcements, Elizabeth Ann Seton, Emmitsburg, Exhibits
A version of the “Filicchi Portrait” of Elizabeth Ann Seton
This week we will mark the birthday of Elizabeth Ann Seton, who was born August 28, 1774. The image seen here is based on the well-known Filicchi portrait of Elizabeth Ann Seton. The Filicchi family, of Livorno Italy, were business associates of Elizabeth Ann Seton’s husband, and it was the Filicchi who introduced Mother Seton to the Catholic faith following her husband’s death.
The Filicchi Portrait is based on a left-profile engraving of Elizabeth Bayley Seton by Ceroni about 1868. Ceroni based his engraving on a right-profile one by Charles Balthazar Julien Fevret de Saint-Mémin in 1797, which the Setons gave as gifts to friends and family, including the Filicchi, about 1798. Sometime after the death of Elizabeth Ann Seton’s husband, William Magee Seton, the Filicchi family commissioned a portrait of the Widow Seton based on the face but with a left profile and adding the traditional mourning garb of a black cap and cape, which became the habit of the American Sisters of Charity. Amabilia Filicchi may have provided the grieving Elizabeth with the customary dress of “widow’s weeds” worn in Tuscany at that time.
In response to a request from the Daughters of Charity for a copy of the Filicchi portrait, Patrizio Filicchi sent reproductions of her painted portrait to Emmitsburg in 1888, noting that he kept the painting “always before my eyes.” One is now exhibited in the museum of the National Shrine of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton.
The original painting no longer exists; it was destroyed during World War II.
At the first meeting of the Conference of Mother Seton’s Daughters in 1947 those attending agreed on the style of the Filicchi portrait as the official one to be used for Elizabeth Ann Seton’s cause for canonization. The Conference of Mother Seton’s Daughters is known today as the Sisters of Charity Federation.
Filed under Elizabeth Ann Seton, Sisters of Charity Federation, World War 2
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