In the entrance of the nunnery an arched altar-piece The coronation of the Virgin Mary is kept. It's an oil canvas of 1642. It represents the Assumption of the Virgin Mary thanks to the Holy Spirit, depicted like a dove. In the lower part of the painting six saints and the bishop S.Giusto, the titular of the oratory are represented.
The oratory of San Giusto, usually called the chiesino, is incorporated in the nunnery of the Bettine, since the birth of the building. This small place of prayer was precious for the people of S.Martino, divided by Bisenzio river, from its own parish church. The oratory was built in 1300 by the Mazzinghi family after the deflection of the river. Nowadays it is completely restored after the flood of 1966.
The church, consecrated on 20th October 1887, is dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. It's decorated with white and blue glazed earthenware, realized by the nuns, who under the teaching of Bettina, became very good artists.
In the chapel we find the tomb of the Blessed; the body, initially preserved in the Sarri chapel, was transferred here in 1912 with a big mob scene.
The refectory is one of the most fascinated rooms of the nunnery and it still keeps the tables, chosen by the Blessed, the decorations, the ceiling and the beautiful Last Supper, bas-relief in earthenware, made by the nuns in 1904. The work is freely inspired to the masterpiece of Leonardo: the setting out of the figures, the layed table and the background give a great sense of deepness. All the room invites to the meditation, the prayer and the reflection.
La stanza delle Madri is a beautiful hall, where there are the portrays of all Superior Mothers, who succeded the Bettina until today. The mother is elected by the Capitolo. These veiled women, consecrated to God, but alive in every moment of the history, are the example of a way of faith and love and an anchor for every nun in Italy and all over the world.
The bedroom, where the Bettina has passed the last month of her illness, impress for its austere plainness. The physical pain has never bended the blessed, who has kept a great clear head until her death.
La sua volatina, so she called the death, happened on 23rd April 1910.
When Teresa Maria Manetti decided to dedicate her own life to God, she chose a hovel under the bank of Bisenzio river to share with two friends. They had two chairs, in three, a hearth and the need to isolate themselves to think and pray, but the death of one of the women and the care for two little orphan girls changed the plans of Teresa, who became mother and understood that it was requested more than prayer and meditation by her.
The orphans increased and the small nunnery became a reference point for many women of S. Martino. Gathering to plait one's hair or to darn the clothes was a habit and staying with Bettina meant sharing the problems and finding the strength to overcome them. Now the small nunnery is restored and it is a place of prayer and reflection.
In 1879 Bettina signed a contract to buy a small and bare oratory dedicated to S. Giusto. Bettina imagined her nunnery in the tumbledown and poor houses, next to the oratory. All the people, who have learnt to love that generous woman, was ready to help her. With some benefactors the nunnery was built.
The master mason, Fortunato Bacci of S. Martino, cooperated with Don Ernesto Jacopozzi and built a complex of functional linked buildings, that were finished in 1882. A wall, a vegetable garden, a small cave with the small statue of the Virgin Mary of Lourdes were built.
There are very beautiful works inside the nunnery: furniture and furnishings given by distinguished benefactors like the Nuti, the Sarri, the Antinori and the Rucellai families. The present state of the nunnery, finely restored, is a work of the engineer Alfiero Morelli.
Bettina, daughter of S. Martino, will always mantain a subtle vein of folk wisdom, even if she became correspondent of the noblest families of that time. Her inner richness is great, so from her small retiring under the bank of the river, she came to found nunneries everywhere, even in Libano.
Her daughters, orphans and later young ladies of good family, didn't limit to the prayer, but they became artists, musicians and exceptional embroiderers. Besides raising their material dowries Bettina was able to close them to Christ with the meditation and the perpetual adoration to the Body of Christ in the church of Corpus Domini in Florence.
In spite of a serious illness, Bettina continued to exhort people who came to her, until her death.
In October 1986 the Pope Giovanni Paolo II proclaimed her Blessed.
Taken out from the Text: Visite guidate al Convento delle Bettine a Campi Bisenzio thanks to the Associazione Campi per Campi.