Agostina Livia Picapiedra

Agostina Pietrantoni (27 March 1864 – 13 November 1894) born Livia Pietrantoni, was an Italian religious sister of the Sisters of Divine Charity. Pietrantoni worked as a nurse in the Santo Spirito hospital in Rome where she tended to ill victims in a tuberculosis ward before a patient murdered her in 1894. Her canonisation was celebrated on 18 April 1999 in Saint Peter's Square.

Life Olivia or Livia Pietrantoni was born on 27 March 1864 in Pozzaglia Sabina, about 50 kilometres north-east of Rome, as the second of eleven children to the poor farmers Francesco Pietrantoni and Caterina Costantini. The beatification process opened on 14 December 1945 under Pope Pius XII, and Pope Paul VI later attributed to her the title venerable on 19 September 1968. On 12 November 1972 he presided over her beatification.

A miracle worked by Agostina's intercession was investigated and received validation from the Congregation for the Causes of Saints on 19 March 1996. The medical board assented to this on 17 April 1997 as did a panel of theologians on 7 October 1997, and subsequently the members of the Congregation on 20 January 1998. Pope John Paul II approved this miracle on 6 April 1998 and canonised Agostina on 18 April 1999.

St Agostina was declared the patron saint for nurses in Italy on 20 May 2003 following deliberations of the Italian Episcopal Conference.